Lady Cynthia Asquith

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Standard Name: Asquith, Lady Cynthia
Birth Name: Cynthia Mary Evelyn Charteris
Styled: Lady Cynthia Mary Evelyn Charteris
Married Name: Lady Cynthia Mary Evelyn Asquith
Pseudonym: C. Greene
Pseudonym: A Correspondent
Pseudonym: Leonard Gray
Used Form: Cynthia Asquith
LCA is chiefly remembered as a diarist of the First World War, who gives a unique picture on its impact, both detailed and profound, on the lives of the English governing class. She also published novels, literary biographies, anthologies, journalism, plays, ghost stories, and works for children.
Black and white photograph of Lady Cynthia Asquith, in profile, sitting on a carved bench. She is wearing a loose-fitting dress with thin stripes and a pattern superimposed, a wrist-watch, and a long, simple pendant. Her hair is loosey pinned back in a bun.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Anthologization Marghanita Laski
ML 's ghost story The Tower, appeared in Cynthia Asquith 's The Third Ghost Book.
OCLC WorldCat. 1992–1998, http://www.oclc.org/firstsearch/content/worldcat/. Accessed 1999.
Laski, Marghanita. “The Tower”. The Oxford Book of Twentieth-Century Ghost Stories, edited by Michael Cox, Oxford University Press, 1996, pp. 210-16.
210
Anthologization Elizabeth Bowen
During the 1940s EB published stories in the Listener (not for the first time), the New Yorker, Horizon, and the Cornhill, as well as in collections such as Penguin New Writing no...
Family and Intimate relationships Sir J. M. Barrie
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...
Friends, Associates Margaret Kennedy
Through her marriage to Davies, Kennedy came into contact with the former Prime Minister Asquith and his family. Her acquaintance with members of high society gave her considerable material for later fiction.
Powell, Violet. The Constant Novelist. W. Heinemann, 1983.
77, 90
She...
Friends, Associates D. H. Lawrence
Several women writers were numbered among DHL 's friends and acquaintances: Amy Lowell , Katherine Mansfield , Anna Wickham , Lady Cynthia Asquith , Carrington , Brett , Catherine Carswell , and Lady Ottoline Morrell
Friends, Associates Enid Bagnold
Bagnold's biographer Anne Sebba writes that try as [EB ] might to belong to the artists' milieu, she could not release her other foot from the smart set.
Sebba, Anne. Enid Bagnold: The Authorized Biography. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1986.
148
Bagnold's friends included socialist...
Friends, Associates Viola Meynell
VM met Lawrence through Ivy Low . Enthusiastic about his writing, she offered to lend him her cottage and to do his typing. During his stay on the Meynells' property, Lawrence introduced Viola to Ottoline Morrell
Friends, Associates Sir J. M. Barrie
Lady Cynthia Asquith became SJMB 's private secretary after the First World War. She worked for him for years (she needed the money), using the pseudonym C. Greene. They became close to each other.
Beauman, Nicola. Cynthia Asquith. Hamish Hamilton, 1987.
256-8
Friends, Associates Dorothy Wellesley
In Rome during the First World War, DW became a friend of two scholars, Geoffrey Scott , and Gerald Tyrwhitt, later Lord Berners .
Wellesley, Dorothy. Far Have I Travelled. James Barrie, 1952.
133
In the years after the war she formed her important...
Friends, Associates Mary Webb
In London, despite the shyness that made literary life difficult for her, MW became friends with May Sinclair , Robert and Sylvia Lynd , Rebecca West , novelist and critic Edwin Pugh , and Lady Cynthia Asquith
Friends, Associates Angela Thirkell
Her literary friends included Lady Cynthia Asquith , Lady Cynthia's mother Lady Wemyss , Susan, Lady Tweedsmuir , and E. V. Lucas of Punch. With Lucas some kind of breach took place before the...
Intertextuality and Influence Christina Rossetti
CR was mourned in a sonnet by Michael Field shortly after her death. Her influence extended to many other poets of her own time or close to it, including Gerard Manley Hopkins , Rosamund Marriott Watson
Literary responses Barbara Pym
It was well reviewed by another novelist, Lady Cynthia Asquith .
Beauman, Nicola. Cynthia Asquith. Hamish Hamilton, 1987.
325
In a BBC radio broadcast in 1978, Pym noted that this novel had caused someone to comment upon her dislike of men, to...
Literary responses Enid Bagnold
EB 's friend Desmond MacCarthy approached Virginia Woolf to review the book, but she refused, having taken a dislike to Bagnold and assuming that she had enmeshed poor old Desmond.
Friedman, Lenemaja. Enid Bagnold. Twayne, 1986.
9
As Woolf put it...
Textual Features Margaret Kennedy
She opens the novel in 1914 to depict the decadence of pre-war Lyndon, the manor house where Agatha (who represents the Victorian ideal of wifehood) lives. The pre-war luxury of Lyndon serves to set up...

Timeline

3 September 1939: Britain and France officially declared war...

National or international item

3 September 1939

Britain and France officially declared war on Germany.
BBC Handbook: 1960. BBC, 1960, http://U of A HSS HE 8690 B86.
238
Briggs, Asa. The BBC: The First Fifty Years. Oxford University Press, 1985.
374
Mitchison, Naomi. Among You Taking Notes . . . The Wartime Diary of Naomi Mitchison 1939-1945. Editor Sheridan, Dorothy, Oxford University Press, 1986.
35-7
Keegan, John. The Second World War. Viking, 1990.
44-7, 54
Messenger, Charles. World War Two Chronological Atlas: When, Where, How and Why. Bloomsbury, 1989.
22-3
Beauman, Nicola. Cynthia Asquith. Hamish Hamilton, 1987.
311

1947: James Barrie, great-nephew of playwright...

Writing climate item

1947

James Barrie , great-nephew of playwright Sir James Barrie , founded an imprint to publish popular books, among them Lady Cynthia Asquith 's diaries.
Rose, Jonathan, and Patricia J. Anderson, editors. Dictionary of Literary Biography 112. Gale Research, 1991.
36

Texts

Asquith, Lady Cynthia. Diaries 1915-1918. Hutchinson, 1968.
Asquith, Lady Cynthia. Haply I May Remember. James Barrie, 1950.
Asquith, Lady Cynthia. Married to Tolstoy. Hutchinson, 1960.
Asquith, Lady Cynthia. Martin’s Adventure. Partridge, 1925.
Asquith, Lady Cynthia. One Sparkling Wave. M. Joseph, 1943.
Asquith, Lady Cynthia. Portrait of Barrie. J. Barrie, 1954.
Asquith, Lady Cynthia. Remember and Be Glad. James Barrie, 1952.
Asquith, Lady Cynthia. The Child at Home. Nisbet, 1923.
Asquith, Lady Cynthia, editor. The Flying Carpet. Partridge, 1925.
Asquith, Lady Cynthia, editor. The Ghost Book. Hutchinson, 1926.
Asquith, Lady Cynthia. The Spring House. M. Joseph, 1936.
Laski, Marghanita. “The Tower”. The Third Ghost Book, edited by Lady Cynthia Asquith, James Barrie, 1955, pp. 127-34.
Asquith, Lady Cynthia. Thomas Hardy at Max Gate. Toucan, 1969.