Constance Smedley

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Standard Name: Smedley, Constance
Birth Name: Constance Anne Smedley
Nickname: The Princess
Nickname: Peter
Married Name: Constance Armfield
Married Name: Constance Smedley Armfield
Beginning early in the twentieth century, CS published forty books, about twenty of them novels and the rest plays, children's books, and non-fiction including a polemical feminist manifesto and a book of memoirs. Her writing was only one aspect of her career: through her theatrical ideals, teaching, and practice (writing and directing plays and pageants, not all of them published) it connected with her work in the visual arts: embroidery, illustration, and social movements.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Education Flora Klickmann
FK also studied first at Trinity College of Music and later at the Royal College of Organists. She intended to pursue a concert career, and meanwhile became at an early age only the second woman...
Friends, Associates Elizabeth von Arnim
EA met Hugh Walpole after receiving a fan letter he sent her in 1907. They met for tea at the Lyceum Club , a London women's social club that had been inaugurated by Constance Smedley
Friends, Associates Ella D'Arcy
Lane and Harland were centres of literary social life in London. EDA had many friends among writers, many of them New Women. They included Evelyn Sharp , and Constance Smedley (who found her entirely sincere...
Friends, Associates Gladys Henrietta Schütze
During the Schützes' pacifist years it was only gradually that they began to find some support from like-minded people, like Bertrand Russell and Ramsay MacDonald (though GHS felt the latter was a fair-weather pacifist), and...
Intertextuality and Influence Ann Jellicoe
The year 1974 marks a turning point in AJ 's writing career, beginning a second phase which proved just as significant as the first.. Soon after moving with her family from London to Lyme Regis...
Leisure and Society Charlotte O'Conor Eccles
She belonged to a number of London clubs for professional women: the Writers' Club (founded 1892, first president John Strange Winter , which, she said, was invaluable in teaching her the need for assertiveness),
O’Conor Eccles, Charlotte. “The Experience of a Woman Journalist”. Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, Vol.
153
, June 1893, pp. 830-8.
153 (June 1893): 836
Leisure and Society Violet Hunt
VH hosted luncheons for Radclyffe Hall , Bram Stoker , H. G. Wells and others at the Writers' Club in Bruton Street. She later claimed: It was the first really literary and journalistic women's...
Literary responses Flora Klickmann
Constance Smedley , whose flower pictures FK had accepted for the paper, wrote later that Klickmann had rescued [it] from Victorianism and brought [it] into line with the best traditions of modern journalism.
Smedley, Constance, and Maxwell Armfield. Crusaders. Chatto & Windus, 1912, x, 416 pp.
19
Occupation Beatrice Harraden
Apart from her suffrage affiliations, BH also served on the committees of various women's organizations: the Writers' Club (whose first president was John Strange Winter ), the London International Lyceum Club (which Constance Smedley founded...
politics Elizabeth von Arnim
Because of her growing interest in Fabian socialism, EA asked Constance Smedley to introduce her to H. G. Wells , with whom she later had a love affair.
Usborne, Karen. "Elizabeth": The Author of Elizabeth and Her German Garden. Bodley Head, 1986.
120
politics Dora Sigerson
DS helped found the London International Lyceum Club , which was established by Constance Smedley as a club for professional women on an equal footing with the long-standing London clubs for professional men.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
International Association of Lyceum Clubs. http://www.lyceumclub.org/en/history.htm.
politics Dora Sigerson
The Club grew out of the Writers' Club , an organization for women writers in London. It was the brainchild of Constance Smedley , and Writers' Club members who were founding members of the Lyceum...
Textual Production Vernon Lee
The Ballet of the Nations, a satirico-philosophicburlesque,
Bowe, Nicola Gordon. “Constance and Maxwell Armfield: An American Interlude 1915-1922”. The Journal of Decorative and Propaganda Arts, Vol.
14
, 1 Sept.–30 Nov. 1989, pp. 6-27.
15
was commissioned after Constance Smedley and Maxwell Armfield invited VL to speak at one of their Chelsea political meetings held to discuss the causes of...
Textual Production Emmeline Pankhurst
The other contributors to this important collection were Shaw himself (again pseudonymous) and Mabel Atkinson , Florence Balgarnie , Eva Gore-Booth , Robert F. Cholmeley , Charlotte Despard , Millicent Garrett Fawcett , Keir Hardie
Textual Production Eva Gore-Booth
Other contributors included Millicent Garrett Fawcett , Christabel and Emmeline Pankhurst , and Constance Smedley .

Timeline

March 1911: The Idler monthly (launched as a sixpenny...

Writing climate item

March 1911

The Idler monthly (launched as a sixpenny magazine in 1892) ceased publication.
Sutherland, John, b. 1938. The Stanford Companion to Victorian Fiction. Stanford University Press, 1989.
316-17

1938: The Grace Darling National Memorial Museum...

Building item

1938

The Grace Darling National Memorial Museum opened in Bamburgh, Northumberland, to honour the near-legendary Victorian heroine of rescue at sea, six years after Constance Smedley published her biography of Darling .
“Women’s History Timeline”. BBC: Radio 4: Woman’s Hour.
“Grace Darling National Memorial Museum, Bamburgh”. Discover the Borders: Museums.

Texts

Smedley, Constance. An April Princess. Cassell and Co., 1903.
Smedley, Constance. Commoners’ Rights. Chatto and Windus, 1912.
Smedley, Constance. Conflict. Constable, 1907.
Smedley, Constance, and Maxwell Armfield. Crusaders. Chatto & Windus, 1912, x, 416 pp.
Smedley, Constance. Grace Darling and her Islands. Religious Tract Society, 1934.
Smedley, Constance, and Commander Stephen King-Hall. Grace Darling and Her Times. Hurst & Blackett, 1932, 288 pp.
Smedley, Constance. Justice Walk. G. Allen and Unwin, 1924.
Smedley, Constance. Mothers and Fathers. Chatto and Windus, 1911.
Smedley, Constance. On the Fighting Line. G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1915.
Smedley, Constance. Redwing. George Allen and Unwin, 1916.
Smedley, Constance, and Maxwell Armfield. Sylvia’s Travels. J. M. Dent, 1911.
Smedley, Constance, and Maxwell Armfield. Tales from Timbuktu. Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1923.
Smedley, Constance, and Maxwell Armfield. The Armfields’ Animal-Book. Duckworth & Co., 1922.
Smedley, Constance. The Curious Herbal. French’s acting ed., No. 344, 1930.
Smedley, Constance. The Emotions of Martha. Religious Tract Society, 1911.
Smedley, Constance, and Maxwell Armfield. The Flower Book. Chatto and Windus, 1910.
Smedley, Constance. The Fruit of her Hands. Headley Brothers, 1915.
Smedley, Constance. The June Princess. Chatto & Windus, 1909.
Smedley, Constance. The Larger Growth (Mothers and Fathers). E. P. Dutton and Company, 1911.
Smedley, Constance. The Unholy Experiment. Chatto and Windus, 1924.
Smedley, Constance. The Unholy Experiment. The Dial Press, 1925.
Smedley, Constance, and Mrs Philip Snowden. Woman: A Few Shrieks!. Garden City Press.
Smedley, Constance. Wonder Tales of the World. Harcourt, Brace and Howe, 1920.