Compton Mackenzie: A Life

Compton Mackenzie was not only one of the most prolific and best-loved novelists of his generation; he also led a life of almost theatrical turbulence and variety. He read Don Quixote at the age of four, and as the young author of Sinister Street he was acclaimed by Henry James as one of the bright hopes for the twentieth-century novel; he was a master spy who ran British Intelligence in Greece during the First World War, a Catholic convert who collected islands as other men collect paintings, a satirist who was prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act, a popular broadcaster, and the best-selling author of Whiskey Galore. A friend of F. Scott Fitzgerald, D.H. Lawrence, and Norman Douglas, a celebrated champion of Scottish nationalism, Siamese cats, and gramophone records, Mckenzie came to deprecate himself as a mere "entertainer". Yet, as Andro Linklater makes clear in this candid, perceptive biography, the activities of this contradictory and flamboyant figure were very much all of a piece.