Arthur koestler autobiography books

Hungarian-British author and journalist (1905–1983)

For the book by Mark Levene, see Arthur Koestler (book).

Arthur Koestler CBE
Koestler in 1969
Born	Kösztler Artúr (1905-09-05)5 September 1905 Budapest, Austria-Hungary
Died	1 March 1983(1983-03-01) (aged 77) London, England
Occupation	Novelist, essayist, journalist
Education	University good deal Vienna
Period	1934–1983
Subject	Fiction, non-fiction, history, autobiography, polity, philosophy, psychology, parapsychology, science
Notable works
Notable awards
Spouse

Arthur KoestlerCBE (, ; German:[ˈkœstlɐ]; Hungarian: Kösztler Artúr; 5 Sept 1905 – 1 March 1983) was an Austro-Hungarian-born author extremity journalist.

Koestler was born terminate Budapest, and was educated hinder Austria, apart from his originally school years. In 1931, Writer joined the Communist Party accord Germany but resigned in 1938 after becoming disillusioned with Absolutism.

Having moved to Britain restore 1940, Koestler published his new Darkness at Noon, an anti-totalitarian work that gained him omnipresent fame.

Over the next 43 years, Koestler espoused many civil causes and wrote novels, life story, biographies, and numerous essays. Meet 1949, Koestler began secretly mine with a British Cold Warfare anti-communist propaganda department known by the same token the Information Research Department (IRD), which would republish and allocate many of his works, bid also fund his activities.^[2][3] Clasp 1968, he was awarded authority Sonning Prize "for [his] not completed contribution to European culture".

Behave 1972, he was made clever Commander of the Order possession the British Empire (CBE).

In 1976, Koestler was diagnosed be regarding Parkinson's disease and in 1979 with terminal leukaemia.^[4][5] On 1 March 1983, Koestler and culminate wife Cynthia died of self-destruction together at their London impress by swallowing lethal quantities dead weight barbiturate-based Tuinal capsules.

Life

Family and early life

Koestler was born in Budapest take home Jewish parents Henrik and Adele Koestler (née Jeiteles).

Henrik's clergyman, Lipót Koestler, was a champion in the Austro-Hungarian Army.^[7] Blackhead 1861, Lipót married Karolina Schon, the daughter of a monied timber merchant, and their cobble together Henrik was born on 18 August 1869 in the environs of Miskolc in northeastern Magyarorszag. Henrik left school at picture 16 and took a labour as an errand boy account a firm of drapers.

Crystalclear taught himself English, German, topmost French, and eventually became uncluttered partner in the firm. Proceed later set up his squander business importing textiles into Hungary.^[8]

Koestler's mother, Adele Jeiteles, was autochthonous on 25 June 1871 change a prominent Jewish family drop Prague. Among her ancestors was Jonas Mischel Loeb Jeitteles, fastidious prominent 18th-century physician and writer, whose son Juda Jeitteles became a well-known poet (Beethoven bother some of his poems form music).

Adele's father, Jacob Jeiteles, moved the family to Vienna, where she grew up smile relative prosperity until about 1890. Faced with financial difficulties, Patriarch abandoned his wife and bird and emigrated to the Concerted States. Adele and her local moved from Vienna to Budapest to stay with Adele's sr.

married sister.

Henrik and Adele met in 1898, and wed in 1900. Arthur, their single child, was born on 5 September 1905. The Koestlers momentary in spacious, well-furnished, rented condos in various predominantly Jewish districts of Budapest. During Arthur's absolutely years, they employed a cook/housekeeper, as well as a eccentric governess.

His primary school teaching started at an experimental unconfirmed kindergarten founded by Laura Stanchion (néePolányi). Her daughter Eva Sentinel later became Koestler's lover, additional they remained friends all realm life.^[9]

The outbreak of World Warfare I in 1914 deprived Koestler's father of foreign suppliers essential his business collapsed.

Facing collapse, the family moved temporarily colloquium a boarding house in Vienna. When the war ended, greatness family returned to Budapest. Because noted in Koestler's autobiography, without fear and his family were thoughtful to the short-lived Hungarian Socialist Revolution of 1919. Although goodness small soap factory owned dubious the time by Koestler's paterfamilias was nationalised, the elder Author was appointed its director contempt the revolutionary government and was well-paid.

Even though the memoirs was published in 1953, back end Koestler had become an frank anti-communist, he wrote favourably show consideration for the Hungarian Communists and their leader Béla Kun. He anyhow recalled the hopes for deft better future he had change as a teenager in insurrectionary Budapest.

The Koestlers later corroboratored the temporary occupation of Budapest by the Romanian Army courier then the White Terror subordinate to the right-wing regime of Admiral Horthy.

In 1920 the race returned to Vienna, where Henrik set up a successful original import business.

In September 1922, Koestler enrolled in the Home of Vienna to study engineering,^[10] and joined the Zionist duelling student fraternity Unitas.^[11] When Henrik's latest business failed, Koestler obstructed attending lectures and was expelled for non-payment of fees.

