Rebecca West Popular Books
Rebecca West Biography & Facts
Dame Cicily Isabel Fairfield (21 December 1892 – 15 March 1983), known as Rebecca West, or Dame Rebecca West, was a British author, journalist, literary critic and travel writer. An author who wrote in many genres, West reviewed books for The Times, the New York Herald Tribune, The Sunday Telegraph and The New Republic, and she was a correspondent for The Bookman. Her major works include Black Lamb and Grey Falcon (1941), on the history and culture of Yugoslavia; A Train of Powder (1955), her coverage of the Nuremberg trials, published originally in The New Yorker; The Meaning of Treason (first published as a magazine article in 1945 and then expanded to the book in 1947), later The New Meaning of Treason (1964), a study of the trial of the British fascist William Joyce and others; The Return of the Soldier (1918), a modernist World War I novel; and the "Aubrey trilogy" of autobiographical novels, The Fountain Overflows (1956), This Real Night (published posthumously in 1984), and Cousin Rosamund (1985). Time called her "indisputably the world's number one woman writer" in 1947. She was made CBE in 1949, and DBE in 1959; in each case, the citation reads: "writer and literary critic". She took the pseudonym "Rebecca West" from the rebellious young heroine in Rosmersholm by Henrik Ibsen. She was a recipient of the Benson Medal. Biography Rebecca West was born Cicily Isabel Fairfield in 1892 in London, England, and grew up in a home full of intellectual stimulation, political debate, lively company, books and music. Her mother, Isabella, a Scotswoman, was an accomplished pianist but did not pursue a musical career after her marriage to Charles Fairfield. The Anglo-Irish Charles had been a Confederate stretcher-bearer at the siege of Richmond in the US Civil War, and had returned to the UK to become a journalist of considerable reputation but financial incompetence. He deserted his family when Cicily was eight years old. He never rejoined them, and died impoverished and alone in a boarding house in Liverpool in 1906, when Cicily was 14. The rest of the family moved to Edinburgh, Scotland, where Cicily was educated at George Watson's Ladies College. She had to leave school in 1907 due to a bout of tuberculosis. She chose not to return after recovering from the illness, later describing her schooling at Watson's as akin to a "prison". West had two older sisters. Letitia ("Lettie"), who was the best educated of the three, became one of the first fully qualified female doctors in Britain, as well as a barrister at the Inns of Court. Winifred ("Winnie"), the middle sister, married Norman Macleod, Principal Assistant Secretary in the Admiralty, and eventually director general of Greenwich Hospital. Winnie's two children, Alison and Norman, became closely involved in Rebecca's life as she got older; Alison Macleod would achieve a literary career of her own. West trained as an actress in London, taking the name "Rebecca West" from the rebellious young heroine in Rosmersholm by Henrik Ibsen. She and Lettie became involved in the women's suffrage movement, participating in street protests. Meanwhile, West worked as a journalist for the feminist weekly Freewoman and the Clarion, drumming up support for the suffragette cause. Affairs and motherhood In September 1912, West accused the famously libertine writer H. G. Wells of being "the Old Maid among novelists." This was part of a provocative review of his novel Marriage published in Freewoman, an obscure and short-lived feminist weekly review. The review attracted Wells's interest and an invitation to lunch at his home. The two writers became lovers in late 1913, despite Wells being both married and twenty-six years older than West. Their 10-year relationship produced a son, Anthony West, born on 4 August 1914. Wells was behind her move to Marine Parade, Leigh-on-Sea in Essex, where she lived between 1917 and 1919. Their friendship lasted until Wells's death in 1946. West is also said to have had relationships with Charlie Chaplin, newspaper magnate Lord Beaverbrook, and journalist John Gunther. Early career and marriage West established her reputation as a spokeswoman for feminist and socialist causes and as a critic, turning out essays and reviews for The New Republic, New York Herald Tribune, New York American, New Statesman, The Daily Telegraph, and many more newspapers and magazines. George Bernard Shaw said in 1916 that "Rebecca West could handle a pen as brilliantly as ever I could and much more savagely." During the 1920s, West began a lifelong habit of visits to the United States to give lectures, meet artists, and get involved in the political scene. She was a great friend of the novelist G. B. Stern, and Stern and Clemence Dane stayed with her in America in 1924. There, she befriended CIA founder Allen Dulles, Charlie Chaplin, Harold Ross of The New Yorker, and historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., among many other significant figures of the day. Her lifelong fascination with the United States culminated in 1948 when President Truman presented her with the Women's Press Club Award for Journalism, calling her "the world's best reporter." In 1930, at the age of 37, she married a banker, Henry Maxwell Andrews, and they remained nominally together, despite one public affair just before his death in 1968. West's writing brought her considerable wealth, and, by 1940, she owned a Rolls-Royce and a grand country estate, Ibstone House, in the Chiltern Hills of