Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Christopher St John
-
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
.
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.
306
St John, Christopher. Ethel Smyth. Longmans, Green.
xvii
Reception
Ethel Smyth
ES
was famous or notorious in her day. According to Constance Lytton
, E. F. Benson
painted her portrait as Edith Staines in his novel Dodo. A detail of the day, 1893, whose title...
Textual Production
Stevie Smith
SS
's list of requisites for a critic or reviewer goes like this: Attention, impartiality, and no regard for age or sex.
Smith, Stevie. Me Again. Editors Barbera, Jack and William McBrien, Vintage.
173
In April 1941 she was reviewing for John O'London's, Country Life...
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...
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.
251
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...
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. Editors Nicolson, Nigel and Joanne Trautmann, Hogarth Press.
6: 49
, but wished she had allowed herself a...
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.
Publishing
Hrotsvit of Gandersheim
The only copy listed by OCLC WorldCat is now at Yale
.
The frontispiece shows Hrotsvit, kneeling in her nun's robes, presenting a handsomely-bound copy of her own works to the Emperor Otho (or Otto) II
Publishing
Hrotsvit of Gandersheim
If regarded as seven rather than six,
St John, Christopher et al. “The Plays of Roswitha”. The Plays of Roswitha, translated by. Christopher St John, Benjamin Blom, p. xiv - xxiv.
xiv
HG's plays are Gallicanus I, Gallicanus II, Dulcitius, Callimachus, Abraham, Paphnutius, and Sapientia. After Christopher St John
's ground-breaking translation...
Textual Features
Hrotsvit of Gandersheim
HG maintained that her great influence in drama was the Latin playwright Terence
, though she diverges from him to ignore the unity of place which was dear to him and other classical dramatists, and...
Textual Features
Hrotsvit of Gandersheim
Christopher St John
observes that her style is colloquial, but also so spare and condensed that it is difficult to render into a language other than Latin. She combines medieval habits of latinity with using...
Reception
Hrotsvit of Gandersheim
Cardinal Gasquet
, introducing the first English translation of Hrotsvit's plays, hedged his critical bets. His opening words were: Whatever may be thought of the precise merits of these six short dramas . ....
Performance of text
Cicely Hamilton
CH
's one-act suffrage play, How the Vote Was Won, co-written with Christopher St John
, opened at the Royalty Theatre
.
Demastes, William W., and Katherine E. Kelly, editors. British Playwrights, 1880-1956. Greenwood Press.
191
Performance of text
Cicely Hamilton
The Pot and the Kettle by CH
and Christopher St John
, a one-act play satirising anti-suffragists, was first performed—at the same matinée as A Pageant of Great Women.
Whitelaw, Lis. The Life and Rebellious Times of Cicely Hamilton. Women’s Press.
89
Timeline
June 1908: The Women Writers' Suffrage League was established...
1 October 1910: The Times newspaper launched a Woman's S...
Building item
1 October 1910
The Timesnewspaper launched a Woman's Supplement.
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.
St John, Christopher. “Biographical Note”. Edy: Recollections of Edith Craig, edited by Eleanor Adlard, 1stst ed, Frederick Muller, 1949.
St John, Christopher. Edy: Recollections of Edith Craig. Editor Adlard, Eleanor, Frederick Muller, 1949.
St John, Christopher. Ellen Terry. John Lane, 1907.
St John, Christopher. Ethel Smyth. Longmans, Green, 1959.
Hamilton, Cicely, and Christopher St John. How the Vote Was Won. Woman’s Press, 1909.
Hamilton, Cicely, and Christopher St John. How the Vote Was Won. Dramatic Publishing Company, 1910.
St John, Christopher. Hungerheart. Methuen, 1915.
Gasquet, Francis Aidan et al. “Introduction”. The Plays of Roswitha, translated by. Christopher St John, Benjamin Blom, 1966, p. vii - xiii.
St John, Christopher. “Music of the Week”. Time and Tide, Vol.
1
, No. 1, p. 22.
Terry, Ellen. “Preface; Biographical Chapters”. Ellen Terry’s Memoirs, edited by Edith Craig and Christopher St John, Benjamin Blom, 1969, pp. v - xi; 279.
St John, Christopher, and Charles Thursby. The Coronation. International Suffrage Shop, 1911.
St John, Christopher. The Crimson Weed. Duckworth, 1900.
St John, Christopher. The First Actress. Utopia Press, 1909.
Heijermans, Herman. The Good Hope. Translators St John, Christopher and Jacob Thomas Grein, Hendersons, 1921.
Hrotsvit of Gandersheim, and Francis Aidan Gasquet. The Plays of Roswitha. Translator St John, Christopher, Chatto and Windus, 1923.
Hrotsvit of Gandersheim, and Francis Aidan Gasquet. The Plays of Roswitha. Translator St John, Christopher, Benjamin Blom, 1966, p. xxvi - xxxv; 158 pp.
St John, Christopher et al. “The Plays of Roswitha”. The Plays of Roswitha, translated by. Christopher St John, Benjamin Blom, 1966, p. xiv - xxiv.
Hamilton, Cicely, and Christopher St John. The Pot and the Kettle. 1909.
Heijermans, Herman. The Rising Sun. Translators St John, Christopher and M. V. Salvage, Labour Publishing Company, 1925.
Evreinov, Nikolai Nikolaevich. The Theatre of the Soul. Translators St John, Christopher and Marie Potapenko, Hendersons, 1915.
Despard, Charlotte, and Christopher St John. Woman in the New Era. The Suffrage Shop, 1910.