Stephen James Napier Tennant was a British socialite, writer, and artist known for his decadent, eccentric lifestyle. He was a central member of the socialite group referred to as "Bright Young Things
Tennant, 1920–1925
The Wyndham Sisters, by John Singer Sargent, 1899 (Metropolitan Museum)
Siegfried Loraine Sassoon was an English war poet, writer, and soldier. Decorated for bravery on the Western Front, he became one of the leading poets of the First World War. His poetry both described
Stephen Tennant
…V. S. Naipaul, who immortalised Tennant in his novel The Enigma of Arrival. During the 1920s and 1930s Tennant had a long sexual affair with the poet Siegfried Sassoon. Prior to this he had proposed to a friend, Elizabeth Lowndes, but had been rejected (Philip Hoare relates how Tennant discussed plans with Lowndes…
Portrait by George Charles Beresford, 1915
Sassoon (front) with his brother Hamo and other students on the morning after a college May Ball at Cambridge University in 1906
Portrait of Sassoon by Glyn Warren Philpot, 1917 (Fitzwilliam Museum)
An agreement from Arthur Quiller-Couch to Sassoon to write for the Daily Herald