Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Sheila Kaye-Smith
-
Standard Name: Kaye-Smith, Sheila
Birth Name: Sheila Kaye-Smith
Married Name: Sheila Fry
Pseudonym: E. C. Ticehurst
Writing mostly in the first half of the twentieth century, SKS
published thirty-one novels, in addition to about twenty works in other genres: biography, criticism, saints' lives, country lore, and books of memoirs (one of them disguised as a cookery book). Almost all her novels are set in the Weald of Sussex, with which her name became closely identified. She called Jane Austen
her Bible.
Overall Johnson
, writing in 1920, admired in EM
's work a somewhat severe aloofness and grim humour. She reminded him of Sheila Kaye-Smith
, though he did not find in her the masculinity he...
Literary responses
Edna Lyall
A later novelist, Sheila Kaye-Smith
, wrote that as a child she had known this novel and To Right the Wrong almost by heart.
Kaye-Smith, Sheila, and G. B. Stern. Talking of Jane Austen. Cassell.
1
Literary responses
Edna Lyall
Like In the Golden Days (also set in the seventeenth century), this book was a favourite of the young Sheila Kaye-Smith
.
Kaye-Smith, Sheila, and G. B. Stern. Talking of Jane Austen. Cassell.
1
Intertextuality and Influence
Edna Lyall
In 1912 Virginia Woolf
, reviewing a book about Dickens, remarked how in country inns on a wet weekend the walker frustrated by the weather would find on the single bookshelf just two authors: Dickens
Jameson had been approached by the Ministry of Information
once the USA had entered World War II, for suggestions on how to cement Anglo-American relations.
Jameson, Storm. Journey from the North. Harper and Row.
They then moved out of London, after living there for six years, to an estate called Little Doucegrove in Northiam, East Sussex, where for the first time RG
employed a gardener (who went...
Textual Production
Rumer Godden
Olga Sarah Manders had trained under great chefs; she began cooking for Godden because she had cooked for Sheila Kaye-Smith
.
Intertextuality and Influence
Stella Gibbons
The idea for the novel germinated while SG
was working at the Evening Standard; she wrote much of it while travelling to and from work on the London tube.
Briggs, Asa. A History of Longmans and Their Books 1724 - 1990. Longevity in Publishing. British Library and Oak Knoll Press.
390
In 1928, the year...
Intertextuality and Influence
Stella Gibbons
Such earthy regionalists—who include Thomas Hardy
and D. H. Lawrence
, as well as Webb
and Kaye-Smith
—become the butt of SG
's satire in Cold Comfort Farm.
Oliver, Reggie. Out of the Woodshed: A Portrait of Stella Gibbons. Bloomsbury.
This saint had already attracted a number of English women writers: Evelyn Underhill
, Sheila Kaye-Smith
, and Vita Sackville-West
(the only one in Furlong's bibliography). A new edition of MF
's book appeared in 2001.
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Ella Hepworth Dixon
In a chapter devoted to Some Women Writers she praises, among others, Sheila Kaye-Smith
, Margaret Kennedy
(particularly for The Constant Nymph), Elizabeth von Arnim
, and Violet Hunt
. Authors who receive whole...
Literary responses
Stella Benson
Forty-six years after Benson's death, Naomi Mitchison
acknowledged that her work had ceased being read, that her fantasy was misunderstood as whimsy. She felt, however, that in 1979 a revival was due.
Mitchison, Naomi. You May Well Ask: A Memoir 1920-1940. Gollancz.
127
It is...
Literary responses
Theodora Benson
Sheila Kaye-Smith
reviewed this in the Sunday Express as a charmingly written book.
Benson, Theodora, and Betty Askwith. Seven Basketfuls. Victor Gollancz.
prelims
Timeline
No timeline events available.
Texts
Kaye-Smith, Sheila. Willow’s Forge and Other Poems. E. Macdonald, 1914.