Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Clemence Dane
-
Standard Name: Dane, Clemence
Birth Name: Winifred Ashton
Pseudonym: Clemence Dane
Pseudonym: Diana Portis
CD
wrote, during the earlier twentieth century, over thirty plays for the stage, radio, and screen, in addition to her journalism and other non-fiction, and fourteen fictional works ranging from girls' school novels to detective fiction. Her work frequently addressed political issues of the day.
"Clemence Dane" Retrieved from https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e1/Clemence_Dane_01.jpg.This work is licensed under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication license. This work is in the public domain.
Standard accounts of his death used to say that it was a brawl, largely caused by himself. But accident seems unlikely. He had recently been brought in for questioning by the Privy Council
, but...
Education
Elizabeth Jane Howard
In autumn 1940 EJH
joined a student repertory company at Bideford in Devon, run by Eileen Thorndike
(sister of Sybil). The high point for EJH
was playing the lead in Clemence Dane
's play...
Family and Intimate relationships
Catherine Carswell
Catherine Jackson (later CC
) sued for annulment and won, making legal history since insanity (of the husband) was not yet grounds for divorce.
Thirteen years later Clemence Dane
scored a great popular success with...
Friends, Associates
Violet Trefusis
One of VT
's loyal friends at this troubled time was author Clemence Dane
, who had sent her birthday greetings that June.
Jullian, Philippe, John Nova Phillips, Violet Trefusis, and Vita Sackville-West. Violet Trefusis: Life and Letters. Hamish Hamilton, 1976.
57
Friends, Associates
Mary Agnes Hamilton
MAH
's memoirs give detailed and affectionate pen-portraits of innumerable friends, made both at home and in many of the other countries she travelled or worked in. Many of her English friends are known names...
Literary responses
Hannah More
In the early twentieth century More's influence on the great Victorians was not seen as an asset. In 1964 Clemence Dane
felt it quite appropriate to celebrate More as a personage while admitting to not...
Literary responses
Jean Rhys
Her most successful book so far, Voyage in the Dark was well received by critics and general public alike. Writer Clemence Dane
praised its simplicity, its orginality, and its power to express the emotions and...
Literary responses
Susanna Centlivre
From this plot Frances Burney
borrowed the four guardians of her heroine in Cecilia. Walter Scott
thought the plot was extravagant enough (when the play was a hundred and ten years old) yet that...
Occupation
Edith Craig
In addition to a memorial service and speeches, these annual tributes usually included scenes from Shakespeare
performed by well-known actors such as John Gielgud
and Sybil Thorndike
. Playwright Clemence Dane
gave a memorial speech...
In 1923 she wrote a series of articles for Strand Magazine, entitled As I know them—Some Writers of Today, describing, among others, Clemence Dane
and H. G. Wells
.
Watts, Marjorie, and Frances King. Mrs. Sappho. Duckworth, 1987.
129
Reception
Vita Sackville-West
Woolf reported reading the novel all in a gulp with pleasure in bed; very well done I think.
Woolf, Virginia. The Letters of Virginia Woolf. Nicolson, Nigel and Joanne TrautmannEditors , Hogarth Press, 1980.
This novel is set during the opening production at The Dolphin, a recently derelict and now lovingly restored Victorian theatre beside the Thames in London. The central character, Peregrine or Perry Jay, is a...
Textual Features
Pat Barker
The story begins with the ambitions and emotional entanglements of a small group of Slade School of Art
students (two men, Paul Tarrant and the precocious success Kit Neville, and one strikingly talented woman, Elinor...
