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.
With books hard to come by, RG
read and re-read those she had, often sent her by relatives and often new publications. She called Austenexactly what I need and likened herself to Emma.
Godden, Rumer. A Time to Dance, No Time to Weep. Macmillan.
207
Literary responses
Evelyn Waugh
During his later life reviewers and commentators were hard on Waugh, and he responded pugnaciously. When Nancy Spain
wrote rudely about him after a hostile encounter in June 1955, he sued for libel and was...
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.
Literary responses
Christabel Pankhurst
This inflammatory book, probably CP
's best known work, was championed by the Church of England
(even though the Church disagreed with her views on votes for women). A review by Rebecca West
in the...
Literary responses
May Sinclair
A nurse who had worked with, but did not belong to, the Motor Field Ambulance Corps
disagreed strongly with MS
's version of some of the events described. After an initial exchange of letters she...
Literary responses
F. Tennyson Jesse
FTJ
later described it as a very bad book. The only excuse I had was that . . . I had to make a living, and Secret Bread, the other book, would take me...
Literary responses
Emmeline Pankhurst
Rebecca West
described her style as a speaker: Trembling like a reed, she lifted up her hoarse, sweet voice on the platform, but the reed was of steel and it was tremendous.
Greer, Germaine, and Emmeline Pankhurst. “Foreword”. Freedom or death, Guardian News and Media.
5
Literary responses
May Sinclair
The subject-matter of this novel brought it a notice in the Psychoanalytic Review. Rebecca West
, in another review, complained about a doctor (Jerrold's brother) being introduced to explain the actions of other characters...
Literary responses
E. B. C. Jones
Mansfield
further praised its distinction of style. Rebecca West
found in it a sense of character that can be brilliant or touching. Her slightly acerbic account of characters and their milieu—the tone of...
Literary responses
Mollie Panter-Downes
On the publication of London War NotesNoël Coward
wrote to tell MPD
that her evocation of the city in wartime, nearly thirty years in the past, was so well done that he felt sodden...
Literary responses
Muriel Spark
The book went into a third reprinting within two months. It was on the short-list for the first Booker Prize.
Stannard, Martin. Muriel Spark. The Biography. Weidenfeld and Nicolson.
356
It was well-received—as an economical, witty, and ironic exploration of a significant ethical subject—by...
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
Christina Stead
British and American reviewers liked the modernist eccentricity of these stories. Reviews in Australia, however, tended to dismiss them on grounds of a failure in realism.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
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...
Literary responses
Violet Hunt
VH
's associate Rebecca West
had strong praise for Their Lives. In a review in the Daily News on 7 March 1917, she called it a work of art. She found in it a...
