Rebecca West (21 December, 1892 – 15 March, 1983) was a British journalist, author and travel writer.
- The author’s birth name was Cicely Isabel Fairfield, she took her nom de plume from a Henrik Ibsen work called Rosmersholm, who rebellious heroine was of that name while training to be an actress in London.
- In 1947 Time called her “indisputably the world’s number one woman writer”.
- The Dreyfus affair made a big impression on Ms. West, showing the will to persecute minorities based on weak evidence and mob mentality.
- West, a leftist, was against the Bolshevik Revolution, and she paid a heavy price among her friends who refused to admit its failings even when faced with eyewitness accounts.
- West understood the evil which the Nazis stood for and attacked the Conservative government for its stance on appeasement, and the Liberal left for their stance on pacifism.
- West was a staunch anti-communist, but she never joined the conservative movement which held her in high regard.
- She wrote literary criticism for The Times, the New York Herald Tribune, the Sunday Telegraph, and The New Republic.
- When writing a review of H. G. Wells‘ novel Marriage, Ms. West called the famous author “the Old Maid among novelists”. Mr. Wells’ curiosity picked and Ms. West was invited for lunch. A year later the two writers became lovers and their affair lasted for 10 years, producing a son: Anthony West. The two stayed friends until 1946, when Mr. Wells passed away.
- Unfortunately the relationship between mother and son, who inherited the gift of writing from his parents, was not an easy one.
- Author Alison Macleod is the niece of Rebecca West.
Zohar — Man of la Book
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Fun Facts Friday: Rebecca West
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Rebecca West (21 December, 1892 – 15 March, 1983) was a British journalist, author and travel writer.
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Man of la Book
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Man of la Book - A Bookish Blog
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