Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Marie Belloc Lowndes
-
Standard Name: Lowndes, Marie Belloc
Birth Name: Marie Adelaide Elizabeth Renée Julia Belloc
Nickname: Mary
Married Name: Marie Adelaide Elizabeth Renée Julia Lowndes
Indexed Name: Mrs Belloc Lowndes
Pseudonym: Philip Curtin
Pseudonym: Elizabeth Rayner
During a career that spanned nearly fifty years from 1889, MBL
published journalism, biography, a guidebook, history for children, novels (mostly romances or thrillers), a book about actual crimes, and four late volumes of autobiography. Her books of crime and detection were her most successful. Her list of titles numbers more than seventy.
While other friends had reservations, Anthony Deane
told MS
that this was the very best book he had read for a long time.
Raitt, Suzanne. May Sinclair: A Modern Victorian. Clarendon Press.
95
It received far better reviews in the USA than at home...
Literary responses
Julia Frankau
Marie Belloc Lowndes
later wrote that Baccarat was thirty years ahead of its time, and had it been signed by Guy de Maupassant
it would have become and remained famous.
Lowndes, Marie Belloc. The Merry Wives of Westminster. Macmillan.
57
Literary responses
May Sinclair
Marie Belloc Lowndes
wrote to tell MS
she thought this her best book so far, though Sinclair did not agree with her.
Raitt, Suzanne. May Sinclair: A Modern Victorian. Clarendon Press.
166
Literary responses
Elizabeth Charles
Although she made little money, EC
made a name for herself with the Chronicles. The novel went through several editions, as well as being translated into many European languages, Arabic, and numerous Indian dialects...
Literary responses
Gertrude Stein
GS
's writing has been ruffling critics since Laura Riding
wrote in 1927 of her literalism, simple-mindedness, and successful barbarism.
Hoffmann, Michael J. “Gertrude Stein in the Psychology Laboratory”. American Quarterly, Vol.
17
, No. 1, pp. 127-32.
130
In 1945 Hugh Walpole
painted Stein as a self-adoring priestess of her own...
Literary responses
Katherine Mansfield
After Mansfield's death, Woolf
wrote in her diary: it seemed to me there was no point in writing. Katherine won't read it.
Gunn, Kirsty. “How the Laundry Basket Squeaked”. London Review of Books, Vol.
35
, No. 7, pp. 25-6.
25
KM
appears in episodes in more than one novel by her friend...
Leisure and Society
Margaret Kennedy
She belonged to, among other literary clubs, the Liberal Book Club
and the 30 Club, which consisted of a group of women writers who met for lunch at the Ritz Grill. Other members...
Leisure and Society
Mary Cholmondeley
MC
founded a weekly luncheon club for women writers called the Give and Take
. Marie Belloc Lowndes
was an early member. The price of lunch was two shillings and sixpence, and the club outlived...
Leisure and Society
Violet Trefusis
Marie Belloc Lowndes
recorded in 1945 that VT
looked and dressed as if she was twenty-eight, was a fascinating talker who liked to hold the floor, and had wonderful joie de vivre.
Lowndes, Marie Belloc. Diaries and Letters of Marie Belloc Lowndes, 1911-1947. Editor Marques, Susan Lowndes, Chatto and Windus.
264
Intertextuality and Influence
Lady Cynthia Asquith
LCA
's first published writing, an article entitled How to sit for your portrait, appeared in the Times; she had written it at the suggestion of Marie Belloc Lowndes
, who admired her...
Intertextuality and Influence
Agatha Christie
Captain Hastings, an ambitious detective, narrates an ingenious plot by a pair of criminals to stage their arrest and acquittal, only to have Poirot solve and reveal their actual crime. Poirot is described as an...
Friends, Associates
Susan Tweedsmuir
ST
's parents made connections through friendship as remarkable as those made for them by family descent. Her mother was a friend of many writers and intellectuals of both sexes, including Marie Belloc Lowndes
,...
Living in a suburb of London, KT
frequented the heart of English literary culture. She had already joined London's Irish Literary Society
, and was later appointed its Honorary Vice-President.
Tynan, Katharine. The Years of the Shadow. Constable.