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.
NL
's writing earned a high degree of popular success. Her books have sold more than one million copies. Many were reprinted in the 1970s by Corgi
, Fawcett
, Hodder and Stoughton
, Manor
Reception
Harriet Shaw Weaver
In 1932Eliot
dedicated his Selected Essays to HSW
: in gratitude and in recognition of her services to English letters.
qtd. in
Lidderdale, Jane, and Mary Nicholson. Dear Miss Weaver. Viking, 1970.
UT
wrote much of her 1914 diary in Italian. After 1915, her diaries document her relationship with Radclyffe Hall
, touching on the two women's health, families, travels, and social activities. She also writes about...
Textual Features
Daphne Du Maurier
The working title had been The Return of the Soldier; this, however was also the name of a book by Rebecca West
published during World War I.
The story reflects Nietzsche
's belief that the artist must show mastery over women. Rebecca West
gave it a favourable review.
Oldsey, Bernard Stanley, editor. Dictionary of Literary Biography 15. Gale Research, 1983, 2 vols.
310
Textual Features
Dora Marsden
A marked difference separating The New Freewoman from its predecessor was its increased literary content, at first secured mainly by Rebecca West
. West recruited Ezra Pound
to The New Freewoman after meeting him at...
Textual Features
Ali Smith
The volume features 101 different women writers, each publication emblematic of the year for which its author is featured. Its contents range from the title-inspiring Miles Franklin
's My Brilliant Career (1901) through Edith Wharton
Textual Production
Dora Marsden
Under an editorial team that included DM
and Rebecca West
, the last issue of The Freewoman was published.
Garner, Les. A Brave and Beautiful Spirit: Dora Marsden, 1882-1960. Avebury, 1990.
83
Textual Production
Naomi Mitchison
By the early 1930s NM
was making as much by her writing, in real terms, as nearly fifty years later. She reviewed novels—reading at great speed even while breast-feeding, since she claimed that [i]f the...
Textual Production
Storm Jameson
Jameson had been approached by the Ministry of Information
once the USA had entered World War II, for suggestions on how to cement Anglo-American relations.
Jameson, Storm. Journey from the North. Harper and Row, 1970.
The anthology of British women writers she published in 1990 with Michael Joseph
as The Parchment Moon: An Anthology of Modern Women's Short Stories was reprinted the following year as The Penguin Book of Modern...
Textual Production
H. G. Wells
He published a second memoir, The Anatomy of Frustration, in 1936. In the second volume of his autobiography, titled H.G. Wells in Love: Postscript to an Experiment in Autobiography, he describes his sexual...
Textual Production
Pamela Frankau
PF
's novel The Devil We Know was published; the character Jennifer Nash is an unflattering portrait of Rebecca West
.
Rollyson, Carl. Rebecca West: A Saga of the Century. Hodder and Stoughton, 1995.
