J. R. Ackerley - Works

Works

  • The Prisoners of War (first performed 5 July 1925), a play about Captain Conrad's comfortable captivity in Switzerland during World War I. Conrad suffers most from his longing for the attractive young Lieutenant Grayle. Ackerley claimed to prefer the title The Interned to The Prisoners of War.
  • Hindoo Holiday (1932, revised and expanded 1952), a memoir of Ackerley's brief engagement as secretary to an Indian Maharaja in the city of Chhatarpur, which he called Chhokrapur (meaning "City of Boys") as a joke in the book.
  • My Dog Tulip (1956), an account of living with his dog Queenie. Her companionship enabled him to give up seeking casual sex. The dog's name was changed to Tulip in the title when the editors of Commentary, who had purchased an excerpt, became concerned that using her name of Queenie might encourage jokes about Ackerley's sexuality. The book was adapted as an animated feature released in 2009 and starring Christopher Plummer, Lynn Redgrave and Isabella Rossellini.
  • We Think the World of You (1960), Ackerley's only novel; it explores a middle-class intellectual man (based closely on himself) and his working-class London family. It includes a fictionalized account of Ackerley's experience with his dog Queenie (called "Evie" in the book). It explores the frustrations of the relationship between the homosexual narrator and Evie's former owner, who was (mostly) heterosexual. The novel was adapted as a motion picture by the same name in 1988, which starred Alan Bates and Gary Oldman.

Works published posthumously:

  • My Father and Myself (1968), a memoir of Ackerley's life and relationship with his father. Together with a 1975 memoir by his half-sister Diana Petre, it was the basis of the 1979 TV movie Secret Orchards, about their father's two sets of children.
  • E.M. Forster: A Portrait (1970), short biography of the writer.
  • Micheldever and Other Poems (1972), poetry volume.
  • The Ackerley Letters (1975), edited by Neville Braybrooke.
  • My Sister and Myself (1982), selections from Ackerley's diary, edited by Francis King. Most material refers to Ackerley's relationship with his sister Nancy West (née Ackerley).

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