The Sitwells

'They are all poets. But they are more than that. They are a cult. " That was the London Star's verdict on this imperial threesome (clockwise): Sir Sacheverell, SirOsbert, and Dame Edith Sitwell. In 1929 the inseparable siblings rivaled the Bloomsbury set for London's most glittering salon. But dissension from their somewhat dotty aesthetic didn't sit well with the Sitwells, and they waged famous wars on the "Philistines" D. H. Lawrence, Aldous Huxley, Wyndham Lewis, and Noel Coward—until the Queen interceded. Edith, six feet tall, with a nose Gertrude Stein called "one of the wonders of creation," dressed in Medici chic, made Dylan Thomas her protege, and read her famed Facade, set to music by William Walton, through a megaphone. Osbert listed his hobby as "regretting the Bourbons," kept a stock of china to smash in times of anguish, and published a five-part memoir, while Sacheverell more quietly wrote respected books on art and nature. His Great Flower Books and Fine Bird Books are being reissued by the Atlantic Monthly Press.