Enemies of Promise is a critical and autobiographical work by English writer Cyril Connolly published in 1938, later enlarged when it was first reprinted in 1948. Together with The Unquiet Grave (1944), it is one of the two books for which the author is mainly remembered.
First edition (UK)
Cyril Vernon Connolly CBE was an English literary critic and writer. He was the editor of the influential literary magazine Horizon (1940–49) and wrote Enemies of Promise (1938), which combined literary criticism with an autobiographical exploration of why he failed to become the successful author of fiction that he had aspired to be in his youth.
Historical marker plaque in St. John's Road, Eastbourne, East Sussex
Connolly's grave (right) in Berwick, 2017.