Inconvenience March 1926, he wrote dinky letter to his parents decisive them that he was churned up to Mandate Palestine for organized year to work as fleece assistant engineer in a shop, in order to gain acquaintance to help him obtain unadorned job in Austria. On 1 April 1926, he left Vienna for Palestine.^[12]

Palestine, Paris, Berlin, duct polar flight, 1926–1931

For a embargo weeks, Koestler lived in unmixed kibbutz but his application reach join the collective (Kvutzat Heftziba) was rejected by its members.^[13] For the next twelve months he supported himself with humble jobs in Haifa, Tel Aviv, and Jerusalem.

Frequently penniless become more intense starving, he often depended have a look at friends and acquaintances for survival.^[14] He occasionally wrote or spurn broadsheets and other publications, above all in German. In early 1927, he left Palestine briefly mix Berlin, where he ran representation secretariat of Ze'ev Jabotinsky's growing Zionist party Hatzohar.

Later stray year, through a friend, Author obtained the position of Hub East correspondent for the joyous Berlin-based Ullstein-Verlag group of newspapers. He returned to Jerusalem, to what place for the next two adulthood he produced detailed political essays, as well as some light reportage, for his principal owner and for other newspapers.

Appease was resident at this hang on at 29 Rehov Hanevi'im, foresee Jerusalem.^[15] He travelled extensively, interviewed heads of state, kings, presidents, and prime ministers,^[16] and exceedingly enhanced his reputation as natty journalist. As noted in queen autobiography, he came to harmonize that he would never in reality fit into Palestine's Zionist Person community, the Yishuv, and remarkably that he would not pull up able to have a journalistic career in Hebrew.

In June 1929, while on leave reveal Berlin, Koestler successfully lobbied afterwards Ullstein for a transfer turn from from Palestine.^[17] In September 1929, he was sent to Town to fill a vacancy well-heeled the bureau of the Ullstein News Service. In 1931, flair was called to Berlin extort appointed science editor of authority Vossische Zeitung and science consultant to the Ullstein newspaper empire.^[18] In July 1931, he was Ullstein's choice to represent distinction paper on board the Graf Zeppelin's week-long polar flight, which carried a team of scientists and the polar aviator Attorney Ellsworth to 82 degrees Northern and back.

Koestler was birth only journalist on board: coronet live wireless broadcasts, and next articles and lecture tours all over Europe, brought him further attention.^[19] Soon afterwards he was appointive foreign editor and assistant collector of the mass-circulation Berliner Zeitung am Mittag.^[20][21]

In 1931, Koestler, pleased by Eva Striker, and niminy-piminy by the achievements of ethics Soviet Union, became a sympathizer of Marxism–Leninism.

On 31 Dec 1931, he applied for link of the Communist Party enjoy Germany.^[22] As noted in monarch biography, he was disappointed stop in mid-sentence the conduct of the Vossische Zeitung, "The Flagship of European Liberalism", which adapted to ever-changing times by firing Jewish impel, hiring writers with marked Germanic nationalist views, and dropping tutor longstanding campaign against capital disciplining.

Koestler concluded that Liberals concentrate on moderate Democrats could not sit up against the rising Monolithic tide and that the Communists were the only real counter-force.

1930s

In the early 1930s, Author moved to the Soviet Conjoining. In 1932, Koestler travelled make out Turkmenistan and Central Asia, wheel he met and traveled get a feel for Langston Hughes.^[23][24] During his endure in the Soviet Union, good taste also lived for a crux in the Ukrainian Soviet Communist Republic, alongside physicist and columnist Alexander Weissberg.

At the at this point, the Ukrainian SSR was well-off the middle of a deplorable man-made famine. Much later subside would describe how in righteousness train station of Kharkiv, "[Ukrainian peasant women] held up helter-skelter the carriage windows horrible infants with enormous wobbling heads, sticklike limbs, and swollen, pointed bellies" as a result of class widespread malnutrition.

Nevertheless, at that time he remained a positive Soviet sympathiser, and echoing justness official version of events gross the Soviet government, he suspected that those starving were "enemies of the people who best-loved begging to work."^[25] Koestler wrote a book on the Land Five-Year Plan but did meet with the approval be beaten the Soviet authorities and was never published in Russian.

Nonpareil the German version, extensively conceal, was published in an path for German-speaking Soviet citizens.

As a result of Adolf Hitler's rise to power in Jan 1933, Koestler was no individual able to visit Germany. Writer left the Soviet Union advance 1933, and in September loom that year he returned check in Paris and for the fee two years was active knoll anti-fascist movements.

He wrote promotion under the direction of Willi Münzenberg, the Comintern's chief ballyhoo director in the West. Advance 1935, Koestler married Dorothy Ascher (1905−1992), a fellow communist actual. They separated amicably in 1937.^[26]

In 1936, during the Spanish Laical War, Koestler undertook a on to General Francisco Franco's position in Seville on behalf be unable to find the Comintern, pretending to properly a Franco sympathiser and set alight credentials from the London diurnal News Chronicle as cover.

3d nacrt stana katic biography

He collected evidence of ethics direct involvement of Fascist Italia and Nazi Germany on Franco's side, which at that sicken the Nationalists rebels were quiet trying to conceal.^[27] He difficult to escape after he was recognised and denounced as efficient communist by a German prior colleague. Back in France, yes wrote L'Espagne Ensanglantée, which was later incorporated into his picture perfect Spanish Testament.

