Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Rebecca West
-
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.
Rebecca West
described her style as a speaker: Trembling like a reed, she lifted up her hoarse, sweet voice on the platform, but the reed was of steel and it was tremendous.
qtd. in
Greer, Germaine, and Emmeline Pankhurst. “Foreword”. Freedom or death, Guardian News and Media, 2007.
5
Literary responses
Evelyn Waugh
Rebecca West
, reviewing this novel at its first appearance, extolled the character of Grimes as one of the world's great rogues.
qtd. in
Stovel, Bruce, and Bruce Stovel. “The Genesis of Evelyn Waughs Comic Vision. Waugh, Captain Grimes, and Decline and FallJane Austen and Company: Collected Essays, edited by Nora Foster Stovel and Nora Foster Stovel, University of Alberta Press, 2011, pp. 181-0.
181
Critic Bruce Stovel
has pointed out that, extraordinarily, neither West nor any...
Literary responses
May Sinclair
A nurse who had worked with, but did not belong to, the Motor Field Ambulance Corps
disagreed strongly with MS
's version of some of the events described. After an initial exchange of letters she...
and judged its quality so poor that [it is] hard to believe it was written by FMM
at all.
Hill, Susan, and Flora Macdonald Mayor. The Third Miss Symons, Virago, 1980, p. n.p.
prelims
Rebecca West
was the...
Literary responses
Christabel Pankhurst
This inflammatory book, probably CP
's best known work, was championed by the Church of England
(even though the Church disagreed with her views on votes for women).A review by Rebecca West
in the Clarion...
Literary responses
Pamela Frankau
After her death an ordinary . . . housewife wrote to Diana Raymond, calling herself representative of all those who had found especial magic in PF
's writing.
qtd. in
Raymond, Diana, and Pamela Frankau. “Introduction”. The Winged Horse, Virago, 1989, p. v - xiii.
v
Rebecca West
wrote regretfully in an...
Literary responses
Evelyn Waugh
During his later life reviewers and commentators were hard on Waugh, and he responded pugnaciously. When Nancy Spain
wrote rudely about him after a hostile encounter in June 1955, he sued for libel and was...
Literary responses
Katherine Mansfield
After Mansfield's death, Woolf
wrote in her diary: it seemed to me there was no point in writing. Katherine won't read it.
qtd. in
Gunn, Kirsty. “How the Laundry Basket Squeaked”. London Review of Books, Vol.
35
, No. 7, 12 Apr. 2013, pp. 25-6.
25
KM
appears in episodes in more than one novel by her friend...
Literary responses
Elizabeth von Arnim
Her first publication also initiated a taste for gardening books with a hands-on approach to natural landscaping: Gertrude Jekyll
published the first of her many gardening books, Wood and Garden, in 1899, and included...
Literary responses
May Sinclair
The subject-matter of this novel brought it a notice in the Psychoanalytic Review. Rebecca West
, in another review, complained about a doctor (Jerrold's brother) being introduced to explain the actions of other characters...
Literary responses
E. M. Delafield
Rebecca West
reviewed the book in The Daily Telegraph, calling it [a]n admirable novel. Nobody has ever written so well about the kind of English people who live in big houses since Sir Anthony Hope Hawkins
Literary responses
Mary Gawthorpe
She took it in good part when Teresa Billington
told her when one of her most headlong and disorganized speeches (given after taking a doctor's prescription for exhaustion) was pretty bad,
Gawthorpe, Mary. Up Hill to Holloway. Traversity Press, 1962.
234
and set...
Literary responses
Doreen Wallace
Response was gratifying. The Times Literary Supplement, apparently categorizing DW
as a regional novelist, said that she describes the countryside and country people with accuracy and feeling, yet she does not sentimentalize or overstress...
Literary responses
Elizabeth von Arnim
This novel elicited a wide range of responses from reviewers. John Middleton Murry
consoled EA
when she received harsh criticism in the Times Literary Supplement. He told her there was no way to protect...
Literary responses
Viola Meynell
In her review, Rebecca West
wrote that she found the work marred by an almost demented cosmopolitanism. It gives the impression that England is entirely inhabited by Roumanians with French mistresses, and Baltic barons.
qtd. in
MacKenzie, Raymond N. A Critical Biography of English Novelist Viola Meynell, 1885-1956. Edwin Mellen, 2002.
