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
Friends, Associates Ivy Compton-Burnett
Compton-Burnett always retained the capacity of being difficult. Elizabeth Taylor describes at second hand her refusal, in about 1959, to extend the hand of friendship to Rebecca West . Rebecca was apparently at her most...
Friends, Associates Harriet Shaw Weaver
As editor, HSW attempted to recruit Storm Jameson for the paper, but Jameson unhappily could not accept a full-time position. She also began to acquaint herself with contributors, such as H. D. , whom she...
Friends, Associates Marie Belloc Lowndes
Her literary friends of a generation before her own included George Meredith , Rhoda Broughton , and Henry James . She participated in the friendship of the two last-named by being regularly at Broughton's house...
Friends, Associates May Sinclair
Her articles and critical reviews were encouraging for many writers, including T. S. Eliot .
Scott, Bonnie Kime. Refiguring Modernism. Indiana University Press, 1995, 2 vols.
85
Sinclair also made the acquaintance of other women writers, including Alice Meynell , Ida Wylie (a close friend), Rebecca West
Friends, Associates Victoria Cross
Possibly because VC spent so much time travelling, it is difficult to judge the extent of her social circle. She is unmentioned by many literary autobiographies of the period. Charlotte Mitchell suggests that she may...
Friends, Associates Lucille Iremonger
LI and her husband were correspondents both of Rebecca West and of controversial Conservative MP Enoch Powell .
“The Rebecca West Papers”. University of Tulsa: McFarlin Library: Department of Special Collections.
Janus. http://janus.lib.cam.ac.uk/.
Powell, John Enoch
Friends, Associates Storm Jameson
The two women were friends through the 1930s and their relationship became increasingly intimate after the death of Winifred Holtby on 29 September 1935. Brittain stayed with Jameson and Chapman the night after Holtby died...
Friends, Associates Catharine Amy Dawson Scott
Once settled in a larger house more suited to entertaining, CADS renewed old friendships and made new ones with luminaries in London literary society, including Beatrice Harraden , Arthur Waugh , H. G. Wells ,...
Friends, Associates Dora Marsden
Introduced to each other by Mary Gawthorpe , DM and Rebecca West began a friendship based on their shared interest in feminist issues.
Garner, Les. A Brave and Beautiful Spirit: Dora Marsden, 1882-1960. Avebury, 1990.
93
Rollyson, Carl. Rebecca West: A Saga of the Century. Hodder and Stoughton, 1995.
16-17
Friends, Associates Virginia Woolf
By the time of the move to Tavistock Square, VW began to socialize more than she had in years. She circulated with Bloomsbury familiars and (re)acquainted herself with Rebecca West , Rose Macaulay ,...
Friends, Associates Violet Trefusis
Around the same period she began friendships with, among others, Edith , Osbert , and Sacheverell Sitwell , Rebecca West , and Nancy Cunard . She writes in her memoir of the scintilliating Sitwell triumverate...
Friends, Associates Dora Russell
Sylvia Pankhurst enrolled her son as a day-boy at Beacon Hill, and lived nearby while writing The Suffragette Movement; Beatrice and Sidney Webb , and G. B. Shaw also visited. The school hosted annual...
Friends, Associates Violet Hunt
VH met and was fascinated by Rebecca West , who had recently written a review Hunt called a column of wit and innuendo—as destructive as a prairie fire.
qtd. in
Belford, Barbara. Violet. Simon and Schuster, 1990.
193-4
Friends, Associates F. Tennyson Jesse
Gordon Place became the centre of an active female literary community, which included Elizabeth Bowen , Rose Macaulay , Virginia Woolf , Ivy Low (who was also a good friend of Viola Meynell ), Ivy Compton-Burnett
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...

Timeline

No timeline events available.

Texts

West, Rebecca. The Birds Fall Down. Macmillan, 1966.
West, Rebecca. The Court and the Castle. Yale University Press, 1957.
West, Rebecca. The Fountain Overflows. Macmillan, 1957.
West, Rebecca. “The Gospel According to Mrs. Humphrey Ward”. The Freewoman.
West, Rebecca. The Harsh Voice. Jonathan Cape, 1935.
West, Rebecca. The Judge. Hutchinson.
West, Rebecca. The Meaning of Treason. Viking.
West, Rebecca. The Meaning of Treason. Rev. ed., Pan Books, 1956.
West, Rebecca, and David Low. The Modern "Rake’s Progress". Hutchinson, 1934, http://UofA.
West, Rebecca. The New Meaning of Treason. Viking Press, 1964.
West, Rebecca. The Only Poet and Short Stories. Editor Till, Antonia, Virago, 1992.
West, Rebecca. The Return of the Soldier. Nisbet, 1918.
West, Rebecca. The Sentinel. Editor Laing, Kathryn, Legenda, 2002.
West, Rebecca. The Strange Necessity. Jonathan Cape.
West, Rebecca. The Thinking Reed. Hutchinson.
West, Rebecca. The Young Rebecca. Editor Marcus, Jane, Macmillan with Virago, 1982, http://UofA.
West, Rebecca. This Real Night. Macmillan, 1984.
West, Rebecca. War Nurse. Cosmopolitan Book Corporation.