Naomi Mitchison

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Standard Name: Mitchison, Naomi
Birth Name: Naomi Mary Margaret Haldane
Nickname: Nou
Nickname: Me
Married Name: Naomi Mary Margaret Mitchison
Titled: Lady Naomi Mary Margaret Mitchison
During her life of over a century (she narrowly missed living from the nineteenth into the twenty-first) NM averaged almost a book a year. She published novels, short stories, diaries, poetry, travel books, essays, and writing for children, all of them informed with the same vivid interest in the world around her and burning desire for its social betterment.
Black-and-white portrait of Naomi Mitchison. Her hair is pinned at the sides of her head in two buns and she is wearing a fuzzy sweater with two pom poms at the collar.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Q. D. Leavis
Here and elsewhere she published on a wide range of authors and literary topics, including Trollope , Hardy , Gissing , Forster , Orwell , and Aldous Huxley ; the Anglo-Irish, American, French, Italian, and...
Textual Production Stevie Smith
Even after her first volume of poetry appeared, SS had trouble finding outlets. In 1938 she sent Naomi Mitchison a poem entitled Goodnight (beginning Miriam and Horlick spend a great deal of time putting off...
Textual Production Q. D. Leavis
In her essays, reviews, introductions, and lectures, QDL also developed varied critiques of such authors as Charlotte Brontë , George Eliot , Charlotte Yonge , Marie Corelli , Edith Wharton , Naomi Mitchison , Amabel Williams-Ellis
Textual Production Amabel Williams-Ellis
Contributors included Nancy Cunard , Winifred Holtby , Storm Jameson , Pamela Hansford Johnson , Naomi Mitchison , Sylvia Townsend Warner , W. H. Auden , John Lehmann , and John Strachey .
Textual Production Jan Morris
More than a decade later, in 1978, JM followed her own portrait of Oxford by editing The Oxford Book of Oxford, a quirky anthology of often very short anecdotes and other excerpts, aimed less...
Textual Features Bessie Head
She dedicated it to Naomi Mitchison , who loves Botswana.
Eilersen, Gillian Stead. Bessie Head. 2nd edition, Wits University Press, 2007.
109
Elements in this fiction refract recent developments in BH 's own life: her male protagonist, Makhaya Maseko, owes something to her husband's story and...
Textual Features Aldous Huxley
Brave New World (titled from the words of Shakespeare 's Miranda on her first sight of human social community) is in some ways remarkably prescient, in its forecast of extra-uterine pregnancy and a universal drug...
Publishing Dorothy Whipple
DW must have been writing and publishing stories before her first novel appeared, since she was working on High Wages when her Miss Boddy was printed in Everyman and she recorded it as her first...
Publishing Stella Benson
Among SB 's journalism, her articles published in The Star and the Athenæum were particularly admired by Naomi Mitchison .
Mitchison, Naomi. You May Well Ask: A Memoir 1920-1940. Gollancz, 1979.
127-8
politics Barbara Cartland
BC was one of Ronald 's chief supporters in his brief career as a Conservative MP: she joined him on public campaigns, advised him informally on speechwriting and networking, provided him with a deposit of...
politics Doris Lessing
She shared a room with writer Naomi Mitchison .
politics Virginia Woolf
On 10 May Germany had invaded Holland and Belgium. In the event of an invasion of England, they could indeed expect a terrible personal fate, on account of their anti-war politics, Leonard's anti-war career and...
politics Dora Russell
It featured such speakers as Vera Brittain , Ethel Mannin , Naomi Mitchison , Marie Stopes , Desmond MacCarthy , Bertrand Russell , and G. B. Shaw . Papers given included DR 's Marriage and...
politics Sylvia Townsend Warner
Warner and Ackland were members of publisher Victor Gollancz 's Left Book Club , and wrote assiduously for left-wing papers and magazines. (After the second world war, however, Ackland developed divergent and comparatively right-wing views.)...
Occupation William Empson
WE was an enthusiast for Basic English (a simplified form of the language which he favoured not only for exchanges among scientists and others from different language groups, but also as an introduction to the...

