Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Ivy Compton-Burnett
-
Standard Name: Compton-Burnett, Ivy
Birth Name: Ivy Compton-Burnett
ICB
published twenty novels: the first while she was in her twenties, in 1911, but the first one to use her mature and startlingly original style when she was forty, in 1925. From the beginning she was praised by critics (sometimes a chorus, sometimes a few lone voices) but sold less well than she would have liked. She was a paradox: a person shaped by Victorian values and social hierarchies, whose novels—composed largely of razor-sharp dialogue—dismantle those values and hierarchies from within.
Ivy Compton-Burnett
, who always disliked religious sentiment and religious writing, was severe on MS
. She described her early novels as Not at all good. . . . I don't like novels that tell...
Literary responses
Christina Stead
CS
now received her first enthusiastic review from the Times Literary Supplement—and the first to be written by a woman, Marigold Johnson
. Johnson mentioned that [d]istinguished American writers had been extravagant in their...
Intertextuality and Influence
Muriel Spark
The story takes place at Geneva in Switzerland (transferred from the Italian scene of the real-llife original), on an estate owned by a Baron Klopstock, among characters of diverse national origins. The protagonist, Lister the...
OM
's friends included a number of fellow-writers: William Gerhardi
, Ivy Compton-Burnett
(whom she had first met before the war, at a party given by Rose Macaulay
, and whose work she deeply admired),...
Friends, Associates
Pamela Hansford Johnson
Friends made in New York included PHJ
's publisher Charles Scribner
, as well as Diana
and Lionel Trillingwhom I loved, but always found a little intimidating.
Johnson, Pamela Hansford. Important to Me. Macmillan; Scribner.
45
At home her literary friends included...
Friends, Associates
Anna Kavan
After her relationship with Stuart Edmonds ended, AK
developed a large and close circle of friends who doted on her. Her friends were almost exclusively homosexual men, and she developed a reputation for not getting...
Friends, Associates
Barbara Pym
BP
wrote steadily throughout her life, regardless of changes in occupation. One of the benefits of her first publication, Some Tame Gazelle, in 1950 was the introduction of various authors into her personal and...
Friends, Associates
Bryher
The flat became a gathering place for friends including the Sitwells (Bryher grew especially close to Edith
and Osbert
), Elizabeth Bowen
, and Ivy Compton-Burnett
.
Schaffner, Perdita. “Keeper of the Flame”. H.D., Woman and Poet, edited by Michael King, National Poetry Foundation, pp. 27-33.
32
Bryher,. The Days of Mars. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
18
While in London, Bryher increased the...
Friends, Associates
Rose Macaulay
RM
met Ivy Compton-Burnett
; they immediately became true and intimate friends, and the friendship lasted for life.
Emery, Jane. Rose Macaulay: A Writer’s Life. John Murray.
Other friendships made now or later included many with distinguished women, like Ivy Compton-Burnett
(whom she found kinder to me than she apparently was to most other people),
