Rebecca West

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Standard Name: West, Rebecca
Birth Name: Cicily Isabel Fairfield
Nickname: Cissie
Nickname: Anne
Nickname: Panther
Nickname: Rac
Pseudonym: Rebecca West
Married Name: Cicily Isabel Andrews
Used Form: R*b*cc* W*st
Rebecca West rose to fame early (before the First World War) through her witty, acerbic journalism. In addition to numerous essays and reviews, she wrote about a dozen novels, short stories, political analyses, a classic travel book, and works of literary criticism. Her journalism remains an important commentary on the contemporary women's movement, offering both strong intellectual support and trenchant satire. She is known for her pungency of phrase; on occasion she was more eager for a phrase to strike shockingly home than for it to withstand criticism.

Connections

Connections Sort ascending Author name Excerpt
Violence Mary Gawthorpe
This description comes from Cicily Fairfield (the future Rebecca West) , who was observing the election campaign. West also said that stewards commonly used great physical violence, and she attributed Gawthorpe's health breakdown directly to...
Travel Violet Trefusis
In late 1927, Violet travelled with the same party through the United States. They had tea at the White House and saw Rebecca West while in Washington, DC.
Jullian, Philippe et al. Violet Trefusis: Life and Letters. Hamish Hamilton.
69-70
Travel Pamela Frankau
She went on to Alassio in Italy. Next time she visited the south of France she went as the guest of Rebecca West .
Frankau, Pamela. I Find Four People. I. Nicholson and Watson.
143, 189
Like most people of her class and period,...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Storm Jameson
Janet Montefiore has noted that in A Cup of Tea for Mr. Thorgill Jameson included a rancorous portrait of Rebecca West in the character of Retta Spencer-Savage, a celebrated anti-Communist writer who has built her...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Pamela Frankau
In this book PF offers her impressions of celebrities
Stern, G. B. . And did he stop and speak to you?. Henry Regnery.
119
met through her great-aunt Eliza Aria . Place is important too, like her vivid yet dreamlike description of Sligachan on the Isle of Skye...
Textual Production Dora Marsden
Under an editorial team that included DM and Rebecca West , the last issue of The Freewoman was published.
Garner, Les. A Brave and Beautiful Spirit: Dora Marsden, 1882-1960. Avebury.
83
Textual Production Naomi Mitchison
By the early 1930s NM was making as much by her writing, in real terms, as nearly fifty years later. She reviewed novels—reading at great speed even while breast-feeding, since she claimed that [i]f the...
Textual Production Storm Jameson
Jameson had been approached by the Ministry of Information once the USA had entered World War II, for suggestions on how to cement Anglo-American relations.
Jameson, Storm. Journey from the North. Harper and Row.
524
The resulting volume includes work by Phyllis Bentley ,...
Textual Production Susan Hill
The anthology of British women writers she published in 1990 with Michael Joseph as The Parchment Moon: An Anthology of Modern Women's Short Stories was reprinted the following year as The Penguin Book of Modern...
Textual Production Pamela Frankau
PF 's novel The Devil We Know was published; the character Jennifer Nash is an unflattering portrait of Rebecca West .
Rollyson, Carl. Rebecca West: A Saga of the Century. Hodder and Stoughton.
138-9
Textual Production Dora Marsden
The Freewoman's other writing contributors included Rebecca West , radical feminists Ada Neild Chew and Theresa Billington-Greig , Stella Browne (later founder of the Abortion Law Reform Association ), anarchists Rose Witcop and Guy Aldred
Textual Production James Joyce
Preparing a defence against the allegations, Joyce's lawyer, Morris L. Ernst , obtained hundreds of written opinions from educators, librarians, writers, clergy, and business people. Among those quoted in Ernst's court brief were Rebecca West
Textual Production Dora Marsden
Plans were afoot to relaunch The Freewoman shortly after it collapsed in its first form. When Marsden retreated to Southport for health reasons, Rebecca West acted as liaison between her and supporters in the Freewoman Discussion Circle
Textual Production Fay Weldon
FW published Rebecca West, an unusual and enthusiastic biographical study.
FW 's grandmother claimed to have known both West and H. G. Wells personally.
Blackwell’s Online Bookshop. http://Bookshop.Blackwell.co.uk.
Parker, Peter, editor. A Reader’s Guide to Twentieth-Century Writers. Oxford University Press.
778
Kester-Shelton, Pamela, editor. Feminist Writers. St James Press.
507
Textual Production Dora Marsden
Its editorial team consisted of DM (editor), Rebecca West (assistant editor), and Grace Jardine (sub-editor and editorial assistant).
Garner, Les. A Brave and Beautiful Spirit: Dora Marsden, 1882-1960. Avebury.
99

Timeline

23 November 1911: Dora Marsden and Mary Gawthorpe edited the...

Building item

23 November 1911

Dora Marsden and Mary Gawthorpe edited the first issue of The Freewoman: A Weekly Feminist Review, a paper about sexual reform.