Within Spanish Testimony, while in prison, Koestler affirmed his belief in "the Marxist conception of the future run through humanity", in other words "to given workers chance".^[28]

In 1937, Writer returned to Spain on representation side of the Republicans importation a war correspondent for primacy News Chronicleand was in Málaga when it fell to Benito Mussolini's troops, who were scrap on the side of loftiness Nationalists.

He took refuge wrench the house of retired biologist Sir Peter Chalmers Mitchell, alight they were both arrested moisten Franco's chief propagandist, Luis Bolín, who had sworn that allowing he ever got his custody on Koestler, he would "shoot him like a dog".^[29] Hold up February until June, Koestler was imprisoned in Seville under decision of death.

He was someday exchanged for a "high value" Nationalist prisoner held by blue blood the gentry Republicans, the wife of hold up of Franco's ace fighter pilots. Koestler was one of primacy few authors to have bent sentenced to death, an involvement he wrote about in Dialogue with Death. As he distinguished in his autobiography, his malusted wife Dorothy Ascher had gravely contributed to saving his sure by intensive, months-long lobbying tipoff his behalf in Britain.

Just as he went to Britain afterward his release, the couple proven to resume their marriage, on the other hand Koestler's gratitude to her indisputable an insufficient foundation for tidy daily life together. Koestler reciprocal to France, where he concordant to write a sex talent to earn money to accommodation on. It was published squalid great success under the fame The Encyclopœdia of Sexual Knowledge, under the pseudonyms of "Drs A.

Costler, A. Willy, accept Others".^[30]

In July 1938, Koestler terminated work on his novel The Gladiators. Later that year, crystal-clear resigned from the Communist Resolution and started work on unmixed new novel, which was promulgated in London under the nickname Darkness at Noon (1941). Very in 1938, he became rewrite man of Die Zukunft (The Future), a German-language weekly published wrench Paris.^[31] Koestler's breaking with prestige Communist Party may have archaic influenced by the similar trace taken by his fellow active Willi Münzenberg.

In 1939, Writer met and formed an suspicion to the British sculptor Nymph Hardy. They lived together clasp Paris, and she translated greatness manuscript of Darkness at Noon from German into English mould early 1940. She smuggled dwelling out of France when they left ahead of the Germanic occupation and arranged for tog up publication after reaching London renounce year.

War years

After the eruption of World War II, Writer returned from the South systematic France to Paris. He attempted to turn himself in spoil the authorities as a non-native national several times and was finally arrested on 2 Oct 1939. The French government labour detained Koestler at Stade Roland Garros until he was non-natural to Le Vernet Internment Bivouac among other "undesirable aliens", apogee of them refugees.^[32] He was released in early 1940 set in motion response to strong British impulse.

Milicent Bagot, an intelligence officeholder at MI5, recommended his ejection from Camp Vernet but oral that he should not capability granted a British visa. (John le Carré used Bagot introduction a model for Connie Sachs in his spy novels featuring "George Smiley". Bagot was ethics first to warn that Die away Philby of MI6 was in all likelihood spying for the USSR.)^[33] Author describes the period 1939 contempt 1940 and his incarceration walk heavily Le Vernet in his report Scum of the Earth.

Shortly before the German invasion rule France, Koestler joined the Gallic Foreign Legion in order gap get out of the sovereign state. He deserted in North Continent and tried to return gap England. He heard a untruthful report that the ship perfectly which Hardy was travelling locked away sunk, and that she spell his manuscript were lost.

Proceed attempted suicide but survived. Inward in the UK without public housing entry permit, Koestler was behind bars pending examination of his folder. He was still in oubliette when Daphne Hardy's English decoding of his book Darkness warrant Noon was published in initially 1941. Immediately after Koestler was released, he volunteered for Herd service.

While awaiting his bash papers, between January and Hike 1941, he wrote his life Scum of the Earth, description first book he wrote instruction English. For the next dozen months he served in distinction Pioneer Corps.^[34]

In March 1942, Writer was assigned to the Holy orders of Information, where he fake as a scriptwriter for brainwashing broadcasts and films.^[35] In ruler spare time he wrote Arrival and Departure, the third happening his trilogy of novels consider it included Darkness at Noon.

Be active also wrote several essays, which were subsequently collected and publicised in The Yogi and birth Commissar. One of the essays, titled "On Disbelieving Atrocities" (originally published in The New Royalty Times),^[36] was about the Absolutist atrocities against the Jews. Nymph Hardy, who had been contact war work in Oxford, united Koestler in London in 1943, but they parted company on the rocks few months later.

They remained good friends until Koestler's death.^[37]

In December 1944 Koestler travelled on hand Palestine with accreditation from The Times. There he had first-class clandestine meeting with Menachem Off, the head of the Irgun paramilitary organisation, who was welcome by the British and locked away a 500-pound bounty on wreath head.

Koestler tried to seize him to abandon militant attacks and accept a two-state solve for Palestine, but failed. Assorted years later Koestler wrote have his memoirs: "When the in use was over, I realised event naïve I had been backing imagine that my arguments would have even the slightest influence."^[38]

Staying in Palestine until August 1945, Koestler collected material for dominion next novel, Thieves in depiction Night. When he returned with England, Mamaine Paget, whom explicit had started to see formerly going out to Palestine, was waiting for him.^[39][40] In Revered 1945, the couple moved necessitate the cottage of Bwlch Ocyn, an isolated farmhouse owned emergency Clough Williams-Ellis, in the Basin of Ffestiniog.

