Rebecca West facts
Known For: West wrote both fiction and nonfiction and was particularly known for her sharp wit, which was most apparent in her literary criticism. A strong advocate for a number of causes (including feminism, socialism, antifascism, and support for the poor), West was never afraid to speak her mind. Rebecca West was also the first woman reporter in the House of Commons.
Dates: December 21, 1892 - March 15, 1983
Parents: Her father was Charles Fairfield, an officer in the Rifle Brigade who was the son of a major in the Coldstream guard. Fairfield eventually left the military to pursue a job in journalism. Her mother was Isabella MacKenzie Fairfield, a gifted pianist and the daughter of a regular conductor at Edinburgh's Theater Royal.
Also Known As: Cicily Isabel Fairfield (her given name). She adopted the name Rebecca West, a rebellious heroine from the play Rosmersholm by Henrik Ibsen. She did this in part to spare her family embarrassment when she started writing for Freewoman, a magazine that promoted free love and activism.
Early Life and Education
Though her family had some distinction, Rebecca West had a difficult upbringing. Charles Fairfield's army pay needed to be supplemented and neither of Rebecca West's parents could turn to their families for help. Fairfield, though an intelligent man with a keen mind, had many flaws and was unable to hold a job for very long. When West was ten, Charles Fairfield, who had abandoned his family, died alone in a boardinghouse.
After his death, West's mother, Isabella, took West and her two older sisters (Letitia and Winifred) back to Edinburgh to live with relatives. Though Rebecca West eventually recognized the good influence of her father's keen mind and conversation, she was always closer to her mother. West often grieved over the waste of her musical ability and intelligence.
West's education was quite varied. She attended George Watson Ladies' College in Edinburgh on scholarship. When she was in her late teens, she and her mother moved to London so she could attend the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, where she studied acting for a year. Her sisters joined them afterwards and West worked as an actress for a year.
Writing Career
In 1911, Rebecca West began to write for the Freewoman, a radical feminist magazine that she had not been allowed to read at home due to the promotion of free love and activism. In September 1912, she also started writing for Clarion, a publication dedicated to socialism and socialist causes that had a good reputation. Over sixteen months, Clarion published thirty-four of West's articles.
Between 1912 and 1916, West wrote for a number of newspapers but continued to write regularly for Freewoman (which eventually became New Freewoman). The magazine remained dedicated to feminist causes. The magazine founders believed, much like West, that feminism should not be limited to suffrage. They recognized that women's rights extended beyond the right to vote and used the magazine to address many issues of social inequality.
Rebecca West's sharp wit and fearlessness caught the eye of many literary giants. Between 1911 and 1917, she drew praise from Max Beerbohm and George Bernard Shaw. Shaw stated that West could "handle a pen as brilliantly as ever I could and much more savagely." Of course, this praise did not prevent her from doing her job and critiquing their work, sometimes negatively. West was never afraid to use strong language and imagery. For example, she called parliamentary orders for force-feeding arrested suffragists "Jack the Ripper activities".
Though West wrote about many things, her main focus remained on feminism and support for the poor (especially economic problems faced by women). Much like her scathing attacks on the injustice of government, her reviews of famous writers such as Ward (Mary), Shaw, Wells, and Ibsen show the little reverence she had for fame and reputation. She judged a work on its merits, not the name of the author.
H. G. Wells:
In 1912, Rebecca Wrote a scathing attack on H.G. Wells's Marriage, which she found to be derogatory towards women. Her sharp words and lively style intrigued Wells and led to their meeting. They became lovers the next year and she gave birth to his son, Anthony West, in 1914 (her only child). During their ten-year relationship, West frequently reviewed his work as negatively as that first review. Wells found his life complicated by West more than any of his other mistresses. During West's pregnancy, Wells rarely visited her and she wound up giving birth to her son alone, without any family or Wells present.
Though Wells provided some support during their son's infancy, he rarely visited and insisted that the boy never know who his father was. Rather Anthony was to refer to him as Mr. Wells and call West "Aunty". Her family, seeing the toll this relationship was having on West, urged her to end it. While West was Well's mistress, she led a life of isolation and social exclusion. She continued to publish regularly and managed to maintain her reputation as a journalist. Being cut off from the literary world caused her to suffer intellectually and emotionally.
As their relationship deteriorated, West found her ability to work was interfered with. It was her belief in her version of enlightened feminism that helped her to end the affair in 1923, when she legally adopted Anthony West. Though she continued to champion the right of unmarried women to bare children without scorn, Rebecca West's views on motherhood were clearly seen in her essay "The World's Worst Failure: The Schoolmistress", which was published in the New Republic in 1916. In the essay, she stated that schools sentimentalized "the facts of motherhood…that cruel failure of human structure."
After World War I:
In the years after World War I, West worked as a book critic for New Statesman and Nation. In 1923, she regularly wrote for New Republic, in which she wrote about travel and covered her first trip to the United States. In 1924, Rebecca West became the first woman reporter in the House of Commons.
