Viola Meynell

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Standard Name: Meynell, Viola
Birth Name: Viola Mary Gertrude Meynell
Married Name: Viola Mary Gertrude Dallyn
Nickname: Prue
VM wrote during the earlier part of the twentieth century. Her fairly slender output includes religious novels, poetry, essays, short stories, and book reviews. Her richly emotional and subtle style is often structured by Christian diction and allusion. She tends to give her central characters happy endings heavily freighted with the symbolism of re-birth, but intense penitence for past actions is often first demanded of her female protagonists. Her positive critical reception was perhaps coloured by the high literary standing of her mother; she has as yet awakened no serious revival of interest.

Connections

Connections Author name Sort descending Excerpt
Friends, Associates Lady Cynthia Asquith
Cynthia was also a friend of Viola Meynell and of Enid Bagnold , whose Sussex homes were close to that of the Asquiths during the Second World War. Thirkell, as well as Lawrence, Bagnold, and...
Friends, Associates Catherine Carswell
Catherine Jackson, her next-door neighbour Ivy Low (who later married Maxim Litvinov , who after the Russian Revolution became a Soviet diplomat), and Low's friend Viola Meynell , shared an admiration for D. H. Lawrence's...
Friends, Associates Eleanor Farjeon
Back in London she acquired a circle of largely musical friends, many of them later well-known names, including Myra Hess and Clifford and Arnold Bax . Later this circle expanded to include literary people: Viola Meynell
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Eleanor Farjeon
EF prints here the letters written to her by Thomas, whom she loved (though he did not return her love), and who was killed in the First World War. She provides a vivid context for...
Occupation Naomi Jacob
The Women's Emergency Corps was founded by a group of women, including actresses Eva and Decima Moore and (according to Jacob) Gertrude Kingston . Jacob's fellow volunteers there included Stella Benson and Viola Meynell ....
Textual Production Elizabeth Jenkins
EJ contributed an introduction to a volume, the seventh in John Lehmann 's The Chiltern Library, published in 1947 and containing two titles by Elizabeth Gaskell . In her introduction to Thackeray 's Vanity...
Friends, Associates F. Tennyson Jesse
Gordon Place became the centre of an active female literary community, which included Elizabeth Bowen , Rose Macaulay , Virginia Woolf , Ivy Low (who was also a good friend of Viola Meynell ), Ivy Compton-Burnett
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...
Family and Intimate relationships Alice Meynell
Alice Thompson married Wilfrid Meynell , a journalist and editor who had converted to Catholicism at eighteen.
AM 's daughter-biographer Viola Meynell , however, dated her parents' wedding to the autumn 1877.
Meynell, Viola. Alice Meynell: A Memoir. J. Cape.
61
Badeni, June. The Slender Tree: A Life of Alice Meynell. Tabb House.
67
“Dictionary of Literary Biography online”. Gale Databases: Literature Resource Center-LRC.
98
“Dictionary of Literary Biography online”. Gale Databases: Literature Resource Center-LRC.
19
Family and Intimate relationships Alice Meynell
AM 's fifth child was Viola Meynell . She became a poet and novelist, and published a memoir of her mother in 1929.
Meynell, Viola. Alice Meynell: A Memoir. J. Cape.
prelims
Residence Alice Meynell
The house stood on enough land for Wilfrid Meynell to build houses for his grown-up children to occupy when they came to visit. Other visitors included D. H. Lawrence , who wrote The Rainbow while...
Literary responses Alice Meynell
The Pall Mall Gazette praised AM 's dramatic criticism in particular as the best of the age.
Badeni, June. The Slender Tree: A Life of Alice Meynell. Tabb House.
132
George Meredith admired her devout but open mind, and declared that she would some day rank as...
Literary responses Alice Meynell
Woolf met AM in 1909 at a tea-party in Florence, Italy. She recorded her first, not entirely positive, impression: a lean, attenuated woman, who had a face like that of a transfixed hare....
Textual Production Alice Meynell
Immediately after AM 's death, her daughter Viola began collecting material for a biography, Alice Meynell: A Memoir, which was published in 1929. AM 's writing has been anthologised in English Critical Essays, Twentieth...
Friends, Associates Betty Miller
BM 's friends included Olivia Manning , Rosamond Lehmann , Stevie Smith , Inez Holden , Viola Meynell , and Eleanor Farjeon .
Miller, Sarah, and Betty Miller. “Introduction”. On the Side of the Angels, Virago, p. vii - xviii.
xv
In wartime she met and immediately took to Adrian Stephen ,...

Timeline

No timeline events available.

Texts

Meynell, Viola. A Girl Adoring. E. Arnold, 1927.
Meynell, Viola. Alice Meynell: A Memoir. J. Cape, 1929.
Meynell, Viola. Alice Meynell: A Memoir. J. Cape, 1947.
Meynell, Viola. Antonia. M. Secker, 1921.
Meynell, Viola. Columbine. M. Secker, 1915.
Meynell, Viola, and Charles Stabb. Cross-in-Hand Farm. Herbert and Daniel, 1911.
Meynell, Viola. Follow Thy Fair Sun. J. Cape, 1935.
Meynell, Viola. Francis Thompson and Wilfrid Meynell: A Memoir. Hollis and Carter, 1952.
Meynell, Viola, editor. Friends of a Lifetime. J. Cape, 1940.
Meynell, Viola. Kissing the Rod. J. Cape, 1937.
Barrie, Sir J. M. Letters of J.M. Barrie. Editor Meynell, Viola, Peter Davies, 1942.
Meynell, Viola. Lot Barrow. M. Secker, 1913.
Meynell, Viola. Martha Vine. Herbert and Daniel, 1910.
Meynell, Viola. Modern Lovers. M. Secker, 1914.
Meynell, Viola. Narcissus. M. Secker, 1916.
Meynell, Viola. Ophelia. James Barrie, 1951.
Meynell, Viola. Second Marriage. M. Secker, 1918.
Meynell, Viola, editor. The Best of Friends. Rupert Hart-Davis, 1956.
Meynell, Viola. The Frozen Ocean. M. Secker, 1930.
Meynell, Viola. Verses. M. Secker, 1919.
Meynell, Viola. Young Mrs. Cruse. E. Arnold, 1924.