Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Rebecca West
-
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.
Rebecca West
reviewed the book in The Daily Telegraph, calling it [a]n admirable novel. Nobody has ever written so well about the kind of English people who live in big houses since Sir Anthony Hope Hawkins
Friends, Associates
Victoria Cross
Possibly because VC
spent so much time travelling, it is difficult to judge the extent of her social circle. She is unmentioned by many literary autobiographies of the period. Charlotte Mitchell
suggests that she may...
Friends, Associates
Ivy Compton-Burnett
Compton-Burnett always retained the capacity of being difficult. Elizabeth Taylor describes at second hand her refusal, in about 1959, to extend the hand of friendship to Rebecca West
. Rebecca was apparently at her most...
Education
Kate Clanchy
While in EdinburghKC
attended George Watson's College
, where she was acutely conscious of feeling like an outsider owing to her lack of interest in sports and her bookishness and posh accent.
Jinks, Peter. “Muse turns tables”. Scotland on Sunday.
Scott, Jane. “By Virtue Of An Explosive Arts Debut”. The Herald.
Described as...
Literary responses
Catherine Carswell
Reaction to this book was fiercely negative among traditional Burnsites, especially in Scotland. CC
received threats to her well-being, including one letter signed Holy Willy (after a character satirised by Burns) and containing a...
Literary responses
Catherine Carswell
Reviews were mixed. Rebecca West
, reviewing the book before the libel charges, felt that CC
overdid her loyalty to Lawrence.
Pilditch, Jan. Catherine Carswell. A Biography. John Donald.
142
Virginia Woolf
, having at first thought the book interesting, changed her mind...
Friends, Associates
Mary Butts
A party at MB
's flat at 43 Belsize Park Gardens in London was attended by Evelyn Waugh
, G. B. Stern
, and Rebecca West
.
Blaser, Robin et al. “Afterword”. Imaginary Letters, Talonbooks, pp. 61-80.
65
Reception
Rhoda Broughton
In a lamentable
Lowndes, Marie Belloc. Diaries and Letters of Marie Belloc Lowndes, 1911-1947. Editor Marques, Susan Lowndes, Chatto and Windus.
217
article on the death of Virginia Woolf
, Hugh Walpole
accused literary ladies of acting like priestesses engaged in throwing fragrant incense on their own altars. The first name he mentions...
Grant, Joy. Stella Benson: A Biography. Macmillan.
251
Literary responses
Arnold Bennett
By 1930, AB
was feeling frustrated at the critical and editorial reactions to his work, the attention focussed exclusively on only four among almost twenty times that many titles: The Old Wives' Tale, The...
Literary responses
Enid Bagnold
The novel was well received. In the AthenæumKatherine Mansfield
congratulated EB
for creating a pioneer who sees, feels, thinks, hears, and yet is herself full of the sap of life.
Bagnold, Enid, and Laurian Jones. National Velvet. W. Heinemann.
back cover
Sebba, Anne. Enid Bagnold: The Authorized Biography. Weidenfeld and Nicolson.
76
Rebecca West
Literary responses
Enid Bagnold
EB
's biographer Anne Sebba
notes that although Serena Blandish is offensive to contemporary readers, it was in its own time received as no more than a bitter comedy of manners, blithely caputuring the wicked...
Literary responses
Rose Allatini
Meanwhile the Times Literary Supplement saw the novel as well-written—evidently the work of a woman. The reviewer judged that as a frank and sympathetic study of certain types of mind and character, it is of...