West also began writing novels, starting with The Return of the Soldier in 1918, a book that many find remarkable for its insight into human emotion. While she was writing her second novel, The Judge (1922), West was struggling with a tremendous amount of personal loss. Her mother, to whom she remained close, died in 1920 after West had cared for her for three years. West's relationship with Wells had also deteriorated significantly and he now berated her for her scathing reviews. Wells told West that her friends and older sister Letitia (whom he had always disliked) corrupted her judgement and taste. He also hated her for working as it interfered with their time together.
When The Judge was eventually published, Wells (still bitter over the end of the relationship) wrote a scathing letter describing just how flawed her work was in his opinion. However, the published reviews of the book disagreed with him. Prominent publications praised West's writing (though they still expressed reservations about some of its faults, like the slow pace).
Second Marriage:
In 1930, after the publication of her third novel, West married a banker, Henry Maxwell Andrews. Andrews had lost most of his money in the Depression and West had to continue writing to support them. West's husband was a scholar as well as businessman and frequently traveled with her. When Andrews health declined, between 1963 and 1968, she cared for him until his sheath.
Rebecca West remained critical of writers. She was particularly scathing towards neohumanism, whom she saw as isolated in ivory towers. Though she admired T.S. Eliot's poetry, she attacked his neohumanist views. She believed neohumanism made writers lazy and discouraged them from experimenting and creating new and unique styles. She was a steadfast supporter for the inclusiveness of intellectual and artistic pursuits. West deplored the conformity found in many literary movements that followed a defined program. She was far more appreciative of writers like D.H. Lawrence and Virginia Woolf, who she saw as more modernist.
In 1935, Rebecca West published four novellas in The Harsh Voice. The wit, careful structure, and depth of characterization even motivated H.G. Wells to write her a letter of praise. Though he expressed his approval through belittling her earlier works and achievements.
In 1936, Rebecca West published The Thinking Reed, her first notable success. It reached the list of the top ten novels of 1936, a list compiled from weekly lists in Publishers Weekly.
Reporter:
In the 40s and 50s, West worked mostly as a reporter. She covered many trials concerning espionage and treason. Unlike many other reporters, she focused on the psychology behind such acts and tried to understand the motivations of the accused. She courted controversy in the 50s when she failed to attack McCarthyism in the United States, going so far as trying to minimize the potentially damaging effects of McCarthy's crusade. Her motivation was likely her increasing concern with Russian strength and activities in a nuclear age.
West's later reflects her continuing weariness of the many injustices in the world. She found the courts lacking and too often unable to appropriately punish or determine guilt. She still saw the law as the only protection against authoritarianism or fascism, but she also saw its failings. In her work, she continued to emphasize that violence only begets violence.
In 1957, she wrote The Court and the Castle, which was a continuation of a lecture she had given at Yale about the art of writing. She stated that no literature could achieve greatness if the author fails to recognize the reality and significance of his/her society on the way to achieving personal aspirations. Should they forget this, the work is shallow and evasive. In 1959, she was made a dame commander of the Order of the British Empire.
In her last years, West continued to comment on figures and events. On her eightieth birthday, she endorsed the Equal Rights Amendment, declaring it as "much more fundamental than suffrage". Two years before her death, she appeared in Warren Beatty's film Reds, where she commented on the Russian Revolution.
At her death in 1983, Rebecca West remained estranged from her son. In his own work, Anthony West portrayed himself as a neglected and unwanted child. He resented his mother for choosing her job over him and portrayed his father as the more caring parent, though he rarely saw him. Rebecca West willed her estate to her nephew, Norman Mac Leod, a professor in the Engineering Department of Edinburgh University.
Legacy
I myself have never been able to find out what feminism is; I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat or a prostitute. ~ Rebecca West, "Mr. Chesterton in Hysterics," The Clarion, (1913, 11-14)
"Why was Miss West an arrant feminist for making a possibly true if uncomplimentary statement about the other sex?" ~ Virginia Woolf, "A Room of One's Own"
Rebecca West is remembered most for her early feminist essays. Among her many accomplishments, she created a new genre of court reporting where the reporter speculates on the motivation and early psychological developments of the accused. She has been praised for raising journalism to an art. Harry S. Truman presented her with the Women's Press Club Award for Journalism, referring to her as "the world's best reporter".
Her fiction receives much less notice, but is still praised as a literary giant. While her nonfiction is more widely praised, West herself once declared that if she could do it all over again, she would focus mainly on fiction. In her nonfiction, she would sometimes employ fiction techniques to produce a fuller truth. The feminist movement in the late 70s and early 80s brought many novels back into print.
Throughout her career, Rebecca West championed women. She believed that they would be unable to attain knowledge and develop their artistic abilities until they were free to learn as much as they wanted and express themselves fully through art. West remained steadfast in her belief that in order for humanity to survive, people needed to pursue knowledge, art, and the pleasures of the mind and spirit.
Works Consulted
Kastan, David Scott, and Bonnie Kime Scott. "Rebecca West." The Oxford Encyclopedia of British Literature, Volume 5. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. 269-272. Print.
Staley, Thomas F., and Margaret B. McDowell. "Rebecca West." Dictionary of Literary Biography British Novelists, 1890-1929: Modernists. Detroit, Mi: Gale, 1985. 272-292. Print.
For Further Information
- The Norton Anthology of Literature By Women, Volume 2 by Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar
- Rebecca West's own nonfiction and fiction
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