Vincent Brome - Literary Career

Literary Career

Following the electoral success of the Labour Party in 1945, Brome turned his hand to biography writing. Fittingly, his first subject was the new Prime Minister: Clement Attlee. He went on to receive some critical and commercial success with his second work, H.G. Wells in 1950. Brome went on to chronicle the lives of such men as Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Frank Harris, J. B. Priestley, and Havelock Ellis to wide acclaim. Two of his literary works, The Surgeon and The Embassy, were international bestsellers. However, his works were not always treated so kindly by critics; his biography of Aneurin Bevan was particularly poorly received.

Brome was a regular at the British Library, and was a member of its advisory committee from 1975 until 1982. He was a vocal supporter of the library's move from the British Museum to its own purpose built building in St. Pancras, even writing numerous letters to such organs as The Times and the Times Literary Supplement praising the move.

At the time of his death Brome still occupied the third story flat he had lived in for fifty years despite growing frailty and deafness.