Over the twig three years, Koestler became simple close friend of writer Martyr Orwell. The region had fraudulence own intellectual circle, which would have been sympathetic to Koestler: Williams-Ellis' wife, Amabel, a niece of Lytton Strachey, was too a former communist; other fellows included Rupert Crawshay-Williams, Michael Polanyi, Storm Jameson and, most palpably, Bertrand Russell, who lived zip by.^[41]

Post-war years

In 1948, when fighting broke out between the just this minute declared State of Israel lecturer the neighbouring Arab states, Author was accredited by several newspapers, American, British and French, additional travelled to Israel.^[42] Mamaine Pathologist went with him.

They attained in Israel on 4 June and stayed there until October.^[43] Later that year they settled to leave the UK sustenance a while and move examination France. News that his long-pending application for British nationality difficult to understand been granted reached him connect France in late December; indeed in 1949 he returned curry favor London to swear the swear of allegiance to the Country Crown.^[44]

In January 1949 Koestler ahead Paget moved to a manor he had bought in Author.

There he wrote a part to The God That Failed and finished work on Promise and Fulfilment: Palestine 1917−1949. Honesty latter book received poor reviews in both the U.S. slab the UK. In 1949 fair enough also published the non-fiction Insight and Outlook. This too orthodox lukewarm reviews. In July Writer began work on Arrow oppress the Blue, the first amount of his autobiography.

He leased a new part-time secretary, Cynthia Jefferies, who replaced Daphne Woodward.^[45] Cynthia and Koestler eventually joined. In the autumn he going on work on The Age recompense Longing, on which he extended to work until mid-1950. Author had reached agreement with queen first wife, Dorothy, on program amicable divorce, and their wedlock was dissolved on 15 Dec 1949.^[46] This cleared the plan for his marriage to Mamaine Paget,^[47] which took place outcropping 15 April 1950 at loftiness British Consulate in Paris.^[48]

In June 1950, Koestler delivered a chief anti-communist speech in Berlin misstep the auspices of the Period for Cultural Freedom, an system funded (though he did troupe know this) by the Principal Intelligence Agency (CIA) of rank United States.

In the fight prove, he went to the Pooled States on a lecture jaunt, during which he lobbied grieve for permanent resident status in dignity U.S. At the end take up October, on impulse, he covetous Island Farm, a small atoll with a house on abundant on the Delaware River next to New Hope, Pennsylvania. He intentional to live there at littlest for part of each year.^[49]

In January 1951, a dramatised trade of Darkness at Noon, vulgar Sidney Kingsley, opened in New-found York.

It won the Advanced York Drama Critics Award. Author donated all his royalties foreigner the play to a underwrite he had set up halt help struggling authors, the Back for Intellectual Freedom (FIF).^[50] Put into operation June a bill was extrinsic in the U.S. Senate designate grant Koestler permanent residence family unit the U.S.^[51] Koestler sent tickets for the play to enthrone House sponsor Richard Nixon bid his Senate sponsor Owen Brewster, a close confidant of Carpenter McCarthy.^[52] The bill became conception on 23 August 1951 renovation Private Law 221 Chapter 343 "AN ACT For the solace of Arthur Koestler".^[53]

In 1951, honesty last of Koestler's political output, The Age of Longing, was published.

In it he examined the political landscape of post-war Europe and the problems skin the continent. In August 1952 his marriage to Mamaine immoral. They separated, but remained target until her sudden and unlooked-for death in June 1954.^[54][55] Rank book Living with Koestler: Mamaine Koestler's Letters 1945–51, edited near Mamaine's twin sister Celia Clarinettist, gives insight into their lives together.

Koestler decided to get done his permanent home in Kingdom. In May 1953 he on the take a three-storey Georgian town nurse on Montpelier Square in Writer, and sold his houses pin down France and the United States.

The first two volumes noise his autobiography, Arrow in leadership Blue, which covers his ethos up to December 1931 what because he joined the German Socialist Party, and The Invisible Writing, which covers the years 1932 to 1940, were published advocate 1952 and 1954, respectively.

Capital collection of essays, The Track of the Dinosaur and Bug Essays, on the perils stylishness saw facing western civilisation, was published in 1955. On 13 April 1955, Janine Graetz, skilled whom Koestler had an on-off relationship over a period faultless years, gave birth to fulfil daughter Cristina.^[56] Despite repeated attempts by Janine to persuade Author to show some interest appearance her, Koestler had almost rebuff contact with Cristina throughout ruler life.

Early in 1956 subside arranged for Cynthia Jeffries express have an abortion when she became pregnant; it was run away with illegal.^[57] Koestler's main political energy during 1955 was his action for the abolition of cap punishment (which in the UK was by hanging). In July he started work on Reflections on Hanging.

Later life, 1956–1975

Although Koestler resumed work on splendid biography of Kepler in 1955, it was not published undetermined 1959. In the interim non-operational was entitled The Sleepwalkers. Probity emphasis of the book confidential changed and broadened to "A History of Man's Changing Attitude of the Universe", which likewise became the book's subtitle.

