Biographical Material - Gordon Langley Hall

Dublin Core

Title

Biographical Material - Gordon Langley Hall

Date

1960s

Description

Typewritten description of Gordon Langley Hall's life and bibliography.

Rights

This item is in copyright but can be used for educational purposes. Please contact Charleston Library Society for more information for any use not qualifying as educational use.

Format

image/jpeg

Type

StillImage

Source

Ms. 411, Dawn Langley Simmons Papers, Series 5, Folder 6

Language

English

Identifier

Ms411ser1let6

Text Item Type Metadata

Transcription

Hall, G.L. HINSON CLIPPINGS

BIOGRAPHICAL MATERIAL

Hall 19.L

Gordon Langley Hall was born in England but for some years has been an American Citizen. His official residence is The Doctor Joseph Johnson House, Charleston, South Carolina, which he restored to its former beauty in memory of Isabel Lydia Whitney, America's first woman fresco painter, in 1962. He also retains his grandmother's home, Beecholme, Old Heathfield, Sussex, England.

He is the author of the following books:

Biography
Golden Boats from Burma, the story of Ann Hasseltine Judson, first American woman to go to Burma in 1812.
The Two Lives of Baby Doe, Baby Doe Tabor, Silver Queen of Colorado.
Princess Margaret An Informal Biography.
Vinnie Ream - The Story of the Girl Who Sculptured Lincoln.
The Enchanted Bungalow, the life of his grandmother.

Novel
The Gypsy Condesa.

Juvenile
Peter Jumping Horse.
Peter Jumping Horse at the Stampede.

Autobiography
Me Papoose Sitter.

Humor
The Day Mrs. Weller Flew to the Moon.

Golden Boats from Burma and Vinnie Ream were both chosen as selections for Family Bookshelf (Christian Herald) Bookclub. Me Papoose Sitter was in the same "Books Abridged" Book Club selection as President John F. Kennedy's Profiles in Courage.
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2.

Trained as a newspaper journalist, his series on world-famous personalities have appeared in magazines and newspapers around the world. He wrote Princess Margaret's engagement story for Look and covered her wedding for the Boston Globe.

His modern morality play "Saraband for a Saint" (1955), performed in the chancel of a New York City church, earned the praises of Mrs. Dwight D. Eisenhower. The then Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Geoffrey F. Fisher, invited him to Lambeth Palace to discuss it.

Since the death of Isabel Lydia Whitney in 1962, he has lived quietly at his Charleston home, which his friends have affectionately dubbed "Tara." His only companions are his parrot Marilyn, and dogs Jacqueline, Annabel-Eliza and Nelly. There he can often be seen working in the garden with his formidable housekeeper, Big Mama Irene, Mary Ann the maid, Charles the butler and Robert Aristotle the gardener.

Among his closest associates are Margaret Rutherford, the veteran British actress, who calls him "my adopted American son," and Carson McCullers, the American playwright and authoress. V. Sackville-West, the British writer, read his first manuscript when he was seven.

In 1962 at All Saints Parish Church, Old Heathfield, England, Miss Rutherford unveiled a stained glass window given by him in memory of the grandmother who raised him, Nellie Hall Ticehurst. It depicts the Reverend Robert Hunt, chaplain to the original Jamestown, Virginia, expedition, and a former vicar of Old Heathfield, celebrating the first Anglican service of Holy Communion upon American soil. It was designed by Laurence Lee, one of the three artists responsible for the windows in Coventry Cathedral.
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Citation

Simmons, Dawn Langley and Hall, Gordon Langley, “Biographical Material - Gordon Langley Hall,” Charleston Library Society Digital Collections, accessed October 13, 2024, https://charlestonlibrarysociety.omeka.net/items/show/1270.