Rosamond Lehmann

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Standard Name: Lehmann, Rosamond
Birth Name: Rosamond Nina Lehmann
RL has received less critical attention than other women modernists, especially her closest literary colleagues Elizabeth Bowen and Virginia Woolf . However, after the reprinting of her work in the 1980s, her seven novels, her short stories, and one play became much better known. After the unexpected death of her daughter, RL ceased writing for about seven years. When she resumed she produced only one more novel, in addition to a memoir and spiritualist writings.
Black-and-white photo of Rosamond Lehmann. She is wearing a silk scarf, and her white hair is cut short. Behind her is a painting of a woman.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Intertextuality and Influence Simone de Beauvoir
The second part of her first section, Facts and Myths, draws valuably on analysis of male writers. SB reads Stendhal as decidedly feministic:
Beauvoir, Simone de. The Second Sex. Translator Parshley, H. M., Jonathan Cape, 1953.
255
he not only values liberty but accepts it as...
Friends, Associates Sybille Bedford
SB said she grew up with very little knowledge of people her own age, and in friendships and love affairs tended to seek out those of at least ten years older than herself.
Bedford, Sybille. Quicksands. Counterpoint, 2005.
126
She...
Cultural formation Sybille Bedford
Around 1964, soon after suffering the deaths of Aldous Huxley and of another close friend, SB accepted the suggestion of Rosamond Lehmann and visited a medium, who purported to deliver her a message from Huxley.
Hastings, Selina. Rosamond Lehmann. Chatto and Windus, 2002.
367
Textual Features Marjorie Bowen
MB credits British women novelists for modifying the methods of the great European novelists, noting in particular Dorothy Richardson 's perfection of the stream-of-consciousness technique. She draws a contrast between Dorothy Richardson 's Miriam and...
Cultural formation Elizabeth Bowen
Her biographer Victoria Glendinning believes that her Anglicanism was more than merely social, and cites her indignation over the modernising of services in the Book of Common Prayer, and her speaking up in support...
Friends, Associates Elizabeth Bowen
EB loved Oxford (where she and her husband spent ten years) and became a social success there. She met and became friends with John and Susan Buchan , and it was through them that she...
Family and Intimate relationships Elizabeth Bowen
She had fallen in love with House, a lecturer in English who was eight years her junior, and whom biographer Victoria Glendinning describes as brilliant, highly sexed, introspective, [and] susceptible—much too introspective and susceptible to...
Friends, Associates Elizabeth Bowen
Frequent guests at Bowen's Court (where, says Victoria Glendinning, they ate and drank royally)
Glendinning, Victoria. Elizabeth Bowen. Alfred A. Knopf, 1978.
254
included William Plomer , Sean O'Faolain , and Cyril Connolly . Virginia Woolf stayed there once; Iris Murdoch also...
Health Elizabeth Bowen
EB suffered from recurrent bouts of bronchitis and a chronic smoker's cough. In 1972, she was diagnosed with lung cancer and underwent radium treatment. She lost her voice and had considerable difficulty breathing. She was...
Textual Features Elizabeth Bowen
The novel has two heroines: Portia, a fifteen-year-old, and Anna Quayne, wife of Thomas Quayne. Portia, Thomas' half-sister, comes to live with the Quaynes in their Regent's Park house (based on EB 's own London...
Literary responses Elizabeth Bowen
Bowen's writing style was criticised as strained and contorted.
qtd. in
Hoogland, Renée C. Elizabeth Bowen: A Reputation in Writing. New York University Press, 1994.
119
However, a current critic claims that the textual eccentricities
Hoogland, Renée C. Elizabeth Bowen: A Reputation in Writing. New York University Press, 1994.
119
are integral to the novel's theme. Rosamond Lehmann expressed her admiration of The Heat of...
Textual Production Elizabeth Bowen
This vintage volume was edited by a group of authors including Rosamond Lehmann and Cecil Day Lewis .
Glendinning, Victoria. Elizabeth Bowen. Alfred A. Knopf, 1978.
215
EB 's essay (in which sometimes aphoristic notes are lightly linked) was reprinted in her posthumous Pictures and Conversations.
Dedications Anita Brookner
AB published a great popular hit which remains her best-known novel, Hotel du Lac; it is dedicated to Rosamond Lehmann .
Blackwell’s Online Bookshop. http://Bookshop.Blackwell.co.uk.
Literary responses Dorothy Bussy
DB first wrote Olivia in 1933 and then sent the manuscript to her friend André Gide . Gide found it not very engaging
qtd. in
Caws, Mary Ann, and Sarah Bird Wright. Bloomsbury and France: Art and Friends. Oxford University Press, 2000.
344
and, according to Mary Ann Caws and Sarah Bird Wright ...
Friends, Associates Dora Carrington
Guests here included some of the women who were to be closest to Carrington until her death: Dorelia John (wife of Augustus John , and now a neighbour), writer Rosamond Lehmann , and Julia Strachey

