Queer Places:
Palazzo Vendramin ai Carmini, Fondamenta Foscarini, 3462, 30123 Venezia VE
Cimitero di San Michele
Venice, Città Metropolitana di Venezia, Veneto, Italy
Victor Cunard (Febbraio 8, 1898 -
August 28, 1960) was a diplomat and the London Times correspondent in Venice,
where he had an apartment in the Palazzo Vendramin Calergi ai
Carmini, which he rescued from an antique dealer. He served in the Political Intelligence Department of the Foreign Office, 1941-46. In
1935 he co-authored the play Golden Arrow, with Sylvia Thompson.
In
December 1918 he began a casual affair with
Harold Nicolson. Cunard was
twenty years old, brash in manner, exuding self-confidence, and was openly
gay. Nicolson stayed with him in Lord Cunard's house in Leicester then invited
him to Knole.
Vita Sackville-West
described Cunard in a letter to her husband as "a nice, easy, pleasant
ineffectual little thing." When Nicolson went to stay with Cunard in Venice,
his wife Vita wrote warning him that Ezra
Pound was also in the city. She advised him to avoid a meeting or the
enraged American poet might well challenge him to a duel.
He was the son of Sir Gordon Cunard, 4th Baronet
and Edith Mary Howard. He was the brother of Sir Edward Cunard, 5th Baronet
and Anthony Gordon Cunard.
Djuna Barnes biographer Phillip
Herring describes how Cunard helped Barnes prior to her coming to Devon:
"Barnes's decision to leave Paris for Hayford Hall was precipitated by a
frightening attack of asthma at 5.00 A.M., which, as described to
Natalie Barney, caused
her hair to stand on end and her heart to pound in her chest. She took a taxi
to her friend Victor Cunard, who got her coffee, held her hand, and sent his
servant for their medical friend Dan Mahoney. Apparently the attack was not
serious, but Peggy Guggenheim
suggested that Barnes pack a bag and go with her to England". Cunard was the
cousin of Nancy Cunard (1896-1965),
daughter of Sir Bache Cunard, heir to the Cunard shipping line.
It was to the borrowed apartment of Victor Cunard, that
Robert Heber-Percy first
accompanied Lord Berners abroad.
Cunard was also one of Dolly Wilde's closest friends.
My published books:
BBACK TO HOME PAGE
- Rough Draft: The Modernist Diaries of Emily Holmes Coleman, 1929-1937
Elizabeth Podnieks
Lexington Books, Mar 21, 2012
- Building: Letters 1960-1975
Isaiah Berlin
Random House, Aug 31, 2013
- Zelda Fitzgerald: The Tragic, Meticulously Researched Biography of the Jazz Age's High Priestess
Sally Cline
Skyhorse, Jan 12, 2012
- Loved Ones: Pen Portraits
Diana Mosley
Sidgwick & Jackson, Jan 1, 1985
- Harold Nicolson: 1930-1968
James Lees-Milne
Archon Books, 1982
- Woods, Gregory. Homintern . Yale University Press. Edizione del
Kindle.