Symons, Julian

Julian Gustave Symons was a British author and critic born in London, where he spent part of his life. His mother was English and his father a Russian Jew, a stern Victorian patriarch who gave his son little or no encouragement. Symons developed such a severe stammer in childhood that he was sent to a succession of state schools for retarded children. He was close to his twelve years older brother, the famous bibliophile, author and epicure Alphonse James Albert Symons, who encouraged his brother to become a self-educated man. He died in 1941, deeply mourned by his brother who later remembered him in A.J.A. Symons : His Life and Speculations (1950). He also published some of their correspondence in Two Brothers (1985).