15 April 1912: The Daily Herald, first newspaper of the...

Writing climate item

15 April 1912

The Daily Herald, first newspaper of the Labour Party , was launched on capital of £200; it changed its title to the Herald and back again to the Daily Herald before expiring in 1964.

2 July 1914: The first issue of the magazine Blast, edited...

Building item

2 July 1914

The first issue of the magazine Blast, edited by Wyndham Lewis , formally announced the arrival of Vorticism, an avant-garde movement in art.

1 January 1916: The British edition of Vogue (an American...

Building item

1 January 1916

The British edition of Vogue (an American fashion magazine) began publishing from Condé Nast in Hanover Square, London.

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.
Mitchison, Naomi. You May Well Ask: A Memoir 1920-1940. Gollancz.
168

21 February 1924: The first issue appeared of the New Yorker...

Writing climate item

21 February 1924

The first issue appeared of the New Yorkermagazine (still going strong in the twenty-first century).
Borne Back Daily. http://borneback.com/ .
21 February 2011

1925: Christine Murrell and Letitia Fairfield,...

Building item

1925

Christine Murrell and Letitia Fairfield , in association with the Medical Women's Federation , set out to explode some damaging myths by launching a survey on menstrual experience among girls.

24 February 1934: The National Council for Civil Liberties...

National or international item

24 February 1934

The National Council for Civil Liberties was founded by journalist Ronald Kidd , who had witnessed the treatment of hunger marchers in London in November 1932.

21-25 June 1935: The First International Congress of Writers...

National or international item

21-25 June 1935

The First International Congress of Writers for the Defence of Culture (an anti-fascist event urging the responsibility of writers to their society) was held in Paris.

17 September 1945: The trial began at the Old Bailey in London...

National or international item

17 September 1945

The trial began at the Old Bailey in London of Lord Haw-Haw (William Joyce), famous as a wartime anti-British, pro-Hitler broadcaster, who before the war had regularly posed as of British nationality.

30 September 1946: The Nuremberg trials ended after almost a...

National or international item

30 September 1946

The Nuremberg trials ended after almost a year in court, and judges from Allied countries sentenced eleven Nazi war criminals to death.

1962: Publisher John Calder and writer's widow...

Writing climate item

1962

Publisher John Calder and writer's widow Sonia Orwell together organised at Edinburgh the first, highly successful Writers' Conference.

22 April 1969: The Booker Prize for the year's best novel...

Writing climate item

22 April 1969

The Booker Prize for the year's best novel was awarded for the first time. The winner was P. H. Newby with Something to Answer For; the judges were chaired by Frank Kermode , and...

Texts

West, Rebecca. 1900. Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1982, http://UofA.
West, Rebecca. A Letter to a Grandfather. Leonard and Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press, 1933.
West, Rebecca. A Train of Powder. Macmillan, 1955.
Glendinning, Victoria, and Rebecca West. “Afterword”. Cousin Rosamund, Macmillan, 1985, pp. 287-95.
Glendinning, Victoria, and Rebecca West. “Afterword”. Sunflower, Virago, 1986, pp. 268-76.
West, Rebecca. Arnold Bennett Himself. John Day, 1931, http://UofA.
West, Rebecca. “Bibliography”. Rebecca West: A Celebration, edited by Samuel Hynes, Viking Press, 1977, pp. 761-6.
West, Rebecca. Black Lamb and Grey Falcon. Viking, 1941.
West, Rebecca. Black Lamb and Grey Falcon. Viking Press, 1945.
West, Rebecca. Cousin Rosamund. Macmillan, 1985, http://UofA.
West, Rebecca. D.H. Lawrence. Martin Secker, 1930, http://UofA.
West, Rebecca. Ending in Earnest. Doubleday, Doran, 1931.
West, Rebecca. Harriet Hume. Hutchinson, 1929.
West, Rebecca. Harriet Hume. Lester and Orpen Dennys, 1982.
West, Rebecca. Henry James. Nisbet.
West, Rebecca. “Indissoluble Matrimony”. Blast, edited by Wyndham Lewis.
Glendinning, Victoria, and Rebecca West. “Introduction”. Harriet Hume, Lester and Orpen Dennys, 1980.
Low, David, and Rebecca West. Lions and Lambs. J. Cape, 1928.
West, Rebecca. McLuhan and the Future of Literature. Oxford University Press, 1969, http://UofA.
West, Rebecca. Selected Letters of Rebecca West. Editor Scott, Bonnie Kime, Yale University Press, 2000.
West, Rebecca. St. Augustine. Peter Davies.
West, Rebecca. Sunflower. Virago, 1986.
West, Rebecca. Survivors in Mexico. Editor Schweizer, Bernard, Yale University Press, 2003.
West, Rebecca. “The Addict”. Nash’s Magazine.
West, Rebecca. The Birds Fall Down. Macmillan, 1966.