Without children of his own, Barrie had a habit of monopolising the children of friends, for whom he invented elaborate games. Among children so situated were Bevil Quiller-Couch
(who was later the fiancé of the...
Family and Intimate relationships
Ann Bridge
At that time the Foreign Office, working in London, was distinct from the Diplomatic Service
, working abroad. It was not until after the First World War that Owen O'Malley became a diplomat overseas. He...
Family and Intimate relationships
Mollie Panter-Downes
MPD
married future businessman Clare Robinson
, whom she had met the year before when he was still an undergraduate.
Nicola Beauman
in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography says Clare Robinson was a businessman...
Family and Intimate relationships
Margaret Kennedy
In the same year that her mother
died, 1928, MK
gave birth to her first child, Julia
, who also became a novelist. Another daughter and a son followed in 1930 and 1935. Kennedy and...
Family and Intimate relationships
Dorothy Whipple
Henry Whipple, who worked as a civil servant in education, was Dorothy's boss at the time. His work took them to conferences here and there, and meetings of the W. E .A.
Whipple, Dorothy. Random Commentary. Michael Joseph, 1966.
84
Nicola Beauman
Family and Intimate relationships
Lady Cynthia Asquith
LCA
's mother, Mary
, Lady Wemyss, was born a Wyndham, a descendent of the writer Félicité, Mme de Genlis
, and of her royal lover Philippe Egalité
, Duc d'Orléans (who was also father...
Family and Intimate relationships
Lady Cynthia Asquith
Having joined the army, Herbert Asquith
had a spell at a training camp on Salisbury Plain before being posted to the Front in France. By August 1916 he was feeling as if he would...
Literary responses
Naomi Royde-Smith
The TLS praised NRS
's skill in the management of a gripping story.
Nicola Beauman
in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography mentioned among NRS
's most admired later novels...
Literary responses
Mollie Panter-Downes
This novel was much less well received than MPD
's first. Critic Nicola Beauman
finds it remarkable for the fact that the protagonist acquires a social conscience after coming into money, and for the lyrical...
Literary responses
Ann Bridge
A British Foreign Office
official warned that what he called the uniform unpleasantness of the Spanish characters (which was news to her: was he responding to the fact that people behave badly in extreme circumstances?)...
Literary responses
Mollie Panter-Downes
Nicola Beauman
sees the letters as a tribute to the behaviour of ordinary people in times of nightmare stress.
Beauman, Nicola, and Mollie Panter-Downes. “Introduction”. One Fine Day, Virago, 1985, p. vii - xvi.
xii
Literary responses
Mollie Panter-Downes
On the publication of London War NotesNoël Coward
wrote to tell MPD
that her evocation of the city in wartime, nearly thirty years in the past, was so well done that he felt sodden...
Literary responses
E. M. Delafield
Nicola Beauman
judges this one of EMD
's best novels.
Literary responses
Mollie Panter-Downes
MPD
, who disparaged her own powers of invention and ear for dialogue, called this her only novel.
qtd. in
Beauman, Nicola, and Mollie Panter-Downes. “Introduction”. One Fine Day, Virago, 1985, p. vii - xvi.
x
Nicola Beauman
thought it a study in the shifting sands of social class, and a hymn...
Literary responses
E. M. Delafield
Nicola Beauman
judges that EMD
succeeds in speaking to two different kinds of readers here: those who share the heroine's views of marriage and those who recognize the element of satire in them.
qtd. in
Beauman, Nicola, and E. M. Delafield. “Introduction”. The Diary of a Provincial Lady, Rprt ed. , Virago Press, 1984, p. vii - xvii.
September 1998: Literary historian Nicola Beauman founded...
Women writers item
September 1998
Literary historian Nicola Beauman
founded Persephone Books
, aimed at reprinting in beautiful format forgotten classics by twentieth-century (mostly women) writers.