Her biographer Victoria Glendinning
believes that her Anglicanism
was more than merely social, and cites her indignation over the modernising of services in the Book of Common Prayer, and her speaking up in support...
Cultural formation
Edith Sitwell
According to biographer Victoria Glendinning
, ES
wrote in her later life: I was unpopular with my parents from the moment of my birth.
She felt that she was a changeling, thought her...
Education
Vita Sackville-West
At thirteen VSW
began attending a small day school run by Helen Wolff
(whose name is variously spelled in various sources) in South Audley Street, off Park Lane. The staff were mostly male. Vita...
Friends, Associates
Edith Sitwell
ES
had received crucial support from Rootham in establishing her life and writing; she returned the support both financially and emotionally during Rootham's ultimately unsuccessful struggles to make a career as a singer.
Hill, Rosemary. “No False Modesty”. London Review of Books, Vol.
33
, No. 20, 20 Oct. 2011, pp. 25-6.
26
In...
Health
Dorothy Wellesley
According to Vita Sackville-West's biographer Victoria Glendinning
, DW
in her later years (from about 1940) was frequently blind drunk, often outrageously so in public.
Glendinning, Victoria. Vita. Penguin, 1984.
306, 323
Intertextuality and Influence
Rebecca West
The language is stilted an deliberately archaic. Victoria Glendinning
describes the novel as baroque in manner and matter,
Glendinning, Victoria, and Rebecca West. “Introduction”. Harriet Hume, Lester and Orpen Dennys, 1980.
1
and likens it to the Reynolds
painting, The Three Graces Decorating a Statue of Hymen...
Leisure and Society
Vita Sackville-West
VSW
became a debutante, entering the ritual season of fashionable parties which would launch her in society.
Her son Nigel Nicolson
dates this in June 1910, but biographer Glendinning
makes that date sound unlikely.
Nicolson, Nigel, and Vita Sackville-West. Portrait of a Marriage. Futura, 1974.
Hill, Rosemary. “No False Modesty”. London Review of Books, Vol.
33
, No. 20, 20 Oct. 2011, pp. 25-6.
26
The poets of the Movement were famously dismissive of ES
. Al Alvarez
published a notorious and...
Literary responses
Alison Fell
Victoria Glendinning
in the Times Literary Supplement (in AF
's only review to date in that prestigious journal) gave a muted welcome to this collection. To Fell's expressed desire to write ourselves some decent parts...
Literary responses
Margaret Forster
The response of reviewers, including specialists in feminist biography, was enthusiastic. Victoria Glendinning
in the Times welcomed a development she said she had been looking forward to: a biography offering sympathetic comprehension of the inner...
Literary responses
Jane Gardam
This collection won both the David Higham Prize for Fiction and the Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize. It was also a New Fiction Society
choice.
British Council Film and Literature Department, in association with Book Trust. Contemporary Writers in the UK. http://www.contemporarywriters.com.
The TLS review by Victoria Glendinning
found JG
in this collection better at people than at plots, and dealing out more scrutiny and more punishment to women than to men.
This became BP
's most widely-reviewed text, and received a mixed reception. Robert Liddell
was again outraged, calling this a dreadful book which had only been made possible by the betrayal of Pym's friends in...
Literary responses
Germaine Greer
A female gynaecologist mentioned in the book as uncaring and insensitive successfully sued Greer for damages.
Wallace, Christine. Germaine Greer: Untamed Shrew. Richard Cohen Books, 1999.
265-6
The Penguin
paperback which followed the year after publication came garlanded with praise from British feminist writers: Wendy Cope
Literary responses
Elizabeth Jane Howard
Victoria Glendinning
wrote in a New Statesman review: Howard writes most confidently and touchingly at very close range, about momentary doubts, unspoken anxieties, fleeting perceptions, intense good moments and equally intense bad ones, all inextricably...
Timeline
No timeline events available.
Texts
Glendinning, Victoria, and Rebecca West. “Afterword”. Cousin Rosamund, Macmillan, 1985, pp. 287-95.
Glendinning, Victoria, and Rebecca West. “Afterword”. Sunflower, Virago, 1986, pp. 268-76.
Glendinning, Victoria. “Blood sisters”. Times Literary Supplement, No. 3907, p. 97.
Trefusis, Violet, and Victoria Glendinning. Broderie Anglaise. Translator Bray, Barbara, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1985.
Glendinning, Victoria. Elizabeth Bowen. Alfred A. Knopf, 1978.
Glendinning, Victoria, and Rebecca West. “Introduction”. Harriet Hume, Lester and Orpen Dennys, 1980.
Glendinning, Victoria, and Violet Trefusis. “Introduction”. Broderie Anglaise, translated by. Barbara Bray and Barbara Bray, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1985.
Glendinning, Victoria. Jonathan Swift. Hutchinson, 1998.
Glendinning, Victoria. Rebecca West. Alfred Knopf, 1987.
Glendinning, Victoria. “Seeds of success”. The Guardian, p. Review 27.
Glendinning, Victoria. “Speranza: A Leaning Tower of Courage”. Genius in the Drawing-Room, edited by Peter Quennell, Weidenfield and Nicolson, 1980, pp. 101-16.
Glendinning, Victoria. “The gender test”. Times Literary Supplement, No. 4470, p. 1339.
Glendinning, Victoria. “The Muswell Hill mob”. Times Literary Supplement, No. 3889, p. 1199.
