Rosamond Lehmann CBECBE and C.B.E. are abbreviations for Commander of the Order of the British Empire, a grade in the Order of the British Empire.Other uses include:*Calgary Board of Education, public school board for the city of Calgary, Alberta...
(3 February 1901 - 12 March 1990), was a British novelist. Her first novel,
Dusty Answer (1927), was a
succès de scandaleSuccès de scandale is French for "success from scandal", i.e. when a success derives from a scandal.It might seem contradictory that any kind of success might follow from scandal: but scandal attracts attention, and this attention is sometimes the beginning of notoriety and/or other successes...
; she subsequently became established in the literary world and intimate with members of the Bloomsbury set. Her novel
The Ballad and the Source received particular critical acclaim and another,
The Echoing Grove, was filmed after her death.
Rosamond Nina Lehmann was born in
Bourne End, BuckinghamshireBourne End is a village predominantly in the parish of Wooburn and Bourne End, but also in the parish of Little Marlow, in Buckinghamshire, England. It is situated close to the border with Berkshire, near where the River Wye meets the River Thames...
, as the second daughter of Rudolph Lehmann and his wife Alice Davis, a New Englander.
Rosamond Lehmann CBECBE and C.B.E. are abbreviations for Commander of the Order of the British Empire, a grade in the Order of the British Empire.Other uses include:*Calgary Board of Education, public school board for the city of Calgary, Alberta...
(3 February 1901 - 12 March 1990), was a British novelist. Her first novel,
Dusty Answer (1927), was a
succès de scandaleSuccès de scandale is French for "success from scandal", i.e. when a success derives from a scandal.It might seem contradictory that any kind of success might follow from scandal: but scandal attracts attention, and this attention is sometimes the beginning of notoriety and/or other successes...
; she subsequently became established in the literary world and intimate with members of the Bloomsbury set. Her novel
The Ballad and the Source received particular critical acclaim and another,
The Echoing Grove, was filmed after her death.
Life & Writings
Rosamond Nina Lehmann was born in
Bourne End, BuckinghamshireBourne End is a village predominantly in the parish of Wooburn and Bourne End, but also in the parish of Little Marlow, in Buckinghamshire, England. It is situated close to the border with Berkshire, near where the River Wye meets the River Thames...
, as the second daughter of Rudolph Lehmann and his wife Alice Davis, a New Englander. Her father
Rudolph Chambers LehmannRudolph Chambers Lehmann , usually referred to as R.C. Lehmann, was an English writer, best known the period of three decades in which he was a major contributor to Punch...
was a liberal
MPA Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a parliament. In many countries the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a unique title, such as senate, and thus also have unique titles for its members, such as senators. Members of...
, and editor of the
Daily News.
John LehmannJohn Frederick Lehmann was an English poet and man of letters, and one of the foremost literary editors of the twentieth century, founding the periodicals New Writing and The London Magazine.The son of journalist Rudolph Lehmann, and brother of actress Beatrix Lehmann and novelist Rosamond...
(1907-1989) was her brother; one of her two sisters was the famous actress
Beatrix LehmannBeatrix Lehmann was a British actress, theatre director and author.Lehmannn trained at RADA and made her stage debut as Peggy in a 1924 production The Way of the World at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith...
.
In 1919 she went to Girton College,
University of CambridgeThe University of Cambridge , located in the City of Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom, is the second oldest university in the English-speaking world and the fourth oldest in Europe...
to read
English LiteratureEnglish literature is the literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; Joseph Conrad was born in Poland, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, V.S....
, an unusual thing for a woman to do at that time. In December 1923 she married Leslie Runciman (later 2nd
Viscount Runciman of DoxfordViscount Runciman of Doxford, of Doxford in the County of Northumberland, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1937 for the Hon. Walter Runciman, a politician whose career included service as a Member of Parliament, President of the Board of Trade and Lord President of...
) (1900-1989), and the couple went to live in
Newcastle upon TyneNewcastle upon Tyne is a city and metropolitan borough of Tyne and Wear, in North East England...
. It was an unhappy marriage, and they separated in 1927 and were divorced later that year.
In 1927, Lehmann published her first novel,
Dusty Answer, to great critical and popular acclaim. The novel's heroine, Judith, is attracted to both men and women, and interacts with fairly openly gay and lesbian characters during her years at Cambridge. The novel was a
succès de scandale. Though none of her later novels were as successful as her first, Lehmann went on to publish six more novels, a play (
No More Music, 1939), a collection of short stories (
The Gypsy's Baby & Other Stories, 1946), a spiritual autobiography (
The Swan in the Evening, 1967), and a photographic memoir of her friends (
Rosamond Lehmann's Album, 1985), many of whom were famous Bloomsbury figures such as Leonard and Virginia Woolf, Carrington, and Lytton Strachey. She also translated two French novels into English: Jacques Lemarchand's
Genevieve (1948) and Jean Cocteau's
Children of the Game (1955). Her novels include
A Note in Music (1930),
Invitation to the Waltz (1932),
The Weather in the Streets (1936),
The Ballad and the Source (1944),
The Echoing Grove (1953), and
A Sea-Grape Tree (1976).
In 1928, Lehmann married
Wogan PhilippsWogan Philipps, 2nd Baron Milford was the only member of the Communist Party of Great Britain ever to sit in the House of Lords.-Early Life:...
