Alice Meynell
Encyclopedia
Alice Christiana Gertrude Thompson Meynell (22 September 1847 - 27 November 1922) was an English
writer
, editor
, critic
, and suffragist, now remembered mainly as a poet
.
, to Thomas James and Christiana (née Weller) Thompson. The family moved around England
, Switzerland
, and France
, but she was brought up mostly in Italy
, where a daughter of Thomas from his first marriage had settled. Her father was a friend of Charles Dickens
.
Preludes (1875) was her first poetry collection, illustrated by her elder sister Elizabeth (the artist Lady Elizabeth Butler
, 1850–1933, whose husband was Sir William Francis Butler
). The work was warmly praised by Ruskin
, although it received little public notice. Ruskin especially singled out the sonnet Renunciation for its beauty and delicacy.
After Alice, the entire Thompson family converted to the Roman Catholic Church (1868 to 1880), and her writings migrated to subjects of religious matters. This eventually led her to the Catholic newspaper publisher and editor Wilfrid Meynell
(1852–1948) in 1876. A year later (1877) she married Meynell, and they settled in Kensington
. They became proprietor and editor of The Pen, the Weekly Register, Merry England, and other magazines. Alice and Wilfrid had a family of eight children, Sebastian, Monica, Everard, Madeleine, Viola
, Vivian (who died at three months), Olivia, and Francis
. Viola Meynell
(1885–1956) became an author in her own right, and the youngest child Francis Meynell
(1891–1975) was the poet and printer at the Nonesuch Press
.
Alice was much involved in editorial work on publications with her husband, and in her own writing, poetry and prose. She wrote regularly for The World, The Spectator, The Magazine of Art, The Scots Observer, The Tablet, The Art Journal, the National Observer, edited by W. E. Henley the Pall Mall Gazette, and The Saturday Review.
The British poet Francis Thompson
, down and out in London and trying to recover from the opium
addiction that had overtaken him, sent the couple a manuscript. His poems were first published in Wilfred's Merrie England, and the Meynells became a supporter of Thompson. His 1893 book Poems was a Meynell production and initiative. Another supporter of Thompson was the poet Coventry Patmore
. Alice had a deep friendship with Patmore, lasting several years, which led to his becoming obsessed with her, forcing her to break with him.
At the end of the nineteenth century, in conjunction with uprisings against the British (among them the Indians', the Zulus', the Boxer Rebellion
, and the Muslim
revolt led by Muhammad Ahmed in the Sudan
), many European scholars, writers, and artists, especially Catholics, began to question Europe’s colonial imperialism, and its attempt to rule the world. This led Alice, Wilfrid, Elizabeth, and others in their circle to speak out for the oppressed. Alice became a leading figure in the Women Writers' Suffrage League
, which was founded by Cicely Hamilton
and active 1908 to 1919.
Her prose essays were remarkable for fineness of culture and peculiar restraint of style. After a series of illnesses, including migraine and depression, she died 27 November 1922. She is buried at Kensal Green Catholic Cemetery, London, England.
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
, editor
Editing
Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, visual, audible, and film media used to convey information through the processes of correction, condensation, organization, and other modifications performed with an intention of producing a correct, consistent, accurate, and complete...
, critic
Critic
A critic is anyone who expresses a value judgement. Informally, criticism is a common aspect of all human expression and need not necessarily imply skilled or accurate expressions of judgement. Critical judgements, good or bad, may be positive , negative , or balanced...
, and suffragist, now remembered mainly as a poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
.
Biography
Meynell was born in Barnes, LondonLondon
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, to Thomas James and Christiana (née Weller) Thompson. The family moved around England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
, and France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, but she was brought up mostly in Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, where a daughter of Thomas from his first marriage had settled. Her father was a friend of Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
.
Preludes (1875) was her first poetry collection, illustrated by her elder sister Elizabeth (the artist Lady Elizabeth Butler
Elizabeth Thompson
Elizabeth Southerden Thompson, Lady Butler was a British painter, one of the few female painters to achieve fame for history paintings, especially military battle scenes, at the end of that tradition...
, 1850–1933, whose husband was Sir William Francis Butler
William Francis Butler
Lieutenant-General Sir William Francis Butler GCB PC was an Irish 19th-century British Army officer, writer, and adventurer.-Military career:...
