Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Colette
-
Standard Name: Colette
Birth Name: Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette
Married Name: Sidonie-Gabrielle Gauthier-Villars
Married Name: Sidonie-Gabrielle de Jouvenel
Married Name: Sidonie-Gabrielle Goudeket
Pseudonym: Willy
Pseudonym: Colette
Pseudonym: Colette Willy
Colette
, a Frenchwoman whose career began with the twentieth century, wrote nearly eighty volumes of fiction (often depicting lesbian or other scandalous sexuality), as well as journalism, memoirs (she is a great self-fashioner), and plays. Only a fraction is commented on here. Eight various collections of her letters have been printed, and many more remain unpublished. Her favourite topics are love, sensuality, and people's jockeying for power in relationships; she is a pioneer in the representation of female desire.
Castle, Terry. “Yes you, sweetheart”. London Review of Books, pp. 3-8.
UT
began translating from French by the summer of 1924, when she started working on Charles Pettit
's Le fils du grand eunuque (1920). In 1927, on her own, without a publisher's backing, she began...
Textual Features
Una Troubridge
UT
wrote much of her 1914 diary in Italian. After 1915, her diaries document her relationship with Radclyffe Hall
, touching on the two women's health, families, travels, and social activities. She also writes about...
Literary responses
Sylvia Townsend Warner
STW
's biographer Claire Harman
terms this story extraordinarily delicate . . . at once both worldly and lyrical, reminiscent of Colette
, whose writing Sylvia admired.
Harman, Claire. Sylvia Townsend Warner: A Biography. Chatto and Windus.