, an artist. They had two children, a son Hugo (1929-1999) and a daughter Sarah or Sally (1934-1958), but the marriage quickly fell apart during the late Thirties with her Communist husband leaving to take part in the
Spanish Civil WarThe Spanish Civil War was a major conflict that devastated Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939. It began after an attempted coup d'état by a group of Spanish Army generals against the government of the Second Spanish Republic, then under the leadership of president Manuel Azaña...
. During World War II she helped edit and contributed to
New Writing, a periodical edited by her brother. She had an affair with
Goronwy ReesGoronwy Rees was a Welsh journalist, academic and writer. He was educated at the University of Oxford.He was during the 1930s a Marxist intellectual, and in contact with the Cambridge Five spy ring through Guy Burgess. Right at the end of his life he admitted spying for the USSR for a short time,...
and then a "very public affair" for nine years (1941-1950) with the married
Cecil Day-LewisCecil Day-Lewis CBE was an Irish-born poet, as well as Poet Laureate for Britain between 1968 to 1972, and, under the pseudonym of Nicholas Blake, a mystery writer...
, who eventually left her for his second wife.
Her 1953 novel
The Echoing Grove was made into the 2002 film
Heart of Me The Heart of Me is a 2003 British period drama film directed by Thaddeus O'Sullivan. Starring Helena Bonham Carter, Paul Bettany, and Olivia Williams. Set in London before and after World War II, it depicts the consequences of a woman's torrid affair with her sister's husband...
, with
Helena Bonham CarterHelena Bonham Carter is an English actress. Bonham Carter made her film debut in the K. M. Peyton film, A Pattern of Roses, before appearing in her first leading role in Lady Jane...
as the main character, Dinah. Her book
The Ballad and the Source depicts an unhappy marriage from the point of view of a child, and has been compared to
Henry JamesHenry James, O.M. was an American author who expatriated to England, and who acquired British nationality near the end of his life. One of the key figures of 19th century literary realism, James was born in the United States, the son of theologian Henry James, Sr., and brother of the philosopher...
'
What Maisie KnewWhat Maisie Knew is a novel by Henry James, first published as a serial in the Chap Book and in the New Review in 1897 and then as a book later in the same year. The story of the sensitive daughter of divorced and irresponsible parents, What Maisie Knew has great contemporary relevance as an...
.
The Swan in the Evening (1967) is an autobiography which Lehmann described as her "last testament". In it, she intimately describes the emotions she felt at the birth of her daughter Sally, and also when Sally died abruptly of
poliomyelitisPoliomyelitis, often called polio or infantile paralysis, is an acute viral infectious disease spread from person to person, primarily via the fecal-oral route. The term derives from the Greek , meaning "grey", , referring to the "spinal cord", and the suffix -itis, which denotes inflammation...
at the age of 23 (or 24) in 1958 while in
JakartaJakarta is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. It also has a greater population than any other city in Southeast Asia. It was formerly known as Sunda Kelapa , Jayakarta , Batavia , and Djakarta . Located on the northwest coast of Java, it has an area of and a population of 8,489,910...
. She never recovered from Sally's death. Lehmann claimed to have had some psychic experiences, documented in
Moments of Truth.
Lehmann was awarded the
CBECBE and C.B.E. are abbreviations for Commander of the Order of the British Empire, a grade in the Order of the British Empire.Other uses include:*Calgary Board of Education, public school board for the city of Calgary, Alberta...
in 1982 and died at Clareville Grove, London on 12 March 1990, aged 89.
Works
- Dusty Answer (1927)
- A Note in Music (1930)
- Invitation to the Waltz (1932)
- The Weather in the Streets (1936)
- No More Music (1939)
- The Ballad and the Source (1944)
- The Gipsy's Baby & Other Stories (1946)
- The Echoing Grove (1953)
- The Swan in the Evening: Fragments of an Inner Life (1967) (non-fiction)
- A Sea-Grape Tree (1976)
- Moments of Truth (1986) (anthology, non-fiction)
Biographies
- Selina Hastings, Rosamond Lehmann: A Life, 2002
- Diana E Lestourgeon, Rosamond Lehmann, 1965
- Marie-Jose Codaccioni, L'Oeuvre de Rosamond Lehmann: Sa contribution au roman féminin (1927-1952), 1983
- Judy Simons, Rosamond Lehmann, 1992
- Gillian Tindall
Gillian Tindall is a British writer. Among her better-known works are City of Gold: Biography of Bombay and Celestine: Voices from a French Village. Her novel Fly Away Home won the Somerset Maugham Award in 1972....
, Rosamond Lehmann, 1985
- Wiktoria Dorosz, Subjective Vision and Human Relationships in the Novels of Rosamond Lehmann, 1975
- Wendy Pollard, Rosamond Lehmann and Her Critics: the Vagaries of Literary Reception, 2004
- Françoise Bort, Marie-Françoise Cachin, Rosamond Lehmann et le métier d'écrivain, 2003.
- Ruth Siegel, Rosamond Lehmann: a Thirties Writer, 1990
Letters
- My Dear Alexias: Letters from Wellesley Tudor Pole
Major Wellesley Tudor Pole was a spiritualist and early British Bahá'í.He authored many pamphlets and books and was a life long pursuer of religious and mystical questions and visions, being particularly involved with spiritualism and the Bahá'í Faith as well as the quest for the Holy Grail of...
to Rosamond Lehmann by Rosamond Lehmann (1979)
External links