Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Naomi Royde-Smith
-
Standard Name: Royde-Smith, Naomi
Birth Name: Naomi Gwladys Holroyd Smith
Self-constructed Name: Naomi Royde-Smith
Indexed Name: N. G. Royde-Smith
Indexed Name: Naomi Gwladys Royde-Smith
Married Name: Naomi Gwladys Milton
NRS
'a most important literary work included serving as midwife to the writings of others. She also published prodigiously, from early in the twentieth century: nearly forty novels, besides short stories, anthologies and compilations, biographies, reviews and criticism, four plays, and books about railways and other forms of transport.
Virginia Woolf
's Kitty Malone in The Years has read The History of the Fairchild Family. Naomi Royde-Smith
dedicated her book on MMS
to her parents, who in the year 1884 when a bachelor...
Literary responses
Kate O'Brien
KOB
called this not a historical novel, but an invention rising from reflection on its central characters.
qtd. in
Reynolds, Lorna. Kate O’Brien: A Literary Portrait. Colin Smythe; Barnes and Noble, 1987.
71
Naomi Royde-Smith
, however, reviewed it as not only KOB
's best novel to date but also...
Literary responses
Mary Martha Sherwood
Naomi Royde-Smith
thought equally highly of this novel both as child and as adult reader.
Royde-Smith, Naomi, and Denis Dighton. The State of Mind of Mrs. Sherwood. Macmillan, 1946.
xvi
Literary responses
Mary Martha Sherwood
The Spectator praised this book as bearing the stamp of truth and as having greater interest than some more ambitious fictions.
qtd. in
Stuart Bennett Rare Books & Manuscripts: A Catalogue of Books By, For, and About Women of the British Isles, 1696-1892. Stuart Bennett Rare Books & Manuscripts, Feb. 2007.
Naomi Royde-Smith
judged this technically the best of her works for its clarity and...
Literary Setting
Rose Macaulay
This novel, dedicated to the Philistines, the Barbarians, the Unsociable, has one of them as protagonist: the non-intellectual, extrovert, outdoor woman Denham Dobie, whose remote South American upbringing has done nothing to prepare her for...
Material Conditions of Writing
Mary Martha Sherwood
Naomi Royde-Smith
thinks this was written some time before publication. It went through a whole series of American editions up as late as 1870, and was translated into German in 1841.
Royde-Smith, Naomi, and Denis Dighton. The State of Mind of Mrs. Sherwood. Macmillan, 1946.
MMSwrote and signed more than 350 books (mostly for children, but including several adult novels), and left almost a score of fat volumes of diary. Some of her children's books, despite their uncompromisingly hell-fire...
Publishing
Mary Martha Sherwood
William Darton
issued, in a juvenile-reader format with coloured frontispiece, MMS
's novel Caroline Mordaunt; or, The Governess, which twentieth-century critic Naomi Royde-Smith
thought her simply best novel.
Royde-Smith, Naomi, and Denis Dighton. The State of Mind of Mrs. Sherwood. Macmillan, 1946.
51
Publishing
Elizabeth Bowen
The first story which EB
completed was Breakfast, published in her first collection. She had not yet read the most respected short stories of recent years; her biographer Victoria Glendinning
says she was very...
Reception
Rose Macaulay
To celebrate the appearance of her collection, RM
threw a party at her flat to which she ambitiously invited Walter de la Mare
. He attended, as did her publisher for this book, Frank Sidgwick
Reception
Mary Martha Sherwood
Naomi Royde-Smith
discussed this book and thought it in most respects a very good book for boys,
Royde-Smith, Naomi, and Denis Dighton. The State of Mind of Mrs. Sherwood. Macmillan, 1946.
58ff
though she dismissed its sequel, The History of John Marten (whose hero is grown up and a...
Textual Features
Joan Aiken
Naomi Royde-Smith
had used the same title (Jane Fairfax: A New Novel) in 1940 for a fiction of the same kind. Aiken's novel, like Royde-Smith's, goes back to Jane's childhood; unlike her predecessor...
Textual Features
Mary Martha Sherwood
She writes too about social issues in India. Of Indian orphans left to die she demands: Who can describe, or even imagine, the cruelties which prevail in the dark corners of the earth? It...
Textual Production
Mary Martha Sherwood
She began it in connection with the writing game shared with her sister: the exchange of letters in the voice of French characters, modelled on those of Stéphanie-Félicité de Genlis
in Adelaide and Theodore; or...
Textual Production
Kate O'Brien
KOB
followed her first play (the previous year) with a second, The Bridge, opening this time at the Arts Theatre Club
.
Contemporary Authors online gives the date of the first performance as 31...
Timeline
No timeline events available.
Texts
Royde-Smith, Naomi. The Private Life of Mrs. Siddons. V. Gollancz, 1933.
Royde-Smith, Naomi, editor. The Second Problems Book. Sidgwick and Jackson, 1909.
Royde-Smith, Naomi, and Denis Dighton. The State of Mind of Mrs. Sherwood. Macmillan, 1946.
Royde-Smith, Naomi. The Tortoiseshell Cat. Constable, 1925.
Royde-Smith, Naomi. The Westminster Problems Book. Methuen, 1908.
Royde-Smith, Naomi. The Whistling Chambermaid. R. Hale, 1957.
Royde-Smith, Naomi et al. Una and the Red Cross Knight. J. M. Dent, 1905.
Royde-Smith, Naomi, and A. Savory. Van Lords. A. Barker, 1934.
