Christopher Isherwood

Born: 26 August 1904 in Disley, Cheshire.

Died:   4 January 1986.

Christopher Bradshaw Isherwood was born in Disley, Cheshire, England on a Friday night just before midnight on 26 August 1904. He grew up in England. One of his preparatory school friends was W.H. Auden. He went to school at Repton, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge and he studied medicine at King's College in London but he gave it up in order to teach English in Germany. On 14 March 1929 he moved to Berlin. He would later comment that for him, "Berlin meant Boys."

He based some of his most famous novels on his time spent there prior to World War II. Such novels as The Berlin Stories (1946), which was later adapted as a play entitled I Am a Camera (1951) and then as a musical titled Cabaret (1966). The novel portrays the seedy lives of a group of Berliners and expatriates who fail to foresee the dramatic impact which the Nazis were having on German society. Cabaret was made into a movie in 1972 starring Liza Minnelli and Michael York. Isherwood hated it due to its watering down the homosexual role of York's character. Isherwood never hid his homosexuality and, although he has become quite a cult figure amongst the modern gay community, he personally hated the term 'gay' and simply preferred being called 'queer.' Isherwood has always been seen as a champion with his controversial stand on homosexual liberation which he plainly reflected in some of his novels. While in Berlin he often hung out at the Cosy Corner, a small working-class bar in Berlin which was often frequented by male prostitutes. It was reported to be an "unpretentious, almost homely place, often overheated by a big stove, and lacking in distinctive decoration, except for a few photographs of boxers and cyclists pinned up over the bar." Isherwood enjoyed this bar and it's said that he could often be found 'just hanging around with the boys.' This was most likely due to his romantic views toward the blond, blue-eyed German boys who also frequented the place.

It was in the early thirties that Isherwood met "the practitioner of the occult, Aleister Crowley" with a mutual friend by the name of Gerald Hamilton. It was Hamilton who would later be the model for 'Mr. Norris' in Christopher Isherwood's novel Mr. Norris Changes Trains. Gerald Hamilton also lived with the Great Beast and his mistress for awhile in Berlin in 1932. Shortly after their first meeting Isherwood decided to take Aleister Crowley to one of his favorite spots, the Cosy Corner, for drinks. No sooner had Crowley entered when he declared very loudly, "I haven't done anything like this since I was in Port Said." Then, glancing around the room, Crowley decided to stroll up to a "very tough-looking youth in an open shirt, standing by the bar." Instead of introducing himself like a normal person, Crowley simply "scratched the boy's chest deeply with his nails." It's hard to understand what he might have been thinking, but his actions did not receive the response that Crowley was probably hoping for. Apparently the boy was pissed. It is written that "only a sizable gift of money succeeded in restraining the boy from beating him up on the spot." One wonders just how much money was offered to keep Aleister Crowley from getting punched out cold. Although, typical of Aleister Crowley, it's a safe bet that some one else came up with the cash and it was most probably Isherwood. Another question could be asked—what did Crowley do at Port Said?

Aleister Crowley mentions going to the 'Cosy Corner' café with Isherwood in one of his unpublished diaries from 1931, briefly stating, "Fri. Dec. 25 Big dinner, Karl [Karl Germer], Hedy, Hamilton; later Christopher Isherwood & Stephen Spender-Bill & I both went after Hedy. Cosy Corner later-great fun with boys." Could Isherwood and Crowley be talking about the same night? It's quite possible. After all, scratching some youth's bare chest and drawing blood might just be what Crowley called "fun with boys."

Eight years after Crowley's death in 1955, Isherwood was experimenting for the first time with the drug Kif while in Tangier visiting Paul Bowles. Unfortunately he had an extremely bad experience under its effect. Isherwood fictionalized this in a short story entitled "A Visit to Anselm Oakes," which he included in his book Exhumations. Some writers have stated that Anselm Oakes is based on Paul Bowles whom he was visiting at the time of his 'experience,' but actually he is "a figure primarily modelled on Alistair [sic] Crowley.) Instead of the typical Aleister Crowley greeting of "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law," Anselm always uses a corrupt verse of, "The Will is the Law, the Law is the Will." In the opening paragraph one of the characters states, "I don't trust Anselm," as if to mimic an unconscious view which Isherwood himself shared about Aleister Crowley.

Originally this story was the final episode of Isherwood's book entitled Down There on a Visit, but not "long before the novel was published, in 1962," he "suddenly decided to take the visit to Anselm out of it."

Other works by Isherwood include Prater Violet (1945), A Meeting by the River (1967). These are primarily concerned with the experience of sensitive individuals in incongruous settings and circumstances. The Essentials of the Vedanta (1969) expresses Isherwood's deep interest in Hindu philosophy. His biographical works include Lions and Shadows (1938) which is an account of his early life and his experiences at the University of Cambridge, and Kathleen and Frank (1972), is a biography of his parents. Christopher and His Kind (1976) is a witty and utterly frank account of his life from 1929 to 1939, wherein he reveals his homosexuality and its overriding importance in his work.

In 1939 Christopher Isherwood emigrated to California and in 1946 he took U.S. citizenship. In 1953 he started a relationship with the 18-year-old Don Bachardy who later became well known as a painter. They lived together until Christopher Isherwood died at the age of 82 on 4 January 1986.