southern England. During World War II, West housed Yugoslav refugees in the spare rooms of her blacked-out manor, and she used the grounds as a small dairy farm and vegetable plot, agricultural pursuits that continued long after the war had ended. Later life As West grew older, she turned to broader political and social issues, including mankind's propensity to inflict violent injustice on itself. Before and during World War II, West travelled widely, collecting material for books on travel and politics. In 1936–38, she made three trips to Yugoslavia, a country she came to love, seeing it as the nexus of European history since the late Middle Ages. Her non-fiction masterpiece, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon is an amalgamation of her impressions from these trips. New York Times reviewer Katherine Woods wrote: "In two almost incredibly full-packed volumes one of the most gifted and searching of modern English novelists and critics has produced not only the magnification and intensification of the travel book form, but, one may say, its apotheosis." West was assigned by Ross' magazine to cover the Nuremberg trials for The New Yorker, an experience she memorialized in the book A Train of Powder. In 1950, she was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She also went to South Africa in 1960 to report on apartheid in a series of articles for The Sunday Times, particularly regarding a prominent trial for a seditious uprising aiming to establ.... Discover the Rebecca West popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Rebecca West books.
Best Seller Rebecca West Books of 2024
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The Pleader
Len MurrayLen Murray, described by a High Court judge as the most respected pleader of his generation, practised as a solicitor in Glasgow for over 40 years. As part of a triumvirate of top ...
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The Unmade Bed
Stephen Marche“Satisfying food for thought on the everchanging dynamics of men and women as they interact and go about their individual lives” (Kirkus Reviews) as cultural commentator Stephen Ma...
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The Literary Legacy of Rebecca West
Carl RollysonThe Literary Legacy of Rebecca West is the first book to explore the entire corpus of her extraordinary seventyone year writing career. The general introductory studies of West are...
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Principles of Human Knowledge and Three Dialogues
George BerkeleyOne of the greatest British philosophers, Bishop Berkeley (16851753) was the founder of the influential doctrine of Immaterialism the belief that there is no reality outside the m...
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At Any Cost
Rebecca Rosenberg & Selim AlgarAt Any Cost unravels the twisted story of Rod Covlin, whose unrepentant greed drove him to an unspeakable act of murder and betrayal that rocked New York City.Wealthy, beautiful, a...
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The Matter of Black Lives
Jelani Cobb & David RemnickA collection of The New Yorker‘s groundbreaking writing on race in Americaincluding work by James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, TaNehisi Coates, Hilton Als, Zadie Smith, and morewit...
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Dangerous Ambition
Susan HertogBorn in the 1890s on opposite sides of the Atlantic, friends for more than forty years, Dorothy Thompson and Rebecca West lived strikingly parallel lives that placed them at the ce...
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The Modern Library
Carmen Callil & Colm TóibínFor Colm Toíbín and Carmen Callil there is no difference between literary and commercial writing there is only the good novel: engrossing, inspirational, compelling. In their sele...
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Selected Letters of Rebecca West
Rebecca West & Bonnie Kime ScottFrom the time that George Bernard Shaw remarked that “Rebecca West could handle a pen as brilliantly as ever I could and much more savagely,” West’s writings and her politics have ...
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The Young Rebecca
Rebecca WestA collection of Rebecca West’s early journalistic writings reveals her clarity of mind, severity of wit, and relevancy in today’s modern world In this collection of early writ...
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Four Tragedies and Octavia
Seneca & E. WatlingBased on the legends used in Greek drama, Seneca's plays are notable for the exuberant ruthlessness with which disastrous events are foretold and then pursued to their tragic and o...
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The Life of Samuel Johnson
James Boswell & David WomersleyIn Boswell’s Life of Samuel Johnson, one of the towering figures of English literature is revealed with unparalleled immediacy and originality. While Johnson’s Dictionary remains a...
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Trail of Lightning
Rebecca RoanhorseOne of the Time 100 Best Fantasy Books Of All Time2019 LOCUS AWARD WINNER, BEST FIRST NOVEL2019 HUGO AWARD FINALIST, BEST NOVEL Nebula Award Finalist for Best Novel One of Bustle’s...
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The Forsyte Saga
John GalsworthyIn this final volume of The Forsyte Saga Galsworthy writes about the lives and loves of the Cherrell family, cousins of the Forsytes. For centuries, the Cherrell sons have left the...
