Dame Rebecca West, famous for The Meaning of Treason, had a three-fold reputation: novelist, journalist, and writer for women suffrage. As a novelist, she wrote from a feminist point of view; a journalist, she covered the trials of Nazi war criminals in Nuremberg (Germany) after World War II; and as a writer, wrote articles supporting women's suffrage.
She was created a Dame Commander of the British Empire in 1959.
Early Life of Rebecca West
Rebecca West (Cicily Isabel Fairfield) was born in Ireland on December 21, 1892, daughter of a Scottish pianist and an Irish journalist. Educated in Edinburgh, she initially trained as a stage actress, turned to journalism, then joined the women's suffragist movement.
The name 'Rebecca West' was adopted by her from the radical feminist character in Henrik Ibsen's play Rosmersholm.
Writer and Journalist
West became a well-known writer of witty articles on subjects ranging from social issues to book reviews. She wrote for the journal The Freewoman and a socialist weekly, The Clarion, espousing suffragists' rights and women's trade unions.
West's first book, published when she was 24, was a biography of the writer Henry James. Around that time she started a 10-year love affair with the English novelist and social reformer H.G. Wells, by whom she had a son, Anthony West. After she parted ways with Wells, aged 38, West married Henry Adams, a banker, and lived in a country manor in Buckinghamshire.
Her best-known book, The Meaning of Treason, is an account of the trials for treason of Britons who worked for Germany during World War II. During this time, she also published Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, a journal and history of Yugoslavia. Her reports on the Nuremberg trials were issued in book form as A Train of Powder.
Novelist
West's first novel, the Return of the Soldier, was published when she was 26. Its hero is a soldier suffering from shell shock after fighting in World War I. He cannot remember the last 15 years of his life, including his marriage. Several more novels followed, including The Judge, but then there was a long gap of 20 years before her bestseller, The Fountain Overflows, was produced. Partly based on her own early years, the story is told by a child, Rose, who describes the day-to-day events of her life in a wealth of detail.
Last Years
West continued to write until shortly before she died in 1983, at the of age 90.
Books by Rebecca West
- Henry James 1916
- The Return of the Soldier 1918
- The Judge 1922
- Harriet Hume 1939
- The Thinking Reed 1929
- The Meaning of Treason 1949
- A Train Powder 1955
- The Fountain Overflows 1956
- The Birds Fall Down 1966
Related Websites
Sources:
Cambridge Guide to Literature in English by Ian Ousby (1993)
Who's Who of Women in the Twentieth Century, Gen. Editor, Jean Martin, Bison Group (1995)