). The work was warmly praised by Ruskin
Ruskin
- Surname :*John Ruskin , an English author, poet and artist, most famous for his work as art critic and social critic, and for his writing on the architecture of Venice....
, although it received little public notice. Ruskin especially singled out the sonnet Renunciation for its beauty and delicacy.
After Alice, the entire Thompson family converted to the Roman Catholic Church (1868 to 1880), and her writings migrated to subjects of religious matters. This eventually led her to the Catholic newspaper publisher and editor Wilfrid Meynell
Wilfrid Meynell
Wilfrid Meynell , who sometimes wrote under the pseudonym John Oldcastle, was a British newspaper publisher and editor....
(1852–1948) in 1876. A year later (1877) she married Meynell, and they settled in Kensington
Kensington
Kensington is a district of west and central London, England within the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. An affluent and densely-populated area, its commercial heart is Kensington High Street, and it contains the well-known museum district of South Kensington.To the north, Kensington is...
. They became proprietor and editor of The Pen, the Weekly Register, Merry England, and other magazines. Alice and Wilfrid had a family of eight children, Sebastian, Monica, Everard, Madeleine, Viola
Viola Meynell
Viola Meynell Dallyn was an English writer, novelist and poet. She wrote around 20 books, but was best-known for her short stories and novels.Her parents were Wilfrid and Alice Meynell...
, Vivian (who died at three months), Olivia, and Francis
Francis Meynell
Sir Francis Meredith Wilfrid Meynell was a British poet and printer at The Nonesuch Press.He was son of the writer Alice Meynell, a suffragist and prominent Roman Catholic convert. Francis Meynell was brought in by George Lansbury to be business manager of the Daily Herald in 1913. He was...
. Viola Meynell
Viola Meynell
Viola Meynell Dallyn was an English writer, novelist and poet. She wrote around 20 books, but was best-known for her short stories and novels.Her parents were Wilfrid and Alice Meynell...
(1885–1956) became an author in her own right, and the youngest child Francis Meynell
Francis Meynell
Sir Francis Meredith Wilfrid Meynell was a British poet and printer at The Nonesuch Press.He was son of the writer Alice Meynell, a suffragist and prominent Roman Catholic convert. Francis Meynell was brought in by George Lansbury to be business manager of the Daily Herald in 1913. He was...
(1891–1975) was the poet and printer at the Nonesuch Press
Nonesuch Press
Nonesuch Press was a private press founded in 1922 in London by Francis Meynell, his wife Vera Mendel, and David Garnett.-History:Nonesuch Press's first book, a volume of John Donne's Love Poems was issued in May 1923. In total, the press produced more than 140 books. The press was at its peak in...
.
Alice was much involved in editorial work on publications with her husband, and in her own writing, poetry and prose. She wrote regularly for The World, The Spectator, The Magazine of Art, The Scots Observer, The Tablet, The Art Journal, the National Observer, edited by W. E. Henley the Pall Mall Gazette, and The Saturday Review.
The British poet Francis Thompson
Francis Thompson
Francis Thompson was an English poet and ascetic. After attending college, he moved to London to become a writer, but in menial work, became addicted to opium, and was a street vagrant for years. A married couple read his poetry and rescued him, publishing his first book, Poems in 1893...
, down and out in London and trying to recover from the opium
Opium
Opium is the dried latex obtained from the opium poppy . Opium contains up to 12% morphine, an alkaloid, which is frequently processed chemically to produce heroin for the illegal drug trade. The latex also includes codeine and non-narcotic alkaloids such as papaverine, thebaine and noscapine...
addiction that had overtaken him, sent the couple a manuscript. His poems were first published in Wilfred's Merrie England, and the Meynells became a supporter of Thompson. His 1893 book Poems was a Meynell production and initiative. Another supporter of Thompson was the poet Coventry Patmore
Coventry Patmore
Coventry Kersey Dighton Patmore was an English poet and critic best known for The Angel in the House, his narrative poem about an ideal happy marriage.-Youth:...
. Alice had a deep friendship with Patmore, lasting several years, which led to his becoming obsessed with her, forcing her to break with him.
At the end of the nineteenth century, in conjunction with uprisings against the British (among them the Indians', the Zulus', the Boxer Rebellion
Boxer Rebellion
The Boxer Rebellion, also called the Boxer Uprising by some historians or the Righteous Harmony Society Movement in northern China, was a proto-nationalist movement by the "Righteous Harmony Society" , or "Righteous Fists of Harmony" or "Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists" , in China between...
