Christopher St John

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Standard Name: St John, Christopher
Birth Name: Christabel Marshall
Pseudonym: Christopher St John
Writing from the beginning of the twentieth century, CSJ produced novels, biography, and love-journals, as well as her work for the stage, for which she wrote translations, adaptations, and original plays. She is best remembered for the suffrage play How the Vote Was Won, co-written with Cicely Hamilton .

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Birth Edith Craig
EC was born in Gusterwoods Common, Hertfordshire, the elder of two children.
This is the spelling used by Christopher St John . Other sources say Gusterd Wood Common or Gusherd Wood Common.
St John, Christopher. “Biographical Note”. Edy: Recollections of Edith Craig, edited by Eleanor Adlard, 1stst ed, Frederick Muller, 1949.
9
Cultural formation Edith Craig
Since her mother's relationships with men tended to be brief, EC grew up surrounded by women. From an early age she associated women with strength and courage, and would admonish her brother for his childhood...
Cultural formation Edith Craig
From the age of thirty until her death, EC lived with writer Christopher St John (Christabel Marshall). Though Craig was reluctant to discuss this or any other aspect of her life, St John identified their...
death Ethel Smyth
She appointed Christopher St John as her literary executor. At the request of Christabel Pankhurst , St John downplayed ES 's role in the suffrage movement when she wrote her biography.
Mitchell, David J. The Fighting Pankhursts: A Study in Tenacity. MacMillan, 1967.
306
St John, Christopher. Ethel Smyth. Longmans, Green, 1959.
xvii
Family and Intimate relationships Emma Marshall
Her youngest child, Christabel, who grew up to re-name herself Christopher St John , circulated a fabricated story of her family and origins, and became well known as a suffragist playwright, biographer, and lesbian.
Family and Intimate relationships Vita Sackville-West
Matheson was succeeded in VSW 's life by Evelyn Irons , editor of the Daily Mail Women's Page, and then by Christopher St John , whose Barn Theatre, Smallhythe, was of professional interest. Vita...
Family and Intimate relationships Edith Craig
EC and Christopher St John took lodgings in Smith Square, Westminster, where they lived for six years.
Melville, Joy. Ellen and Edy. Pandora, 1987.
175
Auerbach, Nina. Ellen Terry: Player in Her Time. W.W. Norton, 1987.
480
Holledge, Julie. Innocent Flowers: Women in the Edwardian Theatre. Virago, 1981.
115
Cockin, Katharine. Edith Craig (1869-1947): Dramatic Lives. Cassell, 1998.
61-2
Friends, Associates Edith Craig
In the early 1930s—when the persecution of lesbians in general and Radclyffe Hall in particular was raging in the wake of The Well of Loneliness trial—EC , Christopher St John , and Clare Atwood
Friends, Associates George Bernard Shaw
He was an important figure in the lives and careers of almost innumerable women writers: a good friend of Annie Besant , Sylvia Pankhurst , Elizabeth Robins , and Christopher St John , a romantic...
Friends, Associates Radclyffe Hall
During the 1920s, RH and Una Troubridge were friends with a wide range of writers, actors, and artists, including Ida Wylie , Romaine Brooks , Natalie Barney , Noël Coward , Tallulah Bankhead , and...
Literary responses Vita Sackville-West
There was a widespread feeling that VSW had been too circumspect and scholarly. Virginia Woolf told Vita that she found the book solid, strong, satisfactory
Woolf, Virginia. The Letters of Virginia Woolf. Nicolson, Nigel and Joanne TrautmannEditors , Hogarth Press, 1980.
6: 49
, but wished she had allowed herself a...
Occupation Edith Craig
Despite her successes with the Pioneer Players and the Little Theatre movement, EC was often unable to find work in London, possibly because of her relationship with Christopher St John , possibly (as St...
Occupation Inez Bensusan
These plays, written by amateur and professional writers, were made available for performance at public events in support of women's suffrage. Bensusan encouraged writers to produce plays dealing with a range of women's issues such...
Occupation Edith Craig
The Pioneer Players produced Christopher St John 's The First Actress and Cicely Hamilton 's Jack and Jill and a Friend at their first matinee. Both plays deal with the the artistic establishment's exclusion of...
Performance of text Vita Sackville-West
VSW gave a reading of The Land at the Barn Theatre at Smallhythe, run by Edith Craig and Christopher St John .
Glendinning, Victoria. Vita. Penguin, 1984.
251

Timeline

June 1908
The Women Writers' Suffrage League was established by Cicely Hamilton and Bessie Hatton .
1 October 1910
The Timesnewspaper launched a Woman's Supplement.
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, 1979.
168
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.