Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Stella Benson
-
Standard Name: Benson, Stella
Birth Name: Stella Benson
Married Name: Stella Anderson
Used Form: Nikolai Gerasimovich Savin
SB
's fiction and travel-writing, and also her poetry and diaries, are rich in visual impact and imaginative oddity. She is an acute observer of material and emotional reality of the earlier twentieth century, into which she regularly introduces an element of the fantastical. Though a serious political activist (about suffrage and prostitution), she is a very funny writer. She has no truck with what she calls the English craving for cold moderation in words.
qtd. in
Benson, Stella. The Little World. 1st ed., Macmillan, 1928.
The novelist, poet, travel-writer, and diarist Stella Benson
was MC
's niece.
Family and Intimate relationships
Vera Brittain
Catlin
(not to be confused with the nineteenth-century US painter George Catlin) was the only child of a Congregational minister and his pro-suffragette wife, whose feminist beliefs combined with her husband's growing hostility eventually ended...
Friends, Associates
Winifred Holtby
Through her work with the Six Point Group
and Time and Tide, WH
met the founder of both, Margaret Haig, Lady Rhondda
. Their professional relationship grew into a friendship, and WH
dedicated her...
Since, however, writing seemed unlikely to yield her a livelihood, she went immediately to work as assistant secretary for the Charity Organization Society
, Chelsea branch. This paid her twenty-three shillings a week, with hours...
Reception
Virginia Woolf
Woolf's attitude to this honour (which, however, was unusual in that she did not decline it) remained deprecating and satirical. She called it the most insignificant and ridiculous of prizes
Woolf, Virginia. The Letters of Virginia Woolf. Editors Nicolson, Nigel and Joanne Trautmann, Hogarth Press, 1975–1980, 6 vols.
3: 479
and my dog...
Reception
Romer Wilson
RW
's novels, tackling the complex philosophical and social issues that faced people in European countries in the years after the Great War, have been largely, if not entirely, forgotten. Her death at thirty-nine years...
Textual Features
Philip Larkin
His selection was resolutely unfashionable, favouring Hardy
and Betjeman
at the expense of Eliot
and Pound
. He was, however, remarkably generous in his selection of women poets (often for just one or two poems...
Textual Production
Rose Macaulay
Over the years, RM
published several dozen literary articles in a wide range of magazines, newspapers, and commemorative volumes. She wrote on past and contemporary literary figures, including Leslie Stephen
, Stella Benson
, Rebecca West
Textual Production
Phyllis Bottome
PB
published a short memorial volume, Stella Benson, praising her friend's courage, wit, and selflessness.