Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Alice Meynell
-
Standard Name: Meynell, Alice
Birth Name: Alice Christiana Gertrude Thompson
Indexed Name: A. C. Thompson
Pseudonym: A. C. Thompson
Married Name: Alice Christiana Gertrude Meynell
Pseudonym: Alice Oldcastle
Pseudonym: Francis Phillimore
AM
was a late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century poet, as well as the author of criticism, journalism, essays, art reviews, introductions, and translations. Her output amounted to ten essay collections and six poetry volumes during her lifetime (not including those selected or anthologised). AM
's poetry and journalism were both guided by her voluntary obedience to the Catholic Church
. Stylistically innovative, her essays pay close attention to form on the one hand and empirical truth on the other. Her reputation during her lifetime was astonishingly high. Male contemporaries like George Meredith
and Coventry Patmore
ranked her poetry and prose with the greatest writers of the English tradition.
“Dictionary of Literary Biography online”. Gale Databases: Literature Resource Center-LRC.
98
Tuell, Anne Kimball. Mrs. Meynell and her Literary Generation. Dutton.
They mention the need for new funds and the way they will supplement previous subscriptions.
Harraden, Beatrice, and Elizabeth Robins. “The Sussex Hospital”. Times Literary Supplement, No. 934, p. 750.
750
They specify some of the material they have already collected from other authors and publishers to sell on...
Publishing
Violet Hunt
Here VH
caught the attention of other journal editors, and she was soon writing a weekly column, Wares of Autolycus, for the Pall Mall Gazette (a column later taken on by Alice Meynell
and...
MBL
began early to publish short stories. In her diary she wrote that the first to see print was in a journal called Merry England (edited by Alice
and Wilfrid Meynell
from May 1883 to...
Textual Features
Cecily Mackworth
She concentrates on the visits of her subjects to England in the late nineteenth or early twentieth centuries. To all of them—Mallarmé
(a poet she deeply loved), Verlaine
(whose list of books probably read...
Seven years after her mother's death, VM
published what is probably her best-remembered work today, Alice Meynell
: A Memoir.
“Dictionary of Literary Biography online”. Gale Databases: Literature Resource Center-LRC.
153
Family and Intimate relationships
Viola Meynell
Viola's mother was the poet Alice Meynell
, who was nominated twice for the Poet Laureateship, although she never received it. She was also an essayist and journalist. She died on 27 November 1922.
“Dictionary of Literary Biography online”. Gale Databases: Literature Resource Center-LRC.
98
MacKenzie, Raymond N. A Critical Biography of English Novelist Viola Meynell, 1885-1956. Edwin Mellen.
45-6
Badeni, June. The Slender Tree: A Life of Alice Meynell. Tabb House.
219
Occupation
Viola Meynell
Her first broadcast was, appropriately, on her mother, Alice Meynell
. The BBC director praised her for being the best first-time presenter he had ever seen. She followed up with programmes on Francis Thompson
,...
Intertextuality and Influence
Viola Meynell
As the daughter of two writers, VM
began to write at an early age, as did her brothers and sisters. She was writing poetry when she was sixteen, submitting her poems to her mother
for...
Literary responses
Viola Meynell
Alice Meynell
initially felt that the book was too personal and outspoken. She asked Viola to lessen and modify and veil the detailed and repeated record of caresses, and added: These are things that are...
Literary responses
Viola Meynell
The Manchester Guardian enthusiastically praised this book, leading Alice Meynell
to comment: It fills me with happiness that Viola's meanings have found such a reader.
“Dictionary of Literary Biography online”. Gale Databases: Literature Resource Center-LRC.
153
Literary responses
Viola Meynell
On the basis of these poems, VM
's brother Francis
thought her to be a greater poet than their mother
, but others disagreed.
“Dictionary of Literary Biography online”. Gale Databases: Literature Resource Center-LRC.
