Wilfrid Sheed

Wilfrid John Joseph Sheed (27 December 1930 – 19 January 2011^[1]) was an English-born American novelist and essayist.

Sheed was born in London to Francis "Frank" Sheed and Mary "Maisie" Ward, prominent Roman Catholic publishers (Sheed & Ward) in the United Kingdom and the United States during the mid-20th century. Wilfrid Sheed spent his childhood in both England and the United States before attending Downside School and Lincoln College, Oxford where he earned BA (1954) and MA (1957) degrees.^[1]

Sheed's first novel, A Middle Class Education (1961), was based on his experiences at Oxford. His biography Frank and Maisie was about his parents' literary establishment and intellectual world. He wrote satirical novels about journalism and memoirs in his later years. His book on American popular music, entitled The House that George Built with a little help from Irving, Cole and a Crew of about Fifty was published in 2008.

Garrison Keillor commented in a review of the book:

"Golden Age of American Song has been saluted and high-faluted in books and wept over repeatedly, but “The House That George Built” is a big rich stew of an homage that makes you want to listen to Gershwin and Berlin and Porter and Arlen all over again ... Sheed's jazzy prose is a joy to read. It goes catapulting along, digressing like mad, never pedantic, a little frantic, which is just right: the jazz song, like all true art, is a flight from depression, indifference, the cold blank stare, the earnest clammy touch.^[2]

Contents 1 Family 2 Death 3 Published works 4 Further reading 5 Awards and honors 6 References 7 External links

Family

Sheed was a great-grandson of William George Ward, a grandson of Wilfrid Philip Ward, a nephew of Father Leo Ward, a missioner in Japan^[3] and co-founder of Sheed & Ward, the son of Maisie Ward and Frank Sheed, and the brother of the translator, Rosemary Sheed.^[4]

He married Maria Bullitt Darlington in 1957 and they had three children; the marriage ended in divorce in 1967. He remarried in 1972 to cookbook author Miriam Ungerer.^[5] At his death he was survived by his second wife, three children, a sister, two stepdaughters and four grandchildren.

Death

He died on 19 January 2011, aged 80, from urosepsis in Great Barrington, Massachusetts.

Published works

• A Middle Class Education. 1961.
• The Hack. 1963.
• Square's Progress. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1965.
• Office Politics. 1966.
• The Blacking Factory. 1968.
• Max Jamison. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1970.
• The Morning After: Selected essays and reviews. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1971. ISBN 0374213054.
• People Will Always Be Kind. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1973. ISBN 0374230714.
• Three Mobs: Labor, church, and Mafia. New York: Sheed & Ward, 1974. ISBN 0836205863.
• Muhammad Ali: A Portrait in Words and Photographs. Orion Publishing Group. 1975. ISBN 0297770322
• The Good Word & Other Words. New York: Dutton, 1978. ISBN 0525115927.
• Transatlantic Blues New York: Dutton, 1978. ISBN 978-0525222262.
• Clare Boothe Luce. New York: Dutton, 1982. ISBN 0525030557.
• Frank and Maisie: A memoir with parents. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1985. ISBN 0671449907.
• The Boys of Winter: A novel. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1987. ISBN 039455874X.
• Essays in Disguise. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1990. ISBN 0394558758.
• Baseball and Lesser Sports. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1991. ISBN 0060165316.
• My Life as a Fan. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993. ISBN 0671767100.
• In Love with Daylight: A memoir of recovery. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995. ISBN 0671792156.
• The House that George Built with a little help from Irving, Cole and a Crew of about Fifty. New York: Random House, 2007 ISBN 9781400061051.

Further reading

• Frank Sheed (1974), The Church and I, Garden City, NY: Doubleday.
• Maisie Ward (1963), Unfinished Business, New York: Sheed & Ward.
• Maisie Ward (1973), To and Fro on the Earth: A Sequel to an Autobiography, New York: Sheed & Ward.

Awards and honors

• 1987 Grammy Award for Best Album Notes for his liner notes for The Voice – The Columbia Years 1943-1952, performed by Frank Sinatra.

References

External links

• Writer's Almanac
• Seattle Public Library's online catalog

Persondata
Name	Sheed, Wilfrid John Joseph
Alternative names
Short description	English-American novelist and essayist
Date of birth	December 27, 1930
Place of birth	London, England, UK
Date of death	January 19, 2011 (aged 80)
Place of death