Anthony Bailey (author)

Anthony Bailey
Born	(1933-01-05) 5 January 1933 Portsmouth, England, U.K.
Occupation	Writer
Alma mater	Merton College, Oxford
Genre	Nonfiction, Art History
Notable works	Velázquez and The Surrender of Breda Vermeer: A View of Delft Standing in the Sun: A Life of J.M.W. Turner
Spouse	Margot Bailey
Children	4 daughters, 9 grandchildren
Relatives	Bridget Sojourner (sister)

Anthony Bailey (born 5 January 1933) is a British writer and art historian.

He was evacuated to Dayton, Ohio, in 1940 during World War II. After returning to England in 1944, he attended several Hampshire grammar schools before studying history at Oxford University. In 1955, he emigrated to New York City and became a staff writer at The New Yorker magazine for over 30 years. He has written twenty-three books, including biographies of artists J. M. W. Turner, John Constable, and two books on Rembrandt.

He lives on Mersea Island, near Colchester, Essex, with his wife Margot. They have four daughters: Liz, Annie, Katie and Rachel, and nine grandchildren.

Early life and education

Bailey was born on 5 January 1933, in Portsmouth, England. His parents were Cowper Goldsmith Bailey and Phyllis Molony. While his father served in the British army and his younger sister Bridget remained in England with Bailey's mother during World War II, Tony Bailey was taken in for four years by Otto and Eloise Spaeth, who had four children of their own, including a boy also named Tony. Otto Spaeth was the owner of a Dayton machine tool factory and both he and his wife were passionate art collectors. Bailey's lifelong interest in art was influenced by his time living with the Spaeths. The family's private art collection included such artists as Cezanne, Paul Gauguin, and Edward Hopper.

After national service as a young British army officer with the West African Frontier Force, Bailey in 1952 went to Merton College, Oxford, where he read history. In 1955 with Spaeth sponsorship he moved to New York. His early jobs were in shops selling books, first with Scribners and then in the British Book Centre owned by the later notorious newspaper publisher Robert Maxwell. When a friend suggested to Bailey that he submit his writings to the New Yorker, he sent in a piece about parking meters and an account of a day spent with Austrian Catholic priest Ivan Illich, who worked for the poor in Harlem. New Yorker editor William Shawn offered him a job at the New Yorker. There he found himself in an office next door to John Updike, who became Bailey's lifelong friend.

Under Shawn, Bailey was a "Talk of the Town" reporter and also worked briefly as a reader in the fiction department before becoming a staff writer. His work for the magazine includes profiles, reporter-at-large pieces, poems, and short stories.

Career as a writer

Bailey has contributed many pieces to The New Yorker magazine. The Dial Press in New York published Bailey's first novel, Making Progress, in 1959. His third novel Major André (about Benedict Arnold's attempt to hand over West Point to the British) received positive reviews in 1987.

His books include biographies of Turner and Constable, Vermeer, Velázquez, and two books on Rembrandt. Many of Bailey's papers, wartime letters, and manuscripts are in the hands of the Houghton Library at Harvard University.

Bailey has been interviewed by NPR and the New York Observer. He has also contributed to the New York Herald Tribune, The New York Times, The New Republic, and Esquire. In Britain, he has written for the New Statesman, The Observer, and The Sunday Times.

Personal life

Bailey met Margot Speight (from Yorkshire, England), his future wife, in the White Horse Tavern in Greenwich Village, New York. In 1957, Bailey and Speight married in England. After several years living in Manhattan, the Baileys moved to Stonington, Connecticut, where they lived for 10 years, and had four daughters.

In addition to working as a writer, Bailey is an avid sailor, a passion which he has written about in several of his books. After moving back to England in 1970, the couple returned to the U.S. nearly every summer in order to sail the New England Coast. In The Coast of Summer: Sailing New England Waters from Shelter Island to Cape Cod, Bailey describes the couple's nautical adventures in Lochinvar, their 27-foot sloop. Departing from their home port of Stonington, Connecticut, they sailed to Long Island Sound, Block Island, the Elizabeth Islands, Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, and Cape Cod, where they would visit old friends, swim, and walk the beaches. On their return voyage, they encountered Hurricane Bob, but only after Lochinvar had been tied down and the couple was safely ashore. Bailey's book The Thousand Dollar Yacht also details his knowledge and experiences on the water.

The Baileys returned to settle in England in 1970. After living in Greenwich for many years, the couple moved permanently to the seaside community of Mersea Island in Essex.

Publications

• Making Progress, Dial Press, NY and Michael Joseph, London 1959
• The Mother Tongue, Macmillan NY 1961 and Heinemann London 1963
• The Inside Passage, Macmillan NY 1965
• Through the Great City, Macmillan NY 1967
• The Thousand Dollar Yacht, Macmillan NY 1968 and Sheridan House 1996 publisher Seafarer Books 1996 ISBN 978-0-85036-459-0
• The Light in Holland, Knopf NY 1970
• In the Village, Knopf NY and Thames & Hudson London 1971
• A Concise History of the Low Countries, American Heritage NY 1972
• Rembrandt's House, Houghton Mifflin & J.M.Dent 1978, paperback I.B.Tauris 2015 ISBN 978-1-78076-924-0
• Acts of Union – Reports on Ireland, Random House NY and Faber & Faber London 1980
• America, Lost & Found, Random House and Faber & Faber 1981 University of Chicago Press 2000 ISBN 0-226-03455-0
• Along the Edge of the Forest, Random House NY and Faber & Faber London 1983
• England, First & Last, Random House and Faber & Faber 1985
• Spring Jaunts, Farrar Straus Giroux 1986
• Major André, Farrar Straus Giroux 1987 & Carcanet, 1989, ISBN 978-0-85635-795-4
• The Outer Banks, Farrar Straus Giroux 1989 and University of N.Carolina Press 1999 ISBN 0-8078-4820-4
• A Walk through Wales, HarperColllins NY and Jonathan Cape London 1992
• Responses to Rembrandt, Timken NY 1994
• The Coast of Summer, HarperCollins 1994 Seafarer Books UK and Sheridan House, Inc. NY 1999| ISBN 978-1-57409-074-1
• Standing in the sun: a life of J.M.W. Turner, Sinclair Stevenson London 1997 & HarperCollins NY, 1998, Paperback Tate Publishing, 2013 ISBN 978-1-84976-192-5
• Vermeer: A View of Delft, Henry Holt NY 2001, Pimlico London 2013 ISBN 978-0-712-66472-1
• John Constable: A Kingdom of His Own, Vintage Books, London 2007, ISBN 978-1-844-13833-3
• Velázquez and The Surrender of Breda, Henry Holt & Co., N.Y. ISBN 978-0-8050-8835-9