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 Author name Sort descending Excerpt
Literary responses Rose Allatini
Meanwhile the Times Literary Supplement saw the novel as well-written—evidently the work of a woman. The reviewer judged that as a frank and sympathetic study of certain types of mind and character, it is of...
Literary responses Enid Bagnold
The novel was well received. In the AthenæumKatherine Mansfield congratulated EB for creating a pioneer who sees, feels, thinks, hears, and yet is herself full of the sap of life.
Bagnold, Enid, and Laurian Jones. National Velvet. W. Heinemann.
back cover
Sebba, Anne. Enid Bagnold: The Authorized Biography. Weidenfeld and Nicolson.
76
Rebecca West
Literary responses Enid Bagnold
EB 's biographer Anne Sebba notes that although Serena Blandish is offensive to contemporary readers, it was in its own time received as no more than a bitter comedy of manners, blithely caputuring the wicked...
Literary responses Arnold Bennett
By 1930, AB was feeling frustrated at the critical and editorial reactions to his work, the attention focussed exclusively on only four among almost twenty times that many titles: The Old Wives' Tale, The...
Friends, Associates Stella Benson
Back in London after various summer travels, SB met Eddie Marsh , Rebecca West , and Elizabeth Bowen .
Grant, Joy. Stella Benson: A Biography. Macmillan.
251
Friends, Associates Ann Bridge
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...
Friends, Associates Mary Butts
A party at MB 's flat at 43 Belsize Park Gardens in London was attended by Evelyn Waugh , G. B. Stern , and Rebecca West .
Blaser, Robin et al. “Afterword”. Imaginary Letters, Talonbooks, pp. 61-80.
65
Literary responses Catherine Carswell
Reaction to this book was fiercely negative among traditional Burnsites, especially in Scotland. CC received threats to her well-being, including one letter signed Holy Willy (after a character satirised by Burns) and containing a...
Literary responses Catherine Carswell
Reviews were mixed. Rebecca West , reviewing the book before the libel charges, felt that CC overdid her loyalty to Lawrence.
Pilditch, Jan. Catherine Carswell. A Biography. John Donald.
142
Virginia Woolf , having at first thought the book interesting, changed her mind...
Education Kate Clanchy
While in EdinburghKC attended George Watson's College , where she was acutely conscious of feeling like an outsider owing to her lack of interest in sports and her bookishness and posh accent.
Jinks, Peter. “Muse turns tables”. Scotland on Sunday.
Scott, Jane. “By Virtue Of An Explosive Arts Debut”. The Herald.
Described as...
Friends, Associates Ivy Compton-Burnett
Compton-Burnett always retained the capacity of being difficult. Elizabeth Taylor describes at second hand her refusal, in about 1959, to extend the hand of friendship to Rebecca West . Rebecca was apparently at her most...
Friends, Associates Victoria Cross
Possibly because VC spent so much time travelling, it is difficult to judge the extent of her social circle. She is unmentioned by many literary autobiographies of the period. Charlotte Mitchell suggests that she may...
Intertextuality and Influence E. M. Delafield
The diary abounds with references to contemporary literature, including several internal allusions to Time and Tide. The Provincial Lady engages in friendly rivalry over its competitions for readers and describes social encounters with the...
Literary responses E. M. Delafield
Rebecca West reviewed the book in The Daily Telegraph, calling it [a]n admirable novel. Nobody has ever written so well about the kind of English people who live in big houses since Sir Anthony Hope Hawkins

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...

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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...

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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...

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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,...

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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.