Timeline

1 September 1810-24 August 1811: James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, anonymously...

Writing climate item

1 September 1810-24 August 1811

James Hogg , the Ettrick Shepherd, anonymously published his Edinburgh journal, the Spy.
Crawford, Robert. “Bad Shepherd”. London Review of Books, 5 Apr. 2001, pp. 29-30.
29-30

14 May 1920: Time and Tide began publication, offering...

Building item

14 May 1920

Time and Tide began publication, offering a feminist approach to literature, politics, and the arts: Naomi Mitchison called it the first avowedly feminist literary journal with any class, in some ways ahead of its time...

14 May 1920: Time and Tide began publication, offering...

Building item

14 May 1920

Time and Tide began publication, offering a feminist approach to literature, politics, and the arts: Naomi Mitchison called it the first avowedly feminist literary journal with any class, in some ways ahead of its time...

1928: Members of the British Federation of University...

Building item

1928

Members of the British Federation of University Women (later known as the British Federation of Women Graduates ) established the Sybil Campbell Libraryfor the study of the expansion of the role of women in...

By early October 1930: London publisher Gerald Howe issued a composite...

Building item

By early October 1930

London publisher Gerald Howe issued a composite biography entitled Six Women of the World, which had previously made up six volumes in a Representative Women series, 1927-9.
Library of Congress Online Catalog. http://catalog.loc.gov/.
TLS Centenary Archive Centenary Archive [1902-2012]. http://www.gale.com/c/the-times-literary-supplement-historical-archive.
1497 (9 October 1930): 802

18 July 1936: The Spanish Civil War began between the Republicans...

National or international item

18 July 1936

The Spanish Civil War began between the Republicans (including Communists) and the Fascists led by Francisco Franco .
Bruno, Leonard. On the Move: A Chronology of Advances in Transportation. Gale Research, 1993.
228

12 September 1936: Charlotte Haldane edited the first issue...

Building item

12 September 1936

Charlotte Haldane edited the first issue of Woman Today for the Women's Committee for Peace and Democracy .
Doughan, David, and Denise Sanchez. Feminist Periodicals, 1855-1984. Harvester Press, 1987.
53
Harrison, Royden et al. The Warwick Guide to British Labour Periodicals, 1790-1970: A Check List. Harvester Press, 1977.
602

By May 1937: Mass-Observation, a social research organisation...

Building item

By May 1937

Mass-Observation , a social research organisation devoted to observing the habits, behaviour, and opinions of ordinary people, was launched: Surrealist in inspiration, it became documentary and socially inclusive in aim.
“Mass Observation Archive”. University of Sussex Library.
McAleer, Joseph. Popular Reading and Publishing in Britain 1914-1950. Clarendon Press, 1992.
6n7
Laity, Paul. “Damsons and Custard”. London Review of Books, 3 Mar. 2005, pp. 18-20.
18

3 September 1939: Britain and France officially declared war...

National or international item

3 September 1939

Britain and France officially declared war on Germany.
BBC Handbook: 1960. BBC, 1960, http://U of A HSS HE 8690 B86.
238
Briggs, Asa. The BBC: The First Fifty Years. Oxford University Press, 1985.
374
Mitchison, Naomi. Among You Taking Notes . . . The Wartime Diary of Naomi Mitchison 1939-1945. Editor Sheridan, Dorothy, Oxford University Press, 1986.
35-7
Keegan, John. The Second World War. Viking, 1990.
44-7, 54
Messenger, Charles. World War Two Chronological Atlas: When, Where, How and Why. Bloomsbury, 1989.
22-3
Beauman, Nicola. Cynthia Asquith. Hamish Hamilton, 1987.
311

