Philip O'Connor

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Philip O'Connor (1916-1998) was a British writer and surrealist poet, who also painted. He was one of the 'Wheatsheaf writers' of 1930s Fitzrovia (who took their name from a pub). He married six times and fathered at least eight children.

His Memoirs of a Public Baby (1958, Faber and Faber) threw light on his early life, and was followed by Lower View (1960), Living in Croesor (1962) and Vagrancy (1963). He was a heavy drinker and (at the very least) massively eccentric, living a mainly parasitic life. In his own words, he "bathed in life and dried myself on the typewriter".

He married the American heiress Panna Grady in 1967 and settled with her in France.

Quentin & Philip by Andrew Barrow is a joint biography of him and Quentin Crisp.