Ackerley, Joseph Randolph ___ 1896-1967 ___ British ___ editor

BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY
Ackerley first acknowledged his homosexuality while interned as a prisoner of war in 1917. Although his writing dealt openly with sexual themes from as early as 1925, this does not seem to have hindered his appointment as editor, in 1935, of the BBC publication 'The Listener', a position he held until 1959. He championed other homosexual writers such as Auden and Isherwood. At the age of 33, he discovered that his recently deceased father had led a double life, supporting another household with several children. 'My Father and Myself', published posthumously, is consider his best book. Diary extracts were put together and published under the title 'My Sister and Myself'; but he also wrote 'Hindoo Holiday', ostensibly a novel, but which is, in fact, a journal of his months in India while private secretary to a maharajah.
A biography link
Wikipedia bio

DIARY DATES, CONTENT DESCRIPTORS
n/a___ family self love/sex self India

WEB TEXT LINKS
a bit about
 

ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT LINKS
 

SOME PUBLISHED TITLES
My Sister and Myself; The Diaries of J. R. Ackerley
Hindoo Holiday
 

May 2005, September 2008
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IMPORTANT NOTES AND CAUTIONS: 1) The first line of basic information may be incomplete in several ways: some historical figures have different names (titles, pen-names); their birth and death dates may be unknown or uncertain (g - guess, c - circa); similarly, their occupations may be unknown, or they may have had other jobs; and, for early diarists, I've used 'British' a bit too freely. 2) The biographical summary may not be accurate. It was compiled quickly from various sources, mostly on the internet, and the facts were not checked anywhere near as rigorously as they would have been if they'd been intended for publication in a printed form. 3) The journal dates and descriptors (which are in no particular order) must be treated with caution: since I have not examined the diaries myself, the descriptors are only guesses based on bibliographies, anthologies and internet biographies. 4) For the biography and etext links, I have ignored any sites with charges, and I have avoided, wherever possible, those with pop-ups or too much advertising. I have limited myself to providing three etext links where there is some variety between them. 5) For the original manuscript links, I have limited myself to providing a maximum of two (although, for a few diarists, their original diaries are held in more than two places). 6) I have provided the titles - chosen randomly - for up to three printed editions of the diaries.