Mackenzie, (Edward Montague) Compton

(British, 1883–1972)

Born in West Hartlepool, Mackenzie became a professional writer after graduating from Oxford. Begin with Whisky Galore (1947), his entertaining comedy about a shipload of whisky falling into the hands of Scottish islanders. Capri, where he lived in the 1920s, is the setting for Extraordinary Women (1928), remarkable in its day for its light handling of homosexuality. The Vanity Girl (1920) tells of a chorus girl's prudent course to fame and subsequent marriage into the aristocracy. For literary depth, Mackenzie's most impressive work is the two-volume Sinister Street (1913, 1914), which charts a young man's corruption after leaving Oxford. The book vividly evokes the atmosphere among Mackenzie's generation on the eve of the First World War, his own experiences of which are recounted in Gallipoli Memories (1929).

Hugh Walpole, Eric Linklater.

See SPY  DH