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.
Connections
Connections Sort descending | Author name | Excerpt |
---|---|---|
Literary responses | Mary Gawthorpe | She took it in good part when Teresa Billington
told her when one of her most headlong and disorganized speeches (given after taking a doctor's prescription for exhaustion) was pretty bad, Gawthorpe, Mary. Up Hill to Holloway. Traversity Press, 1962. 234 |
Literary responses | Doreen Wallace | Response was gratifying. The Times Literary Supplement, apparently categorizing DW
as a regional novelist, said that she describes the countryside and country people with accuracy and feeling, yet she does not sentimentalize or overstress... |
Literary responses | Elizabeth von Arnim | This novel elicited a wide range of responses from reviewers. John Middleton Murry
consoled EA
when she received harsh criticism in the Times Literary Supplement. He told her there was no way to protect... |
Literary responses | Viola Meynell | In her review, Rebecca West
wrote that she found the work marred by an almost demented cosmopolitanism. It gives the impression that England is entirely inhabited by Roumanians with French mistresses, and Baltic barons. qtd. in MacKenzie, Raymond N. A Critical Biography of English Novelist Viola Meynell, 1885-1956. Edwin Mellen, 2002. 230 |
Literary responses | Nina Hamnett | Rebecca West
was not charmed: her review likened NH
to a character in Evelyn Waugh
's Vile Bodies and commented on the book's idiot gusto curiously combined with a strong suicidal impulse. qtd. in Booth-Clibborn, Edward, and Nina Hamnett. “Introduction”. Laughing Torso, Virago, 1984, p. v - x. v |
Literary responses | Storm Jameson | Margaret B. McDowell
wrote that while Jameson's first novels sold well, they served a greater importance as her apprentice writing. They garnered increasingly positive reviews as she began to mature as a writer. Rebecca West |
Literary responses | Elizabeth von Arnim | Rebecca West
wrote in the New Statesman that in this novel EA
had lapsed back into the unplumbed seas of artificial femininity. “Dictionary of Literary Biography online”. Gale Databases: Literature Resource Center-LRC. 197 |
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. qtd. in Bagnold, Enid, and Laurian Jones. National Velvet. W. Heinemann, 1935. back cover qtd. in Sebba, Anne. Enid Bagnold: The Authorized Biography. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1986. 76 |
Literary responses | Vita Sackville-West | The enthusiastic review by J. C. Squire
was not entirely welcome to VSW
, since she regarded Squire as a silly old ass and all that. qtd. in Glendinning, Victoria. Vita. Penguin, 1984. 167 |
Literary responses | Jan Morris | She was honoured in Wales by election in 1993 to the |
Literary responses | Virginia Woolf | As a manifesto for modernism, Jacob's Room divided the critics. T. S. Eliot
wrote in a letter that VW
had now succeeded in freeing her original gift from compromise with the traditional novel. qtd. in Lee, Hermione. Virginia Woolf. Chatto and Windus, 1996. 444 |
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 | Vita Sackville-West | VSW
received personal congratulations on her stories from Sir Edmund Gosse
and John Galsworthy
. Among reviewers the only unfavourable voice was that of Rebecca West
. S. P. B. Mais
in the Daily Express... |
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... |
Occupation | Margaret Haig Viscountess Rhondda | Women contributors ranged widely: Rebecca West
, Stella Benson
, Cicely Hamilton
, Members of Parliament Lady Nancy Astor
and Ellen Wilkinson
, Virginia Woolf
, Naomi Mitchison
, E. M. Delafield
, Rose Macaulay |
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