Timeline

: The second number of Orion. A Miscellany...

Writing climate item

Autumn 1945

The second number of Orion. A Miscellany appeared: Rosamond Lehmann was one of the editors, along with C. Day Lewis and Edwin Muir .
British Book News. British Council.
(1946): 308

1946: John Lehmann founded his own publishing house...

Writing climate item

1946

John Lehmann founded his own publishing house at 6 Henrietta Street, London.
Rose, Jonathan, and Patricia J. Anderson, editors. Dictionary of Literary Biography 112. Gale Research, 1991.
188

December 1984: The feminist publisher Virago Press, under...

Women writers item

December 1984

The feminist publisher Virago Press , under its editor Carmen Callil , launched its own bookshop in Covent Garden, London; the opening was performed by Rosamond Lehmann .
Hastings, Selina. Rosamond Lehmann. Chatto and Windus, 2002.
395

9 December 2006-17 July 2007: The National Portrait Gallery in London mounted...

Writing climate item

9 December 2006-17 July 2007

The National Portrait Gallery in London mounted an exhibition of photographs of women writers, mostly novelists, from 1920 to 1960.
“Women writers through the lens”. Mslexia, No. 33, Apr. 2007, p. 7.
7

Texts

Lehmann, Rosamond et al. A Man Seen Afar. 1st ed., Spearman, 1965.
Lehmann, Rosamond. A Note in Music. 1st ed., Chatto and Windus, 1930.
Lehmann, Rosamond. A Sea-Grape Tree. 1st ed., Collins, 1976.
Lehmann, Rosamond, and Jean Cocteau. Children of the Game. Harvill Press, 1955.
Lehmann, Rosamond. Dusty Answer. 1st ed., Chatto and Windus, 1927.
Lemarchand, Jacques. Geneviève. Translator Lehmann, Rosamond, John Lehmann, 1947.
Lehmann, Rosamond. Invitation to the Waltz. 1st ed., Chatto and Windus, 1932.
Lehmann, Rosamond. Letter to a Sister. 1st ed., Leonard and Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press, 1931.
Lehmann, Rosamond, and Cynthia Hill Sandys. Letters from Our Daughters. 1st ed., College of Psychic Science, 1971.
Lehmann, Rosamond. No More Music. 1st ed., Collins, 1939.
Bowen, Elizabeth. “Notes on Writing a Novel”. Orion: A Miscellany, edited by Rosamond Lehmann et al., Nicholson and Watson, 1945.
Lehmann, Rosamond. Rosamond Lehmann’s Album. Chatto and Windus, 1985.
Lehmann, Rosamond. The Ballad and the Source. 1st ed., Collins, 1944.
Lehmann, Rosamond. The Echoing Grove. 1st ed., Collins, 1953.
Lehmann, Rosamond. The Gypsy’s Baby and Other Stories. 1st ed., Collins, 1946.
Lehmann, Rosamond. “The Red-Haired Miss Daintreys”. Folios of New Writing, Spring 1940, edited by John Lehmann, 1st ed., Hogarth Press, 1940.
Lehmann, Rosamond. The Swan in the Evening. 1st ed., Collins, 1967.
Lehmann, Rosamond. The Weather in the Streets. 1st ed., Collins, 1936.