Ivy Compton-Burnett
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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.
Connections
Connections Sort descending | Author name | Excerpt |
---|---|---|
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... |
Intertextuality and Influence | Elizabeth De la Pasture | EDP
was made CBE in 1918. Waugh, Auberon et al. “Introduction”. The Unlucky Family, Folio Society, 1980, p. vii - xii. viii Cooper, Jilly. “Life is like that”. The Guardian, 3 May 2008, p. 21. 21 |
Literary responses | Muriel Spark | 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 | Charlotte Yonge | The Daisy Chain's popularity was long-lasting, though not so intense as that of The Heir of Redclyffe. Jane Austen
's nephew James Austen-Leigh
compared it to the work of Austen and Scott
... |
Literary responses | Ada Leverson | This novel was widely praised when it appeared. The Daily Mail reviewer, however, dismissed it as the typically inferior product of a lady writer, comparing it to its disadvantage with Dolores, first (and now... |
Literary responses | Virginia Woolf | Novelist Angus Wilson
, in the course of an otherwise notably fair and sensitive review for The Observer, said that VW
's her reputation had been overestimated. Spurling, Hilary. Secrets of a Woman’s Heart. Hodder and Stoughton, 1984. 220 |
Literary responses | Dorothy Whipple | DW
was an unacknowledged favourite of Ivy Compton-Burnett
and evidently of Elizabeth Taylor
too, since Taylor borrowed for her novel Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont from the opening of a story among Whipple's papers, which... |
Literary responses | Elizabeth Taylor | Julia Strachey
and Pamela Hansford Johnson
both slammed A Wreath of Roses. Beauman, Nicola. The Other Elizabeth Taylor. Persephone Books, 2009. 214-15 |
Literary responses | Elizabeth Taylor | Ivy Compton-Burnett
wrote to her friend ET
of her great and lasting pleasure in this novel. Spurling, Hilary. Secrets of a Woman’s Heart. Hodder and Stoughton, 1984. 270 |
Literary responses | Elizabeth Taylor | This novel too was praised by Ivy Compton-Burnett
. Spurling, Hilary. Secrets of a Woman’s Heart. Hodder and Stoughton, 1984. 284 |
Literary responses | Olivia Manning | This book evoked a double-edged response from Ivy Compton-Burnett
who, writing to Elizabeth Taylor
, said: It really is full of very good descriptions. Quite excellent descriptions. I don't know if you care for descriptions... |
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... |
Literary responses | Pamela Hansford Johnson | In a letter Compton-Burnett
reported herself grateful . . . in a way to her critic (whose name she got wrong) but felt she had made errors which needed to be pointed out. Damningly she... |
Literary responses | Vera Brittain | The book was widely and favourably reviewed. Lady Rhondda
found it [e]xtraordinarily interesting. I sat up reading it till long past my usual bedtime and have been reading it again all this morning. qtd. in Gorham, Deborah. Vera Brittain: A Feminist Life. Blackwell, 1996. 1 |
Occupation | Edith Sitwell | It was well attended by women writers. Ivy Compton-Burnett
and Bryher
were there, and H. D.
and Vita Sackville-West
were among the other readers on the evening's programme. Dorothy Wellesley
was to have read also... |
Timeline
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Texts
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