Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Iris Tree
-
Standard Name: Tree, Iris
Birth Name: Iris Tree
Married Name: Iris Moffat
Married Name: Iris Ledebur
Twentieth-century poet IT
published three volumes of poetry in her twenties and thirties and a long poem in her old age. Her poems also appeared in verse anthologies, most notably Edith Sitwell
's Wheels, and in various journals. As an actress and daughter of a theatrical family, she also wrote three plays, including one for children. Her early poems often deal with war's destruction of humanity and society, while her later poems consider themes such as God, nature, and sensual love. IT
wrote many letters, vivacious and hyperbolic in tone.
The story begins with the ambitions and emotional entanglements of a small group of Slade School of Art
students (two men, Paul Tarrant and the precocious success Kit Neville, and one strikingly talented woman, Elinor...
Friends, Associates
Caroline Blackwood
CB
's first marriage was a period of intense socializing. She knew virtually everyone in bohemian as well as in fashionable London circles. The painter Francis Bacon
, a close friend of her husband's, became...
Family and Intimate relationships
Caroline Blackwood
One factor in dividing CB
from Freud may have been her involvement with Cyril Connolly
, who pursued her although or because he had been a friend of her father's at Eton. In the last...
Education
Nancy Cunard
After NC
's mother left her husband and moved to London, Nancy became a regular pupil at Miss Wolff
's School in South Audley Street, where she had previously attended some classes.
The surname...
Friends, Associates
Nancy Cunard
Her boredom with this life (her mother's social milieu) was something that she shared with her friend Iris Tree
, also a poet. Despite her antipathy towards it, this life presented her with important literary...
Reception
Nancy Cunard
NC
was also the exemplary subject for painters and photographers—Nina Hamnett
(who did a drawing of her for ten guineas at the request of Lady Cunard
),
Hamnett, Nina. Laughing Torso. Ray Long & Richard R. Smith, Inc.
In Paris NH
quickly re-acquainted herself with old friends and met new ones, re-establishing her presence at the popular cafés. She re-connected with Marie Wassilieff
, Zadkine
, Brancusi
, Aleister Crowley
, and others...
Friends, Associates
Aldous Huxley
Those friends of Aldous whom his wife Maria referred to as the brilliant ones,
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...
Textual Features
Edith Sitwell
Wheels was a series in opposition: to the First World War, to the cosiness of the Georgian school of poetry, and to the establishment in general. It drew its revolutionary note from the continued influence...
death
Viola Tree
After being ill for many months, VT
died in London of pleurisy.
Iris Tree
's biographer, Daphne Fielding
, mis-dates her death to early 1939.
Fielding, Daphne. The Rainbow Picnic. Eyre Methuen.
113
“The Times Digital Archive 1785-2007”. Thompson Gale: The Times Digital Archive.
(16 November 1938): 9
Family and Intimate relationships
Viola Tree
VT
's two sisters were Felicity, later Lady Cory-Wright
, and the much younger poet, playwright, and actress Iris Tree
. Iris, who looked up to, admired, and adored Viola, published three volumes of poetry...
Education
Viola Tree
Shortly after her performance as Eurydice, VT
moved to Italy to continue her operatic training. She arrived about 5 September 1910 in Milan, where she studied, with intermittent visits to England, until autumn...
Friends, Associates
Viola Tree
By mid-1917, VT
had met the actor-manager Gerald du Maurier
, who became an important figure in her life, especially after the blow of her father's death in July that year. Once she had to...
