Francis Henry King, the only son of Eustace Arthur Cecil and Faith Mina Read King, was born on March 4, 1923, in Adelboden, Switzerland. King spent the early part of his childhood in India with his parents and three sisters. His father was a police officer, then deputy director of the Intelligence Bureau, and died at an early age from tuberculosis.
King was sent to Shrewsbury boarding school in England. He declared himself a pacifist at the age of fourteen and became a conscientious objector to World War II. This forced him to leave Balliol College, Oxford University during the war to participate in the agricultural service for England until the war's end when he returned to Oxford. As an undergraduate King published three novels:
King joined the British Council in order to travel and work abroad. From 1949-50 King was a lecturer in Florence, Italy, the setting of his 1951 novel
King did not use his sexual preference as the main theme to his novels, with the exception of
King served as a member of the Executive Committee of P.E.N., London, from 1969 to 1973. From 1975 to 1977 he was chairman of the Society of Authors. In 1977 he was elected vice-president of P.E.N. in England and the following year became president of the organization. He also served as president of P.E.N. International from 1986 to 1989.
King, who had suffered a stroke in 2005, died July 3, 2011. He had been appointed Officer of the order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1979 and Comander (CBE) in 1985.
The Francis Henry King collection contains two series, I. Correspondence, 1941-1992, and II. Works, 1939-1978. The correspondence series is primarily incoming letters, and contains information about King's works, who he spent time with, PEN, opinions of his reviews, personal information, aspects of publishing, his health, works of others, and other people's impressions of friends and writers that King knew.
The bulk of the collection consists of manuscripts King wrote from 1939 to 1978, but primarily dating from the 1960s and 1970s. While most of his writings from this time period are represented in one or more versions in the collection, a few works such as
Other Ransom Center manuscript collections containing King materials are:
Purchases, 1970-1992
Open for research
Deborah Shelby, 1992, 1993
Of the 140 correspondents represented in this collection, the majority wrote only a few letters. The content varies from discussions of King's works, reviews, personal information, publishing, PEN, the British Council, politics, and visits with friends, to detailed analyses of other peoples' lives and their work. There is some criticism of opinions King expressed in reviews. The majority of letters appear to have been kept in a two-ring binder with some loss of text where the holes were punched. In most cases it is possble to infer the missing information. The bulk of correspondence is from Edith Borne, Ronald Bottrall, Ivy Compton-Burnett, Clifford Kitchin, Robert Liddell, Harold Nicolson, Desmond Stewart, and Godfrey Winn.
Edith Borne's letters date from 1972 to 1984, and discuss her own works as well as King's, PEN, health problems, and politics. Ronald Botrall asks King to serve as his literary executor in letters dating from 1967 to 1986, in addition to discussing the publication process and King's health. The majority of letters from Ivy Compton-Burnett (1948-1967) are invitations to come for a visit, though some letters discuss King's work, including
While Robert Liddell corresponded with King from 1948 to 1992, letters for the first ten years are rather sporatic. Liddell's letters comment on literature, happenings in Athens, gossip and news of literary friends, and reminisces of earlier times and acquaintances such as Ivy Compton-Burnett, Barbara Pym, Lawrence Durrell, Bernard Spencer, and others. The letters provide an autobiographical account of Liddell's last thirty years, from 1957 to just a few days before his death in June 1992.
Harold Nicolson's correspondence to King pertains to publishing, critiques, works by both writers, and also more personal information regarding King's life from 1950 to 1964. Desmond Stewart also wrote several letters concerning King's personal life, including issues about his homosexuality (1948-1981). The correspondence from Godfrey Winn is not dated though it spans from around 1967 to the early 1970s. He focuses on both of their works, especially on King's
Within the correspondence series is a group of letters written by King to Alexander (Sandy) Walton from 1956 to 1963. The majority of the letters were written while King was in Greece and Japan. King elaborates on his experiences and impressions of both countries and their people in these letters to Walton. There is also one folder of correspondence relating to the publication of King's
King's works are arranged in alphabetical order by title. The bulk are manuscripts of his novels, though there are also plays, radio scripts, short stories, and two of his scholarly works,
There are several versions of