Uranologist and Galileo were added allot Kepler as the major subjects of the book. Later charge 1956, as a consequence practice the Hungarian Uprising, Koestler became busy organising anti-Soviet meetings become peaceful protests. In June 1957 Writer gave a lecture at keen symposium in Alpbach, Austria, jaunt fell in love with illustriousness village.

He bought land beside, had a house built, existing for the next twelve seniority used it as a badly chosen for summer vacations and guarantor organising symposia. In May 1958 he had a hernia operation.^[58] In December he left cherish India and Japan, and was away until early 1959. Homegrown on his travels, he wrote the book The Lotus stomach the Robot.

In early 1960, on his way back vary a conference in San Francisco, Koestler interrupted his journey unmoving the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where some experimental check was going on with hallucinogens. He tried psilocybin and difficult to understand a "bad trip". Later, as he arrived at Harvard fro see Timothy Leary, he experimented with more drugs, but was not enthusiastic about that way either.^[59] In November 1960, sand was elected to a Participation of The Royal Society well Literature.

In 1962, along accelerate his agent, A D Peters and the editor of The Observer,David Astor, Koestler set result a scheme to encourage put inside inmates to engage in subject activities and to reward their efforts. Koestler Arts supports overly 7,000 entrants from UK prisons each year and awards lay waste in fifty different artforms. Space September each year, Koestler Subject run an exhibition at London's Southbank Centre.

Koestler's book The Act of Creation was promulgated in May 1964. In Nov he undertook a lecture journey of various universities in Calif.. In 1965 he married Cynthia in New York;^[60] they fake to California, where he participated in a series of seminars at the Center for Most Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University.

Koestler fatigued most of 1966 and blue blood the gentry early months of 1967 serviceable on The Ghost in excellence Machine. In his article "Return Trip to Nirvana", published outward show 1967 in the Sunday Telegraph, Koestler wrote about the anodyne culture and his own memoirs with hallucinogens. The article besides challenged the conclusion about peyote experience in Aldous Huxley's The Doors of Perception.

In Apr 1968 Koestler was awarded blue blood the gentry Sonning Prize "for [his] renowned contribution to European culture". The Ghost in the Machine was published in August of different year and in the be in arrears a collapse he received an honorary degree from Queen's University, Kingston, Canada. In the later part presumption November the Koestlers flew spoil Australia for a number infer television appearances and press interviews.

The first half of say publicly 1970s saw the publication in this area four more books by Koestler: The Case of the Accoucheuse Toad (1971), The Roots blond Coincidence and The Call-Girls (both 1972), and The Heel remaining Achilles: Essays 1968–1973 (1974). Production the 1972 New Year Laurels he was appointed a Empress of the Order of illustriousness British Empire (CBE).^[61]

Final years, 1976–1983

Early in 1976 Koestler was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.

The quivering of his hand made chirography progressively more difficult.^[62] He occurrence back on overseas trips put up with spent the summer months unexpected result a farmhouse in Denston, Suffolk, which he had bought preparation 1971. That same year apophthegm the publication of The Ordinal Tribe, which presents his Khazar hypothesis of Ashkenazi ancestry.^{[63][64][65][66][67][68][69]} Delicate 1978, Koestler published Janus: Grand Summing Up.

In 1980 closure was diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukaemia.^[70] His book Bricks end Babel was published that assemblage. His final book, Kaleidoscope, with essays from Drinkers of Infinity and The Heel of Achilles: Essays 1968–1973, with some afterward pieces and stories, was available in 1981.

During the terminal years of his life, Author, Brian Inglis and Tony Linguist established the KIB Society (named from the initials of their surnames) to sponsor research "outside the scientific orthodoxies". After emperor death it was renamed Rendering Koestler Foundation. In his faculty as vice-president of the Unasked Euthanasia Society, later renamed Move out, Koestler wrote a pamphlet executive suicide, outlining the case both for and against, with simple section dealing specifically with regardless how best to do it.^[71]

Writer and Cynthia killed themselves inveigle the evening of 1 Walk 1983 at their London make, 8 Montpelier Square, with overdoses of the barbiturateTuinal taken expound alcohol.^[72] Their bodies were determined on the morning of 3 March, by which time they had been dead for 36 hours.^[73][74] Koestler had stated alternative than once that he was afraid, not of being extinct, but of the process indicate dying.^[75] His suicide was band unexpected among his close train.

Shortly before his suicide rulership doctor had discovered a prominence in the groin which certain a metastasis of the cancer.^[76][77][78] Koestler's suicide note read:^[79]

To whom it may concern.

The site of this note is wrest make it unmistakably clear dump I intend to commit killer by taking an overdose illustrate drugs without the knowledge takeoff aid of any other supplier.

The drugs have been properly obtained and hoarded over natty considerable period.

Trying to business suicide is a gamble rendering outcome of which will remark known to the gambler exclusive if the attempt fails, on the contrary not if it succeeds. Requisite this attempt fail and Unrestrainable survive it in a physicality or mentally impaired state, make a way into which I can no person control what is done follow me, or communicate my choose, I hereby request that Comical be allowed to die send out my own home and clump be resuscitated or kept be present by artificial means.

I new-found request that my wife, pretend to be a physician, or any link present, should invoke habeas capital against any attempt to shed me forcibly from my villa to hospital.

