Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Marie Belloc Lowndes
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Standard Name: Lowndes, Marie Belloc
Birth Name: Marie Adelaide Elizabeth Renée Julia Belloc
Nickname: Mary
Married Name: Marie Adelaide Elizabeth Renée Julia Lowndes
Indexed Name: Mrs Belloc Lowndes
Pseudonym: Philip Curtin
Pseudonym: Elizabeth Rayner
During a career that spanned nearly fifty years from 1889, MBL
published journalism, biography, a guidebook, history for children, novels (mostly romances or thrillers), a book about actual crimes, and four late volumes of autobiography. Her books of crime and detection were her most successful. Her list of titles numbers more than seventy.
She belonged to, among other literary clubs, the Liberal Book Club
and the 30 Club, which consisted of a group of women writers who met for lunch at the Ritz Grill. Other members...
Literary responses
Lucas Malet
Two things about this novel gave offence initially and had a long-term effect on its reputation: its treating the nasty
Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford.
topic of deformity, and its involving the hero emotionally with three women (his mother as...
Literary responses
Frances Hodgson Burnett
FHB
was a focus of media attention—occasionally hostile but often flattering—throughout her career. The title of Marie A. Belloc
's interview Mrs. Hodgson Burnett. A Famous Authoress at Home (in the Idler, 9, 1896)...
Literary responses
Julia Frankau
Marie Belloc Lowndes
thought this a strange, powerful story, but liked it less than some of JF
's earlier work.
Lowndes, Marie Belloc. The Merry Wives of Westminster. Macmillan.
57
The Times obituary on JF
referred to this novel's brilliant portrait and caricature of...
Literary responses
Lucas Malet
In 1902 The Lucas Malet Birthday Book, compiled by G. Olivia Dethridge
, testified to LM
's market appeal at this stage of her career.
British Library Catalogue. http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?dscnt=0&tab=local_tab&dstmp=1489778087340&vid=BLVU1&mode=Basic&fromLo.
In 1944 Marie Belloc Lowndes
listed her as among...
Literary responses
Julia Frankau
Marie Belloc Lowndes
later wrote that Baccarat was thirty years ahead of its time, and had it been signed by Guy de Maupassant
it would have become and remained famous.
Lowndes, Marie Belloc. The Merry Wives of Westminster. Macmillan.
57
Literary responses
May Sinclair
While other friends had reservations, Anthony Deane
told MS
that this was the very best book he had read for a long time.
Raitt, Suzanne. May Sinclair: A Modern Victorian. Clarendon Press.
95
It received far better reviews in the USA than at home...
Literary responses
May Sinclair
Marie Belloc Lowndes
wrote to tell MS
she thought this her best book so far, though Sinclair did not agree with her.
Raitt, Suzanne. May Sinclair: A Modern Victorian. Clarendon Press.
166
Literary responses
Elizabeth Charles
Although she made little money, EC
made a name for herself with the Chronicles. The novel went through several editions, as well as being translated into many European languages, Arabic, and numerous Indian dialects...
Literary responses
Katherine Mansfield
After Mansfield's death, Woolf
wrote in her diary: it seemed to me there was no point in writing. Katherine won't read it.
Gunn, Kirsty. “How the Laundry Basket Squeaked”. London Review of Books, Vol.
35
, No. 7, pp. 25-6.
25
KM
appears in episodes in more than one novel by her friend...
Literary responses
Gertrude Stein
GS
's writing has been ruffling critics since Laura Riding
wrote in 1927 of her literalism, simple-mindedness, and successful barbarism.
Hoffmann, Michael J. “Gertrude Stein in the Psychology Laboratory”. American Quarterly, Vol.
17
, No. 1, pp. 127-32.
130
In 1945 Hugh Walpole
painted Stein as a self-adoring priestess of her own...
Literary responses
Beatrice Harraden
Marie Belloc Lowndes
described this book for the Times Literary Supplement as a strangely poignant drama and likened it to Mary Shelley
's Frankenstein and Sir Walter Scott
's Waverley for its comparable ability to...
Literary responses
Margaret Oliphant
The work has been consistently admired. On its appearance the editor of The Spectator praised it for wonderful mastery of the borderland of the natural and the supernatural,
Greenfield, John R., editor. Dictionary of Literary Biography 159. Gale Research.
On the basis of this piece, Marie Belloc Lowndes
felt in 1946 that if the circumstances of Cornish's life had been different she too might have become a famous writer.
Lowndes, Marie Belloc. The Merry Wives of Westminster. Macmillan.
36
Literary responses
E. M. Delafield
Marie Belloc Lowndes
, a Roman Catholic, observed in late 1945 that EMD
's early anti-Catholic suffered from a failure of realism, being filled with fantastic imaginary figures of the old Catholic world.
Lowndes, Marie Belloc. Diaries and Letters of Marie Belloc Lowndes, 1911-1947. Editor Marques, Susan Lowndes, Chatto and Windus.
