LEFT HAND, RIGHT HAND—Sir Osbert SitwelI—Little, Brown ($3). All scions, says Sir Osbert Sitwell, have a tail. A scion’s tail, Sir Osbert explains, is the life of his ancestors, who spread out behind ...

“Osbert Sitwell,” by Philip Ziegler. Alfred A. Knopf. 464 pages. $30. It may seem hard to believe, but the Sitwells — that trio of aristocratic sibling-aesthetes, Edith, Osbert, and Sacheverell — once ...

Victoria Glendinning wrote a life of the famous sister of Sir Osbert and Sacheverell Sitwell that is still worth reading. Then again, in her own time, Sitwell had several redoubtable admirers: W. B.

HE LOOKED like an ostrich: “He had the same slightly ponderous dignity and air of one who might suddenly overbalance and tip forwards.” That, at any rate, is what Osbert Sitwell's biographer thinks.

LAUGHTER IN THE NEXT ROOM (400 pp.) —Sir Osbert Sitwell—Little, Brown ($4). Life With Father is not merely the title of a play; it is fast becoming the right name for a whole period—the days when ...