Don't Tell Sybil is a libidinous memoir by a master raconteur. George
Melly (1926-2007) was impossible to ignore in London cultural circles
between the 1950s and 90s. He first came to attention as a jazz singer,
notable for risqué songs performed with verve rather than with great
technical ability. An arresting personality, Melly dressed the part: his
outrageous suits became a mark, and his talents as a raconteur soon
brought him fame as a TV talkshow guest (usually late-night shows, for
reasons of propriety). His cheerful bisexuality, recounted throughout
his three volumes of autobiography, scandalized and then delighted a
public whose own sexual attitudes changed over the decades they
describe. Don't Tell Sybil is a supplementary volume of autobiography
which treats in more detail Melly's youthful and long-lasting attraction
to Surrealism, and his equally lengthy friendship with the contradictory
character who headed up the English Surrealist group, E.L.T. Mesens.
Their adventures form the core of this book--adventures of which Mesens
did not want his wife, Sybil, to learn, hence the book's title. Mesens
was a perfect subject, an artist and prankster who could be as
punctilious and stingy as the most respectable bourgeois. Anecdotes of
the artists who showed at Mesens' gallery, such as Schwitters and
Magritte, pepper the narrative, a hugely affectionate memoir by a
character who was truly larger than life. This new edition is augmented
with previously unpublished photographs relating to Melly and English
Surrealism.
