Rebecca West

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Standard Name: West, Rebecca
Birth Name: Cicily Isabel Fairfield
Nickname: Cissie
Nickname: Anne
Nickname: Panther
Nickname: Rac
Pseudonym: Rebecca West
Married Name: Cicily Isabel Andrews
Used Form: R*b*cc* W*st
Rebecca West rose to fame early (before the First World War) through her witty, acerbic journalism. In addition to numerous essays and reviews, she wrote about a dozen novels, short stories, political analyses, a classic travel book, and works of literary criticism. Her journalism remains an important commentary on the contemporary women's movement, offering both strong intellectual support and trenchant satire. She is known for her pungency of phrase; on occasion she was more eager for a phrase to strike shockingly home than for it to withstand criticism.
Black and white, head-and-shoulders photograph of Rebecca West looking straight forward, wearing a checked jacket with dark cuffs and collar and white flowers pinned at the neckline. With one hand she touches a chunky metal necklace. Her wavy, greying hair, jaw-length, is pushed behind her ears.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Cultural formation Dora Marsden
This constant mobility did not preclude DM from forming loving relationships with several women at this time, however, apart from the constant support provided by her mother . Rona Robinson , a close friend from...
death Catharine Amy Dawson Scott
Tributes to the founder of PEN poured in from writers and friends such as Louis Golding , Rebecca West , and Karel Capek .
Watts, Marjorie, and Frances King. Mrs. Sappho. Duckworth, 1987.
203-5
Education Kate Clanchy
While in EdinburghKC attended George Watson's College , where she was acutely conscious of feeling like an outsider owing to her lack of interest in sports and her bookishness and posh accent.
Jinks, Peter. “Muse turns tables”. Scotland on Sunday, 8 June 1997.
Scott, Jane. “By Virtue Of An Explosive Arts Debut”. The Herald, 30 Dec. 1996.
Described as...
Family and Intimate relationships H. G. Wells
Wells wrote about characters who defied conventional morality. In his own life, he married twice, and had a busy extramarital sexual career. He writes about this himself in the second volume of his autobiography (published...
Family and Intimate relationships Fay Weldon
During her marriage she and Edgar entertained the literary and avant-garde world: she later regaled her grand-daughter with irreverent stories of Joseph Conrad , Jean Rhys (Such a louche young woman),
qtd. in
Weldon, Fay. Auto da Fay. Flamingo, 2002.
102
Ford Madox Ford
Family and Intimate relationships Violet Hunt
VH marked several points of decline in her relationship with Ford . She told Rebecca West that Ford was somewhat repelled
Belford, Barbara. Violet. Simon and Schuster, 1990.
220
by her after he learned in 1914 that she had syphilis. She also...
Family and Intimate relationships Cecily Mackworth
CM later wrote that the search for love was interwoven with many events of her life; she felt her judgement was poor in matters of the heart, and connected this with the loss of her...
Family and Intimate relationships Elizabeth von Arnim
EA and H. G. Wells were lovers, though the relationship was strained: Jane Wells did not intend to divorce her husband, and it was during this time that he became involved with Rebecca West as...
Family and Intimate relationships Charlotte Mew
There has been much speculation, both at the time and more recently, about the nature of the relationship between the two writers. CM seems to have fallen in love, but Sinclair was not receptive, not...
Family and Intimate relationships Dora Marsden
Jardine became Marsden's assistant and for a number of years the two lived together (sometimes with Hannah Marsden ) in London, Southport, and Blackburn. In her Time and Tide piece on Marsden...
Friends, Associates G. B. Stern
GBS moved in literary and artistic circles in London before the first World War. She visited Rebecca West at Leigh-on-Sea in Essex in September 1917 during a week of air-raids.
Stern, G. B. Monogram. Chapman and Hall, 1936.
268ff
Several decades later she...
Friends, Associates Stella Benson
Back in London after various summer travels, SB met Eddie Marsh , Rebecca West , and Elizabeth Bowen .
Grant, Joy. Stella Benson: A Biography. Macmillan, 1987.
251
Friends, Associates Laura Riding
Graves and Riding were touchy as friends, between their sense of literary mission (they saw Graves's biography of T. E. Lawrence as a somewhat demeaning potboiler, not part of his real work at all) and...
Friends, Associates Rosita Forbes
In FinlandRF met the national hero Marshal Mannerheim .
Forbes, Rosita. Gypsy in the Sun. Cassell, 1944.
302
On her first visit to the USA she met Rebecca West , Ruth Draper , Anna Pavlova , and H. G. Wells ; on...
Friends, Associates Violet Hunt
VH greatly admired West , and used their interaction as a spring board from which she delved into issues about women and writing. In 1926, for instance, she compared West physically and intellectually to George Sand

