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.
Black and white, head-and-shoulders photograph of Rebecca West looking straight forward, wearing a checked jacket with dark cuffs and collar and white flowers pinned at the neckline. With one hand she touches a chunky metal necklace. Her wavy, greying hair, jaw-length, is pushed behind her ears.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Textual Production Flora Macdonald Mayor
This novel sold reasonably well and FMM was again lauded by several contemporary critics, including E. M. Forster , G. B. Stern , and Rebecca West .
Williams, Merryn. Six Women Novelists, Macmillan.
45
Keith, Rhonda. British Novelists 1890-1929: Modernists. Editor Staley, Thomas F., Gale Research Company, pp. 169-71.
170
It took five years for FMM
Textual Production Storm Jameson
SJ edited and wrote in Challenge to Death: A Symposium on War and Peace, an anthology featuring Vera Brittain , Winifred Holtby , Rebecca West , Edmund Blunden , Julian Huxley , J. B. Priestley , and Guy Chapman .
Birkett, Jennifer. Margaret Storm Jameson: A Life. Oxford University Press.
123n53
Jameson, Storm, editor. Challenge to Death. Constable.
prelims
Jameson, Storm. Journey from the North. Harper and Row.
326-7
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 Features Ali Smith
The volume features 101 different women writers, each publication emblematic of the year for which its author is featured. Its contents range from the title-inspiring Miles Franklin 's My Brilliant Career (1901) through Edith Wharton
Textual Features Vernon Lee
This small volume was issued by Kegan Paul and E. P. Dutton 's Today and Tomorrow Series; other authors to publish here included Rebecca West , Bertrand Russell , and J. B. S. Haldane ...
Textual Features Wyndham Lewis
The story reflects Nietzsche 's belief that the artist must show mastery over women. Rebecca West gave it a favourable review.
Oldsey, Bernard Stanley, editor. Dictionary of Literary Biography 15. Gale Research.
310
Textual Features Dora Marsden
A marked difference separating The New Freewoman from its predecessor was its increased literary content, at first secured mainly by Rebecca West . West recruited Ezra Pound to The New Freewoman after meeting him at...
Textual Features G. B. Stern
A listing of books which GBS feels to be particularly her own includes Jane Austen , Edna St Vincent Millay , Dorothy Parker , and Rebecca West 's essays. But most of the women authors...
Textual Features Una Troubridge
UT wrote much of her 1914 diary in Italian. After 1915, her diaries document her relationship with Radclyffe Hall , touching on the two women's health, families, travels, and social activities. She also writes about...
Textual Features Daphne Du Maurier
The working title had been The Return of the Soldier; this, however was also the name of a book by Rebecca West published during World War I.
Reception Rhoda Broughton
In a lamentable
Lowndes, Marie Belloc. Diaries and Letters of Marie Belloc Lowndes, 1911-1947. Editor Marques, Susan Lowndes, Chatto and Windus.
217
article on the death of Virginia Woolf , Hugh Walpole accused literary ladies of acting like priestesses engaged in throwing fragrant incense on their own altars. The first name he mentions...
Reception Harriet Shaw Weaver
In 1932Eliot dedicated his Selected Essays to HSW : in gratitude and in recognition of her services to English letters.
Lidderdale, Jane, and Mary Nicholson. Dear Miss Weaver. Viking.
314n
Critic Percy Muir remarked at a National Book League celebration of James Joyce

Timeline

No timeline events available.

Texts

West, Rebecca. The Court and the Castle. Yale University Press, 1957.
West, Rebecca. The Fountain Overflows. Macmillan, 1957.
West, Rebecca. “The Gospel According to Mrs. Humphrey Ward”. The Freewoman.
West, Rebecca. The Harsh Voice. Jonathan Cape, 1935.
West, Rebecca. The Judge. Hutchinson.
West, Rebecca. The Meaning of Treason. Viking.
West, Rebecca. The Meaning of Treason. Pan Books, 1956.
West, Rebecca, and David Low. The Modern "Rake’s Progress". Hutchinson, 1934, http://UofA.
West, Rebecca. The New Meaning of Treason. Viking Press, 1964.
West, Rebecca. The Only Poet and Short Stories. Editor Till, Antonia, Virago, 1992.
West, Rebecca. The Return of the Soldier. Nisbet, 1918.
West, Rebecca. The Sentinel. Editor Laing, Kathryn, Legenda, 2002.
West, Rebecca. The Strange Necessity. Jonathan Cape.
West, Rebecca. The Thinking Reed. Hutchinson.
West, Rebecca. The Young Rebecca. Editor Marcus, Jane, Macmillan with Virago, 1982, http://UofA.
West, Rebecca. This Real Night. Macmillan, 1984.
West, Rebecca. War Nurse. Cosmopolitan Book Corporation.