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.
Her literary friends of a generation before her own included George Meredith
, Rhoda Broughton
, and Henry James
. She participated in the friendship of the two last-named by being regularly at Broughton's house...
Textual Production
Rose Macaulay
Over the years, RM
published several dozen literary articles in a wide range of magazines, newspapers, and commemorative volumes. She wrote on past and contemporary literary figures, including Leslie Stephen
, Stella Benson
, Rebecca West
Family and Intimate relationships
Cecily Mackworth
CM
later wrote that the search for love was interwoven with many events of her life; she felt her judgement was poor in matters of the heart, and connected this with the loss of her...
Literary responses
Katherine Mansfield
After Mansfield's death, Woolf
wrote in her diary: it seemed to me there was no point in writing. Katherine won't read it.
Gunn, Kirsty. “How the Laundry Basket Squeaked”. London Review of Books, Vol.
35
, No. 7, pp. 25-6.
25
KM
appears in episodes in more than one novel by her friend...
Introduced to each other by Mary Gawthorpe
, DM
and Rebecca West
began a friendship based on their shared interest in feminist issues.
Garner, Les. A Brave and Beautiful Spirit: Dora Marsden, 1882-1960. Avebury.
93
Rollyson, Carl. Rebecca West: A Saga of the Century. Hodder and Stoughton.
16-17
Textual Production
Dora Marsden
Under an editorial team that included DM
and Rebecca West
, the last issue of The Freewoman was published.
Garner, Les. A Brave and Beautiful Spirit: Dora Marsden, 1882-1960. Avebury.
83
Cultural formation
Dora Marsden
This constant mobility did not preclude DM
from forming loving relationships with several women at this time, however, apart from the constant support provided by her mother
. Rona Robinson
, a close friend from...
Family and Intimate relationships
Dora Marsden
Jardine became Marsden's assistant and for a number of years the two lived together (sometimes with Hannah Marsden
) in London, Southport, and Blackburn. In her Time and Tide piece on Marsden...
politics
Dora Marsden
According to Marsden, twelve to fifteen people were expected at this meeting but about a hundred attended. Meetings were open to male and female members and were held every two weeks, while chapters were also...
Occupation
Dora Marsden
Funding and other support for the fledgling New Freewoman had been organized via the New Freewoman Company Ltd
, the directors of which were Weaver, Marsden, Grace Jardine
, and Bessie Heyes
. Through it...
Friends, Associates
Dora Marsden
During the 1920s DM
's primary focus was her writing, which she continued mainly in isolation and under much mental and physical stress. However, she was assisted in this by Harriet Shaw Weaver
and Sylvia Beach