Timeline

23 November 1911: Dora Marsden and Mary Gawthorpe edited the...

Building item

23 November 1911

Dora Marsden and Mary Gawthorpe edited the first issue of The Freewoman: A Weekly Feminist Review, a paper about sexual reform.
Doughan, David, and Denise Sanchez. Feminist Periodicals, 1855-1984. Harvester Press, 1987.
31
Weeks, Jeffrey. Sex, Politics and Society: The Regulation of Sexuality since 1800. Longman, 1981.
166
Harrison, Royden et al. The Warwick Guide to British Labour Periodicals, 1790-1970: A Check List. Harvester Press, 1977.
182

15 April 1912: The Daily Herald, first newspaper of the...

Writing climate item

15 April 1912

The Daily Herald, first newspaper of the Labour Party , was launched on capital of £200; it changed its title to the Herald and back again to the Daily Herald before expiring in 1964.
Bozman, Ernest Franklin, editor. Everyman’s Encyclopaedia. 4th Edition, J. M. Dent, 1958, 12 vols.
Taylor, Miles. “Thanks to the Fels-Naptha Soap King”. London Review of Books, 22 May 2003, pp. 23-4.
23

2 July 1914: The first issue of the magazine Blast, edited...

Building item

2 July 1914

The first issue of the magazine Blast, edited by Wyndham Lewis , formally announced the arrival of Vorticism, an avant-garde movement in art.
Wees, William C. Vorticism and the English Avant-Garde. University of Toronto Press, 1972.
19, 162-79, 213-27

1 January 1916: The British edition of Vogue (an American...

Building item

1 January 1916

The British edition of Vogue (an American fashion magazine) began publishing from Condé Nast in Hanover Square, London.
Winship, Janice. Inside Women’s Magazines. Pandora, 1987.
166
White, Cynthia L. Women’s Magazines 1693-1968. Michael Joseph, 1970.
90
British Library Catalogue. http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?dscnt=0&tab=local_tab&dstmp=1489778087340&vid=BLVU1&mode=Basic&fromLo.
Spawls, Alice. “Does one flare or cling?”. London Review of Books, Vol.
38
, No. 9, 5 May 2016, pp. 40-2.

14 May 1920: Time and Tide began publication, offering...

Building item

14 May 1920

Time and Tide began publication, offering a feminist approach to literature, politics, and the arts: Naomi Mitchison called it the first avowedly feminist literary journal with any class, in some ways ahead of its time...

21 February 1924: The first issue appeared of the New Yorker...

Writing climate item

21 February 1924

The first issue appeared of the New Yorker magazine (still going strong in the twenty-first century).
Borne Back Daily. 2001, http://borneback.com/ .
21 February 2011
Kindley, Evan. “Ismism”. London Review of Books, Vol.
36
, No. 2, 23 Jan. 2014, pp. 33-5.
33

1925: Christine Murrell and Letitia Fairfield,...

Building item

1925

Christine Murrell and Letitia Fairfield , in association with the Medical Women's Federation , set out to explode some damaging myths by launching a survey on menstrual experience among girls.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

24 February 1934: The National Council for Civil Liberties...

National or international item

24 February 1934

The National Council for Civil Liberties was founded by journalist Ronald Kidd , who had witnessed the treatment of hunger marchers in London in November 1932.
Liberty: A Brief History. http://web.archive.org/web/20080807173131/http://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/about/1-history/index.shtml.
Blondel, Nathalie. Mary Butts: Scenes from the Life. McPherson & Company, 1998.
443n8

21-25 June 1935: The First International Congress of Writers...

