This novel revolves around four meetings (spread over several years) between pianist Harriet Hume and politician Arnold Condorex, characters who come to represent opposing forces—art and politics, private and public life, femininity and masculinity.
Glendinning, Victoria, and Rebecca West. “Introduction”. Harriet Hume, Lester and Orpen Dennys.
2, 6
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.
1
and likens it to the Reynolds
painting, The Three Graces Decorating a Statue of Hymen...
Literary responses
Eudora Welty
Victoria Glendinning
, reviewing for the New York Times, wrote that in this invigorating selection, EWconstantly touches the painful place where literary critic and creative writer meet; she apparently finds the relation...
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.
306, 323
Literary responses
Fay Weldon
Reviews of the novel were mixed. Reviewers criticised authorial intrusions, question-and-answer dialogue, and role-typing, while praising solid construction, shrewdness, and authenticity. Victoria Glendinning
in the Times Literary Supplementtraced the details about material objects and...
Literary responses
Rose Tremain
Reviewers divided over the question of how convincingly RT
had impersonated her very young male hero. The Guardian reviewer admired the way that readers were led deep . . . into Lewis's consciousness, while some...
Textual Production
Violet Trefusis
On 14 May 1918, four days after the end of her first romantic holiday with VT
, Vita Sackville-West
began writing her novel Challenge (titled Rebellion in its early stages). It is clearly based on...
Textual Features
Violet Trefusis
The novel's action is set in Oxford.
Trefusis, Violet, and Victoria Glendinning. Broderie Anglaise. Translator Bray, Barbara, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
12, 22
There, Alexa meets Anne and quarrels with John over the truth of John and Anne's love affair and failed elopement. Alexa and John are reconciled...
Reception
Violet Trefusis
Sackville-West
and Woolf
never read VT
's text: it did not appear in English until 1985, with Barbara Bray
's translation and Victoria Glendinning
's introduction.
Souhami, Diana. Mrs. Keppel and Her Daughter. Flamingo.
257
Glendinning, Victoria, and Violet Trefusis. “Introduction”. Broderie Anglaise, translated by. Barbara Bray and Barbara Bray, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
v, xvi
In a critical essay, Broderie Anglaise...
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...
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.
Hill, Rosemary. “No False Modesty”. London Review of Books, Vol.
33
, No. 20, pp. 25-6.
26
The poets of the Movement were famously dismissive of ES
. Al Alvarez
published a notorious and...
Textual Features
Penelope Shuttle
The reviewer quoted above, Victoria Glendinning
, saw Shuttle as an uncompromising explorer, digging away in the moist rabbit-hole of the subconscious, but unlikely to carry very many readers with her.
Glendinning, Victoria. “Blood sisters”. Times Literary Supplement, No. 3907, p. 97.
97
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.
57
Glendinning, Victoria. Vita. Penguin.
37
Glendinning, Victoria. Vita. Penguin.
31
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...
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.