Rebecca West

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Standard Name: West, Rebecca
Birth Name: Cicily Isabel Fairfield
Nickname: Cissie
Nickname: Anne
Nickname: Panther
Nickname: Rac
Pseudonym: Rebecca West
Married Name: Cicily Isabel Andrews
Used Form: R*b*cc* W*st
Rebecca West rose to fame early (before the First World War) through her witty, acerbic journalism. In addition to numerous essays and reviews, she wrote about a dozen novels, short stories, political analyses, a classic travel book, and works of literary criticism. Her journalism remains an important commentary on the contemporary women's movement, offering both strong intellectual support and trenchant satire. She is known for her pungency of phrase; on occasion she was more eager for a phrase to strike shockingly home than for it to withstand criticism.
Black and white, head-and-shoulders photograph of Rebecca West looking straight forward, wearing a checked jacket with dark cuffs and collar and white flowers pinned at the neckline. With one hand she touches a chunky metal necklace. Her wavy, greying hair, jaw-length, is pushed behind her ears.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Literary responses Ethel M. Dell
The implications of homosexual paedophilia (whose existence Dell was almost certainly unaware of) caused merriment rather than scandal. Rebecca West published in the New Statesman a few years later an article entitled The Posh Horse...
Publishing Daphne Du Maurier
She wrote this novel during the previous winter at her parents' country house, Ferryside at Bodinnick in Cornwall.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
While she worked at it, some lines from an Emily Brontë poem (Self-Interrogation) came...
Textual Features Daphne Du Maurier
The working title had been The Return of the Soldier; this, however was also the name of a book by Rebecca West published during World War I.
Occupation Eleanor Farjeon
In 1939, EF became a member of the executive committee of the PEN Club . She remained on the committee for ten years, during which its chief work was helping with the escape and establishment...
Literary responses Eleanor Farjeon
This was the first of EF 's books to meet with success, and it set the course for her professional life. A favourable review by Rebecca West was crucial in its early reception, and Farjeon's...
Friends, Associates Rosita Forbes
In FinlandRF met the national hero Marshal Mannerheim .
Forbes, Rosita. Gypsy in the Sun. Cassell.
302
On her first visit to the USA she met Rebecca West , Ruth Draper , Anna Pavlova , and H. G. Wells ; on...
Literary responses Ford Madox Ford
While some critics found The Good Soldierlong-winded, unpleasant, and lacking in focus,
“Dictionary of Literary Biography online”. Gale Databases: Literature Resource Center-LRC.
34
Rebecca West gave it an excellent review.
Textual Production Pamela Frankau
PF 's novel The Devil We Know was published; the character Jennifer Nash is an unflattering portrait of Rebecca West .
Rollyson, Carl. Rebecca West: A Saga of the Century. Hodder and Stoughton.
138-9
Publishing Pamela Frankau
PF 's cousin Diana Raymond published, with a preface, in a limited edition from Tragara Press of Edinburgh, Frankau's parody A Letter from R*b*cc* W*st.
Solo: Search Oxford University Libraries Online. http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?vid=OXVU1&fromLogin=true&reset_config=true.
Friends, Associates Pamela Frankau
Her aunt Eliza Aria introduced the very young PF to many of her older, god-like friends: first of all actress Sybil Thorndike and writers Michael Arlen and Osbert Sitwell .
Frankau, Pamela. I Find Four People. I. Nicholson and Watson.
133-4
Later came John Van Druten
Friends, Associates Pamela Frankau
PF 's friendship with Rebecca West began with West seeing her as a protégée worthy of her time and energy,
Frankau, Pamela. “Preface”. A Letter from R*b*cc* W*st, edited by Diana Raymond, Privately printed at the Tragara Press, pp. 3-5.
3
and Frankau being always afraid of Rebecca.
Frankau, Pamela. “Preface”. A Letter from R*b*cc* W*st, edited by Diana Raymond, Privately printed at the Tragara Press, pp. 3-5.
3
PF 's affair with Humbert Wolfe
Travel Pamela Frankau
She went on to Alassio in Italy. Next time she visited the south of France she went as the guest of Rebecca West .
Frankau, Pamela. I Find Four People. I. Nicholson and Watson.
143, 189
Like most people of her class and period,...
Literary responses Pamela Frankau
PF 's new agent had accomplished the whole process of selling this book before he had time to read it. He then reminded her that she had her forebears (grandmother and father) to beat; that...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Pamela Frankau
In this book PF offers her impressions of celebrities
Stern, G. B. . And did he stop and speak to you?. Henry Regnery.
119
met through her great-aunt Eliza Aria . Place is important too, like her vivid yet dreamlike description of Sligachan on the Isle of Skye...
Literary responses Pamela Frankau
After her death an ordinary . . . housewife wrote to Diana Raymond, calling herself representative of all those who had found especial magic in PF 's writing.
Raymond, Diana, and Pamela Frankau. “Introduction”. The Winged Horse, Virago, p. v - xiii.
v
Rebecca West wrote regretfully in an...

Timeline

No timeline events available.

Texts

West, Rebecca. The Court and the Castle. Yale University Press, 1957.
West, Rebecca. The Fountain Overflows. Macmillan, 1957.
West, Rebecca. “The Gospel According to Mrs. Humphrey Ward”. The Freewoman.
West, Rebecca. The Harsh Voice. Jonathan Cape, 1935.
West, Rebecca. The Judge. Hutchinson.
West, Rebecca. The Meaning of Treason. Viking.
West, Rebecca. The Meaning of Treason. Pan Books, 1956.
West, Rebecca, and David Low. The Modern "Rake’s Progress". Hutchinson, 1934, http://UofA.
West, Rebecca. The New Meaning of Treason. Viking Press, 1964.
West, Rebecca. The Only Poet and Short Stories. Editor Till, Antonia, Virago, 1992.
West, Rebecca. The Return of the Soldier. Nisbet, 1918.
West, Rebecca. The Sentinel. Editor Laing, Kathryn, Legenda, 2002.
West, Rebecca. The Strange Necessity. Jonathan Cape.
West, Rebecca. The Thinking Reed. Hutchinson.
West, Rebecca. The Young Rebecca. Editor Marcus, Jane, Macmillan with Virago, 1982, http://UofA.
West, Rebecca. This Real Night. Macmillan, 1984.
West, Rebecca. War Nurse. Cosmopolitan Book Corporation.