Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
James Joyce
-
Standard Name: Joyce, James
Irish exile JJ
, hailed by Yeats
as a new kind of novelist even before his first novel was published, became one of the leading practitioners of modernism. As well as poems, a play, and a volume of short stories, he produced three important novels, from the last of which he put out several separate sections long before the whole appeared. Joyce encountered obstacles to publishing almost all his books, raised by censors both official and self-appointed. Without the tireless patronage of Harriet Shaw Weaver
and Sylvia Beach
, his last two books might never have been published at all.
In the 1920s, while HD and Bryher
were living rootlessly, sometimes in London, sometimes in Europe, HD's list of acquaintances grew to include Gertrude Stein
, Alice B. Toklas
, Ernest Hemingway
, James Joyce
Friends, Associates
Sylvia Beach
Beach and Joyce
had a bet to see whether Bernard Shaw
would purchase a copy of Ulysses. Beach lost when Shaw wrote to say that she knew little of [his] countrymen if she thought...
Friends, Associates
Virginia Woolf
Leonard Woolf wrote to Eliot, whose Prufrock and Other Observations he had read, to invite him to send some work to the Hogarth Press
. The letter led to a meeting, and ultimately to the...
As a very young woman OM
began an affair with the charistmatic Hamish Miles
(Edward Garnett
's assistant at the publishing firm of Jonathan Cape
, and editor of a little magazine). He was...
Family and Intimate relationships
Bryher
Though emotionally empty, the marriage was artistically productive. Most significantly, Bryher's introductions and family funds allowed McAlmon to establish his influential press, Contact Editions
. Thus, Bryher's money and social connections enabled the publication of...
Family and Intimate relationships
Dorothy Wellesley
DW
seems to have first met Hilda Matheson
just before the latter took over the role of central player in Vita Sackville-West
's love-life. But Matheson (director of talks for the BBC
, soon to...
Family and Intimate relationships
Sylvia Plath
SP
married Ted Hughes
at the Church of St George the Martyr in Bloomsbury, London, on James Joyce
's Bloomsday.
Wagner-Martin, Linda. Sylvia Plath: A Biography. Simon and Schuster.
134
Butscher, Edward. Sylvia Plath: Method and Madness. Seabury Press.
189
Family and Intimate relationships
Sylvia Beach
SB
was hunting down a copy of Paul Fort
's Vers et prose, and was directed to Monnier's bookshop. She found the shop's owner surprisingly warm and friendly. Adrienne declared that she like[d] America...
Family and Intimate relationships
Q. D. Leavis
Though both husband and wife were to influential, F. R. Leavis became one of the leading literary critics of the twentieth century. A dynamic speaker and teacher, he was known for his uncompromising, exclusive, often...
Education
Catherine Cookson
As a young adult CC
took on her own education. With varying degrees of success she studied grammar, elocution, French, and the violin. She also discovered the public library. Colleagues at work got her to...
While working on her doctorate in 1963, HC
travelled to the United States to research James Joyce
's manuscripts for her doctoral thesis, and, in California,, she prepared a second thesis on Robinson Jeffers...
Education
Ali Smith
After completing her studies at Aberdeen, Smith began working towards a doctorate at Newnham College, Cambridge (still a women-only body). Continuing her work on the area of her MLitt, she determined to focus on the...
Education
Edna O'Brien
O'Brien meanwhile cultivated her passion for reading and writing. The first book she purchased was Introducing James Joyce, edited by T. S. Eliot
: this volume, she notes, made me realize that I wanted...