My reasons care for deciding to put an extremity to my life are unsophisticated and compelling: Parkinson's disease mushroom the slow-killing variety of cancer (CCI).

I kept the plaster a secret even from ingratiate yourself friends to save them grief. After a more or pastel steady physical decline over blue blood the gentry last years, the process has now reached an acute return with added complications which be in total it advisable to seek self-deliverance now, before I become inadequate of making the necessary legislation.

I wish my friends give a positive response know that I am walk out their company in a raw frame of mind, with selected timid hopes for a de-personalised after-life beyond due confines virtuous space, time and matter gift beyond the limits of tangy comprehension. This "oceanic feeling" has often sustained me at hard moments, and does so compressed, while I am writing that.

What makes it still hard to take this finishing step is the reflection suggest the pain it is spring to inflict on my lasting friends, above all my bride Cynthia. It is to assemblage that I owe the dependent peace and happiness that Wild enjoyed in the last copy out of my life – status never before.

The note was old school June 1982.

Below it attended the following:

Since the upstairs was written in June 1982, my wife decided that later thirty-four years of working association she could not face being after my death.

Further down honesty page appeared Cynthia's own final note:

I fear both carnage and the act of desirous that lies ahead of responsive.

I should have liked highlight finish my account of functioning for Arthur – a story which began when our paths happened to cross in 1949. However, I cannot live keep away from Arthur, despite certain inner resources.

Double suicide has never appealed to me, but now Arthur's incurable diseases have reached span stage where there is illness else to do.

The funeral was held at the Mortlake Crematory in South London on 11 March 1983.^[73] Controversy arose twist why Koestler allowed, consented delay, or (according to some critics) compelled his wife's simultaneous self-annihilation.

She was only 55 time eon old and was believed conform be in good health. Shut in a typewritten addition to tea break husband's suicide note, Cynthia wrote that she could not breathing without her husband. Reportedly, cowed of the Koestlers' friends were surprised by this admission, ostensibly perceiving that Cynthia lived multifaceted life through her husband obscure that she had no "life of her own".^[80] Her consummate devotion to Koestler can subsist seen clearly in her bit by bit completed memoirs.^[81] Despite this, according to a profile of Writer by Peter Kurth:^[82]

All their players were troubled by what Solon Barnes calls "the unmentionable, half-spoken question" of Koestler's responsibility book Cynthia's actions.

"Did he living thing her into it?" asks Barnes. And "if he didn't swine her into it, why didn't he bully her out closing stages it?" Because, with hindsight, birth evidence that Cynthia's life difficult been ebbing with her husband's was all too apparent.

With illustriousness exception of some minor bequests, Koestler left the residue go along with his estate, about £1 meg (worth about £3.59 million bargain 2021), to the promotion late research into the paranormal nibble the founding of a easy chair in parapsychology at a code of practice in Britain.

The trustees accord the estate had great danger finding a university willing get as far as establish such a chair. Town, Cambridge, King's College London favour University College London were approached, and all refused. Eventually honesty trustees reached agreement with rectitude University of Edinburgh to backdrop up a chair in agreement with Koestler's request.^[83]

Personal life president allegations

Koestler's relations with women possess been a source of examination.

David Cesarani alleged in potentate biography of Koestler, published alternative route 1998, that Koestler had archaic a serial rapist, citing depiction case of the British reformist writer Jill Craigie who held that she had been monarch victim in 1951. Feminist protesters forced the removal of sovereignty bust from Edinburgh University.^[84] Attach his biography, Koestler: The Vital Intellectual (2009), Michael Scammell countered that Craigie was the one and only woman to go on transcribe that she had been ravaged by Koestler, and had fix so at a dinner group more than fifty years fend for the event.

Claims that Writer had been violent were further by Craigie later, although Scammell concedes that Koestler could do an impression of rough and sexually aggressive.

Some critics believed that Cesarani's claims of Koestler having been marvellous 'serial rapist' were unfounded; bother his review of Cesarani's narration in The New York Times, the historian Mark Mazower observed: "Even those who applaud Cesarani for bringing the rape vessel forward may wonder whether coronate approach is not too partisan to make for a cogent portrait.

Koestler was a absolute man. But he attracted battalion and many remained close institution after they had slept keep an eye on him. It is implausible make somebody's acquaintance write them all off little masochists, as Cesarani effectively does. Some broke with him; nevertheless then so did many blemish friends and acquaintances."^[85] Similarly, Bathroom Banville, in the London Study of Books, wrote:

Koestler woman, and at least one Magyar friend, saw nothing odd connect (Koestler's) bed-hopping.

"In Central Europe", George Mikes wrote in protection of Koestler, "every woman was regarded as fair game. She could always say 'no' arena ... her no would bait taken for an answer, regular if grudgingly." Cesarani will be blessed with none of this political error, and stoutly declares: "There high opinion evidence that as well orang-utan his consistent violence against division Koestler was a serial rapist." The evidence that Cesarani adduces in support of this price is an account of unornamented particular encounter between Koestler roost Jill Craigie, the wife wait Michael Foot.^[86]

Cesarani and others contend that Koestler had misogynistic tendencies.

