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Walter Baxter (1953) - Simon - 03-07-2026
Walter Baxter writes of Sarah, who is very happily married to handsome RAF pilot Robert prior to World War II. Robert is the ideal image alluded to in the book's title. After Robert is missing, presumed killed in the war, Sarah embarks on a search for love to match that which she shared with Robert. She takes many lovers, but none can compare to Robert.
Baxter’s first novel, "Look Down in Mercy", was published to widespread acclaim in both the United Kingdom and the United States, and he was immediately hailed as a young writer of immense talent and promise. His next novel, "The Image and the Search" (1953), was more controversial and landed both Baxter and his publisher, the firm of William Heinemann, in court on criminal obscenity charges. After two trials, Walter Baxter was acquitted, but, disheartened by his ordeal, he never wrote another book. The frank descriptions of sex got Walter Baxter into trouble. Now they'd probably seem rather tame.
The obscenity trial predated that of the unexpurgated edition D. H. Lawrence's "Lady Chatterley's Lover" in 1960 (which was won by publisher Penguin Books, and quickly sold 3 million copies).
Christopher Isherwood records in a diary entry for 1961 that Walter Baxter had “become a rather tragic self-pitying drunken figure with a philosophy of failure,” but nonetheless Baxter enjoyed great success as a restaurateur, owning a French restaurant, the Chanterelle, in South Kensington, which was very highly regarded. In 1962, Baxter met the chef Fergus Provan and the two would become companions for the rest of Baxter’s life; Provan would also take over the running of the Chanterelle after Baxter’s retirement. Walter Baxter died in 1994.