Francis Stuart

Henry Francis Montgomery Stuart (29 April 1902 – 2 February 2000) was an Irish writer. His novels have been described as having a thrusting modernist iconoclasm. He was awarded the highest artistic accolade in Ireland before his death in 2000. His years spent in Nazi Germany have led to a great deal of controversy.

Early life

Francis Stuart was born in Townsville, Queensland, Australia on 29 April 1902 to Irish Protestant parents, Henry Irwin Stuart and Elizabeth Barbara Isabel Montgomery; his father was an alcoholic and killed himself when Stuart was an infant. This prompted his mother to return to Ireland and Stuart's childhood was divided between his home in Ireland and Rugby School in England, where he boarded.

In 1920, at age 17, he became a Catholic and married Iseult Gonne, Maud Gonne's daughter. Aged 24 years, Iseult had had a romantic but unsettled life. Maud Gonne's estranged husband John MacBride was executed in 1916 for taking part in the Easter Rising. Iseult Gonne's own father was the right-wing French politician, Lucien Millevoye, with whom Maud Gonne had had an affair between 1887 and 1899. Because of her complex family situation, Iseult was often passed off as Maud Gonne's niece in conservative circles in Ireland. Iseult grew up in Paris and London. She had been proposed to by W. B. Yeats in 1917 (he had also earlier proposed to her mother; Yeats was 50 at the time, Iseult 20) and had a brief affair with Ezra Pound prior to meeting Stuart; this is made ironic by Pound and Stuart's shared belief in the primacy of the artist and the way in which this belief led Stuart to Nazi Germany and Pound to fascist Italy.

Francis Stuart (disambiguation)

Francis Stuart (1902–2000) was an Irish writer.

Francis Stuart may also refer to:

See also

Frank Stuart

Frank (Francis) Stuart (21 May 1844 – 16 October 1910) was an Australian politician, a member of the Victorian Legislative Assembly and the Victorian Legislative Council.

Stuart was born at Penrith, New South Wales. Going to Victoria, he was for fifteen years in the employ of L. Stevenson & Sons, of Melbourne, and then became managing partner in the firm of Lincoln, Stuart & Co. Mr. Stuart, who was president of the Victorian Chamber of Manufactures in 1885-6, was elected to the Assembly for East Melbourne in 1889, and accepted a seat in the Munro Ministry as a member of the Cabinet without portfolio in November 1890. In April 1891 he resigned office.

In June 1904 Stuart was elected as one of the inaugural members for Melbourne North Province in the Victorian Legislative Council, a seat he held until 1907.

References