Educated at George Watson's Ladies College in Edinburgh, West first trained as an actress, adopting the pseudonym of Rebecca West from Ibsen's Romersholm. Shortly before the First World War she became involved in the women's suffrage movement and joined the staff of the feminist paper Freewoman. She then became a journalist for the socialist magazine Clarion, in addition to freelancing for other daily newspapers. In 1913, she began an affair with H. G. Wells which resulted in a son, Anthony, in 1914. She would go on to have other affairs including Charlie Chaplin and Lord Beaverbrook. In 1918, she published her first novel, The Return of the Soldier, which was well-received. During the 20's and 30's she continued her journalistic endeavors while publishing further novels and some non-fiction. She travelled to Yugoslavia in 1937 and came back convinced that there would be another war. During the war, she worked for the BBC and following the war, she attended the Nuremburg trials. Her papers describing the latter were published as A Trail of Powder in 1955. During the 1950's, West became an advocate of McCarthyism and the Communist witch-hunts, in spite of her previous socialist leanings. West was created Dame of the British Empire in 1959. Her other works include Henry James (1916), The Judge (1922), Harriet Hume (1929), St. Augustine (1933), The Harsh Voice (1935), Black Lamb and Grey Falcon (1941), The Thinking Reed (1936), The Meaning of Treason (1949), The Fountain Overflows (1957), The Birds Fall Down (1966), This Real Night (1984) and Cousin Rosamund (1985), the latter two posthumously. |
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