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The Shadow Sister
Lucinda Riley“Riley’s engaging and mesmerizing story of selfdiscovery and love...can be perfectly read as a standalone. This book will appeal to readers of Edwardian novels and Jane Austenstyle...
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River of Shadows
Rebecca SolnitA New York Times Notable BookWinner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism, The Mark Lynton History Prize, and the Sally Hacker Prize for the History of Technology...
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Thunder Bay
Douglas SkeltonStoirm Island’s secrets are worth killing for in this immersive, unrelenting thriller for readers of All the Missing Girls and Neon Prey"this crime novel has it all" (Pub...
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The Return of the Soldier
Rebecca West & Michelle DeanA soldier returns home transformed by World War I, sending shock waves through the lives of three women, in Rebecca West’s groundbreaking debut novel Jenny has been waiting fo...
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A War Imagined
Samuel HynesBetween the opulent Edwardian years and the 1920s the First World War opens like a gap in time. England after the war was a different place; the arts were different; history was di...
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The Extraordinary Life of Rebecca West
Lorna GibbRebecca West was a leading figure in the twentieth century literary scene. A passionate suffragist, socialist, fiercely intelligent, Rebecca West began her career as a writer with ...
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Mrs Dalloway
Virginia Woolf & Stella McNichol'One of the most moving, revolutionary artworks of the twentieth century' Michael CunninghamClarissa Dalloway, elegant and vivacious, is preparing for a party and remembering those...
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Tender Ecstasy
Janelle TaylorAt the mercy of a cruel kinsman, a young woman is savedbody and soulby her powerful Sioux captor in this romance by the New York Timesbestselling author.Each novel that Janelle Tay...
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Black Lamb and Grey Falcon
Rebecca West & Christopher Hitchens“Rebecca West’s magnum opus . . . one of the great books of our time.” The New Yorker Written on the brink of World War II, Rebecca West’s classic examination of the history...
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Uncommon Arrangements
Katie RoipheKatie Roiphe’s stimulating work has made her one of the most talked about cultural critics of her generation. Now this bracing young writer delves deeply into one of the most layer...
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The Lover
Bee SacksA Best in Fiction Book for 2023“Sacks is an extraordinarily gifted writer.”Washington PostUnfolding during an invasion of Gaza, The Lover tells the story of an affair between a you...
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Rebecca West and the God That Failed
Carl RollysonAfter completing his biography of Rebecca West in 1995, Carl Rollyson felt bereft. As his wife said, "Rebecca was such good company." He had already embarked on another biography, ...
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The Contract
William PalmerOne day in June 1931 the body of a young girl was found on a lonely beach in Long Island, New York. She was bruised and there were some signs that she had been raped. It was though...
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Shakespearean Tragedy
A. Bradley & John BayleyA.C. Bradley put Shakespeare on the map for generations of readers and students for whom the plays might not otherwise have become "real" at all' writes John Bayley in his foreword...
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Well, This Is Exhausting
Sophia BenoitFrom Bustle columnist and Twitter sensation Sophia Benoit, this “charming and often laughoutloud funny” (Vogue) memoirinessays explores the ins and outs of modern womanhoodfrom fin...
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The Toll House
Carly ReagonDiscover the spinetingling ghost story everyone is raving about:'If you like a good ghost story put this chilling thriller to the very top of your reading list' Sarah Pearse autho...
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Spirits of the Dead
Edgar Allan PoeA unique one volume collection of all Poe's best tales and poems. Full of variety, entries include The Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Mystery of Marie Roget, The Purloined Letter ...
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Ladies Get Paid
Claire WassermanFrom career coach and founder of the startup Ladies Get Paidthe eponymous organization leading the fight for equality in the workplacecomes a “powerful call to action” (Reshma Sauj...
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Paradoxical Feminism
Ann V. NortonThe first book on Rebecca West that is solely devoted to her fiction, Paradoxical Feminism examines West's many and contradictory ideas concerning women and their relationships wit...
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1984
George OrwellLondon, 1984: Winston Smith, Geschichtsfälscher im Staatsdienst, verliebt sich in die schöne und geheimnisvolle Julia. Gemeinsam beginnen sie, die totalitäre Welt infrage zu stelle...
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WorkParty
Jaclyn JohnsonFirst, we leaned in. Now we stand up.In this “muchneeded combo of real talk, confessions, and lessons learned along the way” (Chelsea Handler), Jaclyn Johnsonthe founder and CEO be...
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No One Tells You This
Glynnis MacNicolFeatured in multiple “mustread” lists, No One Tells You This is “sharp, intimate…A funny, frank, and fearless memoir…and a refreshing view of the possibilitiesand pitfallspersonal ...