National or international item

21-25 June 1935

The First International Congress of Writers for the Defence of Culture (an anti-fascist event urging the responsibility of writers to their society) was held in Paris.
Rowley, Hazel. Christina Stead: A Biography. Secker and Warburg, 1995.
169-77

17 September 1945: The trial began at the Old Bailey in London...

National or international item

17 September 1945

The trial began at the Old Bailey in London of Lord Haw-Haw (William Joyce), famous as a wartime anti-British, pro-Hitler broadcaster, who before the war had regularly posed as of British nationality.
Laity, Paul. “Uneasy Listening”. London Review of Books, 8 July 2004, pp. 22-4.
22-4

30 September 1946: The Nuremberg trials ended after almost a...

National or international item

30 September 1946

The Nuremberg trials ended after almost a year in court, and judges from Allied countries sentenced eleven Nazi war criminals to death.
Steinberg, Sigfrid Henry. Historical Tables: 58 BC-AD 1985. 11th ed., Garland Publishing, 1986.
252
West, Rebecca. A Train of Powder. Macmillan, 1955.
43, 47, 60
Kinder, Hermann, and Werner Hilgemann. The Anchor Atlas of World History. Translator Menze, Ernest A., Vol.
2
, Anchor, 1978.
II: 249
Palmer, Alan, and Veronica Palmer. The Chronology of British History. Century, 1992.
397

1962: Publisher John Calder and writer's widow...

Writing climate item

1962

Publisher John Calder and writer's widow Sonia Orwell together organised at Edinburgh the first, highly successful Writers' Conference.
Drabble, Margaret. “Pressure to Perform”. The Author, Vol.
cxii
, No. 4, 1 Dec.–28 Feb. 2001, pp. 162-4.
162

22 April 1969: The Booker Prize for the year's best novel...

Writing climate item

22 April 1969

The Booker Prize for the year's best novel was awarded for the first time. The winner was P. H. Newby with Something to Answer For; the judges were chaired by Frank Kermode , and...

Texts

West, Rebecca. 1900. Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1982, http://UofA.
West, Rebecca. A Letter to a Grandfather. Leonard and Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press, 1933.
West, Rebecca. A Train of Powder. Macmillan, 1955.
Glendinning, Victoria, and Rebecca West. “Afterword”. Cousin Rosamund, Macmillan, 1985, pp. 287-95.
Glendinning, Victoria, and Rebecca West. “Afterword”. Sunflower, Virago, 1986, pp. 268-76.
West, Rebecca. Arnold Bennett Himself. John Day, 1931, http://UofA.
West, Rebecca. “Bibliography”. Rebecca West: A Celebration, edited by Samuel Hynes, Viking Press, 1977, pp. 761-6.
West, Rebecca. Black Lamb and Grey Falcon. 1st ed., Viking, 1941, 2 vols.
West, Rebecca. Black Lamb and Grey Falcon. Viking Press, 1945.
West, Rebecca. Cousin Rosamund. Macmillan, 1985, http://UofA.
West, Rebecca. D.H. Lawrence. Martin Secker, 1930, http://UofA.
West, Rebecca. Ending in Earnest. Doubleday, Doran, 1931.
West, Rebecca. Harriet Hume. Hutchinson, 1929.
West, Rebecca. Harriet Hume. Lester and Orpen Dennys, 1982.
West, Rebecca. Henry James. Nisbet.
West, Rebecca. “Indissoluble Matrimony”. Blast, edited by Wyndham Lewis.
Glendinning, Victoria, and Rebecca West. “Introduction”. Harriet Hume, Lester and Orpen Dennys, 1980.
Low, David, and Rebecca West. Lions and Lambs. J. Cape, 1928.
West, Rebecca. McLuhan and the Future of Literature. Oxford University Press, 1969, http://UofA.
West, Rebecca. “Review of: The Position of Women in Indian LifeThe Freewoman.
West, Rebecca. Selected Letters of Rebecca West. Editor Scott, Bonnie Kime, Yale University Press, 2000.
West, Rebecca. St. Augustine. Peter Davies.
West, Rebecca. Sunflower. Virago, 1986.
West, Rebecca. Survivors in Mexico. Editor Schweizer, Bernard, Yale University Press, 2003.
West, Rebecca. “The Addict”. Nash’s Magazine.