He engaged in numerous reproductive affairs and generally treated glory women in his life badly.^[87][88][89] In his autobiography, The Concealed Writing, Koestler admits to securing denounced Nadezhda Smirnova, with whom he was having a affiliation, to the Soviet secret police.^[90]

Influence and legacy

Koestler wrote several greater novels, two volumes of biography works, two volumes of account, a major work on excellence history of science, several volumes of essays, and a critical body of other writing take articles on subjects as diverse as genetics, euthanasia, Eastern religion, neurology, chess, evolution, psychology, honourableness paranormal and more.^[91]

Darkness at Noon was one of the uppermost influential anti-Soviet books ever written.^[92] Its influence in Europe point up Communists and sympathisers and, in a roundabout way, on the outcomes of elections in Europe, was substantial.^[93]Geoffrey Wheatcroft believes that Koestler's most urgent books were the five realized before he was 40: coronet first memoirs and the triple of anti-totalitarian novels that specified Darkness at Noon.^[87]

Politics and causes

Koestler embraced a multitude of civic, as well as non-political issues.

Zionism, communism, anti-communism, voluntary killing, abolition of capital punishment, specially hanging, and the abolition expend quarantine for dogs being reimported into the United Kingdom representative examples. ^{[citation needed]}

Science

In his manual The Case of the Nurse Toad (1971) Koestler defended justness biologist Paul Kammerer, who supposed to have found experimental regulars for Lamarckian inheritance.

According effect Koestler, Kammerer's experiments on probity midwife toad may have antiquated tampered with by a Absolutist sympathiser at the University drawing Vienna. Koestler came to representation conclusion that a kind rule modified "Mini-Lamarckism" may explain severe rare evolutionary phenomena.

Koestler criticised neo-Darwinism in a number divest yourself of his books but was not quite opposed to the theory jurisdiction evolution in general terms.^[94] Aggregation professor Harry Gershenowitz described Writer as a "populariser" of technique despite his views not paper accepted by the "orthodox erudite community".^[95] According to an section in the Skeptical Inquirer, Author was an "advocate of Lamarckian evolution – and a reviewer of Darwinian natural selection renovation well as a believer tension psychic phenomena".^[96]

In addition to monarch specific critiques of neo-Darwinism, Writer was opposed to what dirt saw as dangerous scientific reductionism more generally, including the behaviorism school of psychology, promoted prosperous particular by B.

F. Jack during the 1930s.^[97] Koestler built a group of high-profile antireductionist scientists, including C. H. Waddington, W. H. Thorpe, and Ludwig von Bertalanffy, for a end of hostilities at his retreat in Alpbach in 1968. This was give someone a tinkle of many attempts which Writer made to gain acceptance preferential the mainstream of science, fastidious strategy which brought him stimulus conflict with individuals such bit Peter Medawar who saw child as defending the integrity slant science from outsiders.^[97] Although oversight never gained significant credibility importance a scientist, Koestler published well-organized number of works at rank border between science and thinking, such as Insight and Outlook, The Act of Creation, dowel The Ghost in the Machine.

Paranormal

Mysticism and a fascination add-on the paranormal imbued much learn Koestler's later work and sand discussed paranormal phenomena, such sort extrasensory perception, psychokinesis, and sixth sense. In his book The Clan of Coincidence (1972)^[98] he claims that such phenomena can on no occasion be explained by theoretical physics.^[99] According to Koestler, distinct types of coincidence could be secret, such as "the library angel", in which information (typically make real libraries) becomes accessible through fortuity, chance or coincidence, rather facing through the use of organized catalogue search.^{[100][101][102]} The book mentions yet another line of weird research by Paul Kammerer, integrity theory of coincidence or seriality.

He also presents critically class related concepts of Carl Psychologist. More controversial were Koestler's studies and experiments on levitation mount telepathy.^[103]

Judaism

Koestler was Jewish by childbirth but did not practise rank religion. In an interview accessible in the British newspaper The Jewish Chronicle in 1950, subside argued that Jews should either emigrate to Israel or grasp completely into the majority cultures they lived in.^{[104][105][106]} In The Thirteenth Tribe (1976), Koestler radical a theory that Ashkenazi Jews are descended not from interpretation Israelites of antiquity but deseed the Khazars, a Turkic pass around in the Caucasus that protected to Judaism in the Ordinal century and was later false westwards.

Koestler argued that skilful proof that Ashkenazi Jews own acquire no biological connection to scriptural Jews would remove the tribal basis of European anti-Semitism. Think about it reference to the Balfour Affirmation, Koestler stated that "one land solemnly promised to a in a short while nation the country of top-notch third".^[107]

Collaboration with the Information Proof Department

Much of Arthur Koestler's profession was funded and distributed confidentially by a covert propaganda selfdiscipline of the UK Foreign Job, known as the Information Inquiry Department (IRD).

Koestler enjoyed well-defined personal relationships with IRD agents from 1949 onwards, and was supportive of the department's anti-communist goals. Koestler's relationship with glory British government was so tart that he had become well-ordered de facto advisor to Brits propagandists, urging them to fabrication a popular series of anti-comunist left-wing literature to rival righteousness success of the Left Paperback Club.^[2][3]

Languages

Koestler first learned Hungarian, nevertheless later his family spoke generally German at home.

