Books: One Man and His Clan Osbert Sitwell by Philip Ziegler Chatto & Windus, Pounds 25; Eccentric, Dilettante - or a Canny Cultural Entrepreneur Who Made His Family into His Fortune? Annabel Freyberg Explores the Tumultuous Times of a Tribal Elder

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Born to eccentric, incompatible and hugely spoilt parents, Osbert, Edith and Sacheverell Sitwell were uncomfortable, remote children who seemed to live in a world of their own. In a multitude of ways, this state of affairs endured for the rest of their lives. When D H Lawrence met them in the late 1920s he was bemused by their self- absorption, "as if they were marooned on a desert island and nobody in the world but their lost selves". The socially and artistically voracious triumvirate were by now renowned as writer-patrons; their reading through megaphones of Edith's Facade to William Walton's music passed into legend.

This self-dramatising was a gift to other …