6 March 1957: The Gold Coast became the first British colony...

National or international item

6 March 1957

The Gold Coast became the first British colony to achieve independent statehood, under the name of Ghana.
Steinberg, Sigfrid Henry. Historical Tables: 58 BC-AD 1985. 11th ed., Garland Publishing, 1986.
256, 258
Williams, Neville. Chronology of the Modern World: 1763 to the Present Time. David McKay, 1967.
654
Langer, William L., editor. An Encyclopedia of World History: Ancient, Medieval, and Modern, Chronologically Arranged. 4th ed., Houghton Mifflin, 1968.
1235-6

By May 1968: James D. Watson published The Double Helix,...

Building item

By May 1968

James D. Watson published The Double Helix, an account of the discovery of the structure of DNA, the basis of human genetic material; he dedicated it to Naomi Mitchison .
Smith, John Maynard. Did Darwin Get It Right? Essays on Games, Sex and Evolution. Penguin, 1993.
4-5, 258

Texts

Mitchison, Naomi. A Life for Africa: The Story of Bram Fischer. Merlin Press, 1973.
Mitchison, Naomi, and William Stubbs. African Heroes. Bodley Head, 1968.
Mitchison, Naomi. All Change Here: Girlhood and Marriage. Bodley Head, 1975.
Mitchison, Naomi. Among You Taking Notes . . . The Wartime Diary of Naomi Mitchison 1939-1945. Editor Sheridan, Dorothy, Gollancz, 1985.
Mitchison, Naomi. Among You Taking Notes . . . The Wartime Diary of Naomi Mitchison 1939-1945. Editor Sheridan, Dorothy, Oxford University Press, 1986.
Mitchison, Naomi, editor. An Outline for Boys and Girls and their Parents. Victor Gollancz, 1932.
Mitchison, Naomi. As It Was: Small Talk . . . / All Change Here. Richard Drew, 1988.
Mitchison, Naomi. Barbarian Stories. Jonathan Cape, 1929.
Lewis, Wyndham, and Naomi Mitchison. Beyond This Limit. Jonathan Cape, 1935.
Mitchison, Naomi. Black Sparta: Greek Stories. Jonathan Cape, 1928.
Mitchison, Naomi. Black Sparta: Greek Stories. The Travellers’ Library, Jonathan Cape, 1931.
Mitchison, Naomi. Cleopatra’s People. Heinemann, 1972.
Mitchison, Naomi. Cloud Cuckoo Land. Jonathan Cape, 1925.
Mitchison, Naomi. Cloud Cuckoo Land. Hodder and Stoughton, 1967.
Mitchison, Naomi. Early in Orcadia. Richard Drew, 1987.
Mitchison, Naomi. Five Men and a Swan. Allen and Unwin, 1957.
Mitchison, Naomi. Images of Africa. Canongate, 1980.
Sutcliff, Rosemary, and Naomi Mitchison. “Introduction”. Cloud Cuckoo Land, The Hodder and Stoughton Library of Great Historical Novels, Hodder and Stoughton, 1967.
Sheridan, Dorothy, and Naomi Mitchison. “Introduction”. Among You Taking Notes . . . The Wartime Diary of Naomi Mitchison 1939-1945, Oxford University Press, 1986, pp. 15-24.
Mitchison, Naomi. Lobsters on the Agenda. Gollancz, 1952.
Mitchison, Naomi. Memoirs of a Spacewoman. Victor Gollancz, 1962.
Mitchison, Naomi. Mucking Around: Five Continents Over Fifty Years. Gollancz, 1981.
Mitchison, Naomi. Naomi Mitchison’s Vienna Diary. Victor Gollancz, 1934.
Squier, Susan M., and Naomi Mitchison. “Naomi Mitchison: The Feminist Art of Making Things Difficult”. Solution Three, Feminist Press at The City University of New York, 1995, pp. 161-83.
Mitchison, Naomi. Not By Bread Alone. M. Boyars, 1983.