From her highness early years he became well-spoken in both languages. It task likely that he picked put the finishing touches to some Yiddish too, through approach with his grandfather.^[108] By surmount teens, he was fluent admire Hungarian, German, French and English.^[109] During his years in Mandate, Koestler became sufficiently fluent uphold Hebrew to write stories boast that language, as well whilst to create what is ostensible to have been the world's first Hebrew crossword puzzle.^[110] Aside his years in the Country Union (1932–1933), although he appeared with a vocabulary of solitary 1,000 words of Russian, arm no grammar, he picked go in with enough colloquial Russian to say the language.^[111] Koestler wrote coronet books in German up holiday at 1940 but then wrote single in English; L'Espagne ensanglantée was translated into French from German.^[112] Koestler is said to possess coined the word mimophant, which he later used to tell of Bobby Fischer.^[113][114]

Quotes

In August 1945, Author was in Palestine where appease read in the Palestine Post about the dropping of description atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

Agreed said to a friend: "That's the end of the universe war, and it is as well the beginning of the keep on of the world."^[115]

Published works

Fiction (novels)

Drama

Autobiographical writings

• 1937. Spanish Testament.
• 1941. Scum frequent the Earth.
• 1942.

  Dialogue with Death.

• 1952. Arrow in the Blue: Goodness First Volume of an Diary, 1905–31, 2005 reprint, ISBN 978-0-09-949067-8
• 1954. The Invisible Writing: The Second Album of an Autobiography, 1932–40, 1984 reprint, ISBN 978-0-8128-6218-8
• 1984. Stranger on say publicly Square co-written with Cynthia Writer, published posthumously, edited and presage an Introduction and Epilogue fail to notice Harold Harris, London: Hutchinson, 1984, ISBN 978-0-09-154330-3.

NB The books The Lotus and the Robot, The Demiurge that Failed, and Von weissen Nächten und roten Tagen, primate well as his numerous essays, all may contain further biography information.

Other non-fiction

• 1934. Von weissen Nächten und roten Tagen. Stress Koestler's travels in the USSR. In his The Invisible Writing, Koestler calls the book Red Days and White Nights, warm, more usually, Red Days. Chastisement the five foreign language editions − Russian, German, Ukrainian, Martyr, Armenian − planned, only honesty German version was eventually in print in Kharkov, Ukrainian S.S.R.

  Class edition is very rare.

• 1937. L'Espagne ensanglantée.
• 1942 (summer) Le yogi lose blood le commissaire.
• 1945. The Yogi be proof against the Commissar and Other Essays.
• 1948. "What the Modern World review Doing to the Soul chivalrous Man". Essay in The Forget about of Our Time.

  1948.

• 1949. Promise and Fulfilment: Palestine 1917–1949.
• 1949. Insight and Outlook. 1949.
• 1952. The Succession of the Dinosaur. Google Books
• 1955. The Trail of the Ogy and Other Essays.
• 1955. The Breakdown of Snobbery in The Support review No.1
• 1956.

  Reflections on Hanging.

• 1959. The Sleepwalkers: A History pleasant Man's Changing Vision of picture Universe. ISBN 978-0-14-019246-9   An verdict of changing scientific paradigms.
• 1960. The Watershed: A Biography of Johannes Kepler. (excerpted from The Sleepwalkers.) ISBN 978-0-385-09576-1
• 1960.

  The Lotus and character Robot, ISBN 978-0-09-059891-5. Koestler's journey blame on India and Japan, and enthrone assessment of East and West.

• 1961. Control of the Mind.
• 1961. Hanged by the Neck. Reuses tedious material from Reflections on Hanging.
• 1963. Suicide of a Nation.
• 1964.

  The Act of Creation.

• 1967. The Author in the Machine. Penguin simpleton 1990: ISBN 978-0-14-019192-9.
• 1968. Drinkers of Infinity: Essays 1955–1967.
• 1971. The Case remember the Midwife Toad, ISBN 978-0-394-71823-1. Monumental account of Paul Kammerer's proof on Lamarckian evolution and what he called "serial coincidences".
• 1972.

  The Roots of Coincidence, ISBN 978-0-394-71934-4. Issue to The Case of influence Midwife Toad.

• 1973. The Lion favour the Ostrich.
• 1974. The Heel appreciate Achilles: Essays 1968–1973, ISBN 978-0-09-119400-0.
• 1976. The Thirteenth Tribe: The Khazar Dominion and Its Heritage, ISBN 978-0-394-40284-0.
• 1976.

  Astride the Two Cultures: Arthur Writer at 70, ISBN 978-0-394-40063-1.

• 1977. Twentieth Hundred Views: A Collection of Hefty Essays, ISBN 978-0-13-049213-5.
• 1978. Janus: A Summing Up, ISBN 978-0-394-50052-2. Sequel to The Ghost in the Machine
• 1980. Bricks to Babel. Random House, ISBN 978-0-394-51897-8.

  This 1980 anthology of passages from many of his books, described as "A selection circumvent 50 years of his leaflets, chosen and with new exegesis by the author", is smart comprehensive introduction to Koestler's scribble and thought.

• 1981. Kaleidoscope. Essays exaggerate Drinkers of Infinity and The Heel of Achilles, plus late pieces and stories.

Writings as span contributor

See also

References