, and the Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
revolt led by Muhammad Ahmed in the Sudan
Sudan
Sudan , officially the Republic of the Sudan , is a country in North Africa, sometimes considered part of the Middle East politically. It is bordered by Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the northeast, Eritrea and Ethiopia to the east, South Sudan to the south, the Central African Republic to the...
), many European scholars, writers, and artists, especially Catholics, began to question Europe’s colonial imperialism, and its attempt to rule the world. This led Alice, Wilfrid, Elizabeth, and others in their circle to speak out for the oppressed. Alice became a leading figure in the Women Writers' Suffrage League
Women Writers' Suffrage League
The Women Writers' Suffrage League was an organization in the United Kingdom formed in 1908 by Cicely Hamilton and Bessie Hatton.The organization stated that it wanted "to obtain the vote for women on the same terms as it is or may be granted to men. Its methods are those proper to writers - the...
, which was founded by Cicely Hamilton
Cicely Hamilton
Cicely Mary Hamilton , born Hammill, was an English actress, writer, journalist, suffragist, lesbian and feminist. She is now best known for the play Diana of Dobson's, with a setting in an Edwardian department store....
and active 1908 to 1919.
Her prose essays were remarkable for fineness of culture and peculiar restraint of style. After a series of illnesses, including migraine and depression, she died 27 November 1922. She is buried at Kensal Green Catholic Cemetery, London, England.
Works
- Preludes (1875) poems
- The Rhythm of Life (1893) essays
- Poems by Francis Thompson (1893) editor and producer
- Holman Hunt (1893)
- Selected Poems of Thomas Gordon HakeThomas Gordon HakeThomas Gordon Hake , English poet, was born at Leeds, of an old Devon family. His mother was a Gordon of the Huntly branch. He studied medicine at St George's hospital and at Edinburgh and Glasgow, but had given up practice for many years before his death and had devoted himself to a literary life...
(1894) editor - The Color of Life and other Essays (1896)
- Poetry of Pathos and Delight by Coventry PatmoreCoventry PatmoreCoventry Kersey Dighton Patmore was an English poet and critic best known for The Angel in the House, his narrative poem about an ideal happy marriage.-Youth:...
(1896) editor - The Flower of the Mind (1897) anthology of English verse, editor, critic.
- The Children (1897) essays
- The Spirit of Place (1898) essays
- London Impressions (1898)
- Ruskin (1900)
- Later Poems (1901)
- The Work of John S. Sargent (1903)
- Essays (1914)
- The Second Person Singular (1921)
- The Poems of Alice Meynell, Complete Edition (Oxford University Press, 1940)
- Prose and Poetry (1947) introduction Vita Sackville-WestVita Sackville-WestThe Hon Victoria Mary Sackville-West, Lady Nicolson, CH , best known as Vita Sackville-West, was an English author, poet and gardener. She won the Hawthornden Prize in 1927 and 1933...
, various editors
See also
- History of feminismHistory of feminismThe history of feminism involves the story of feminist movements and of feminist thinkers. Depending on time, culture and country, feminists around the world have sometimes had different causes and goals...
- List of suffragists and suffragettes
- SuffragetteSuffragette"Suffragette" is a term coined by the Daily Mail newspaper as a derogatory label for members of the late 19th and early 20th century movement for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom, in particular members of the Women's Social and Political Union...
- Women's Social and Political UnionWomen's Social and Political UnionThe Women's Social and Political Union was the leading militant organisation campaigning for Women's suffrage in the United Kingdom...
- Women's suffrageWomen's suffrageWomen's suffrage or woman suffrage is the right of women to vote and to run for office. The expression is also used for the economic and political reform movement aimed at extending these rights to women and without any restrictions or qualifications such as property ownership, payment of tax, or...
- Women's suffrage in the United KingdomWomen's suffrage in the United KingdomWomen's suffrage in the United Kingdom as a national movement began in 1872. Women were not prohibited from voting in the United Kingdom until the 1832 Reform Act and the 1835 Municipal Corporations Act...
External links
- The Poems of Alice Meynell (1923)
- Essays by Alice Meynell at Quotidiana.org
- Alice's Bio - University of VirginiaUniversity of VirginiaThe University of Virginia is a public research university located in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States, founded by Thomas Jefferson...
- Meynell index entry at Poets' Corner