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.
Formerly stored in a wicker trunk at the home of her niece Elaine Dyson Bate, DM
's papers are now at Princeton University
. Her collection contains manuscripts, papers, and letters to and from Rebecca West
Friends, Associates
Dora Marsden
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...
Textual Production
Flora Macdonald Mayor
This novel sold reasonably well and FMM
was again lauded by several contemporary critics, including E. M. Forster
, G. B. Stern
, and Rebecca West
.
Williams, Merryn. Six Women Novelists, Macmillan.
45
Keith, Rhonda. British Novelists 1890-1929: Modernists. Editor Staley, Thomas F., Gale Research Company, pp. 169-71.
and judged its quality so poor that [it is] hard to believe it was written by FMM
at all.
Hill, Susan, and Flora Macdonald Mayor. The Third Miss Symons, Virago, p. n.p.
prelims
Rebecca West
was the...
Family and Intimate relationships
Charlotte Mew
There has been much speculation, both at the time and more recently, about the nature of the relationship between the two writers. CM
seems to have fallen in love, but Sinclair was not receptive, not...
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.
MacKenzie, Raymond N. A Critical Biography of English Novelist Viola Meynell, 1885-1956. Edwin Mellen.
230
Textual Production
Naomi Mitchison
By the early 1930s NM
was making as much by her writing, in real terms, as nearly fifty years later. She reviewed novels—reading at great speed even while breast-feeding, since she claimed that [i]f the...
Literary responses
Jan Morris
She was honoured in Wales by election in 1993 to the Gorsedd or supposedly throned assembly of bards (taking the bardic name of Jan Trefan) and by the award in 2016 of the medal...
Intertextuality and Influence
Dervla Murphy
Here as usual DM
uses every possible means for understanding—history, geography, close observation of ordinary individuals and the precise conditions of their lives—in her account of this immensely complex and trouble-ridden region. She is able...
Intertextuality and Influence
Amelia Opie
The Critical Review thought The Soldier's Return and Brother and Sister the best of these stories, but only the best of a bad lot. The stories in general, it said, were tedious and insipid, and...
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
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.
