Antonia White
Encyclopedia
Antonia White was a British
writer.
and Latin
at St. Paul’s School. She was baptized in the Protestant Church of England
but converted to Roman Catholicism at the age of 7 when her father converted. She struggled with religion and did not feel that she fitted in with the other girls at her school, many of whom were from upper-class Catholic families. She attended the Convent of the Sacred Heart, Roehampton
(later Woldingham School
, Surrey
).
Although she is remembered as a modernist writer, she developed a terrible fear of writing after a misunderstanding when she was 15. She had been working on what was going to her first novel, which was to be a present for her father. She wanted to surprise him with a book about wicked people whose lives are changed as they discover religion. She attempted to give a detailed description of the evil characters, but, because of her lack of experience, she was unable to describe their wickedness except to say that they “Indulged in nameless vices”. The story was found unfinished by officials at her Catholic school and she was then expelled from the school without being given the opportunity to explain her book. She describes this incident as being her most vivid and tragic memory. “My superb gift to my father was absolutely my undoing” she remarked in an interview. She did not begin writing novels again until 20 years later, when her father died.
After she was expelled from the convent at Roehampton, she attended St. Paul’s Girls' School (the sister school to St Paul's School where her father taught), but did not fit in there either. When she left school she attempted to become an actress, but was unsuccessful. She then wrote for magazines and worked in advertising, where she earned £250 a year promoting Mercolized wax. She spent nine years working as a copywriter in London and she also worked for the BBC
as a translator.
Antonia White's translations of Colette
's 'Claudine' novels were recognised for their elegance and erudition and remain the standard texts today.
in the Scots Guards
. They never married, and their relationship was brief but intense, which led to her experiencing a severe mental breakdown. She was committed to Bethlem, a public asylum, where she spent the next year of her life.
She had described her breakdown as a period of “mania”. After she left the hospital, she spent four years participating in Freudian studies. She struggled the rest of her life with mental illness which she referred to as “The Beast”.
Her second marriage was to a man named Eric Earnshaw Smith, but this marriage ended in divorce. By the age of 30, she had been married 3 times. During her second marriage, she had fallen in love with two men. One was Rudolph 'Silas' Glossop
. The other was a man named Tom Hopkinson, a copywriter and S.G. who is described as “a tall handsome young man with a slightly melancholy charm”. She had trouble deciding whom she should marry following her divorce, and she married Hopkinson in 1930. She had two daughters, Lyndall Hopkinson and Susan Chitty, who have both written autobiographical books about their hard and difficult relationship with their mother.
, and she was with Barnes when the latter wrote her now famous novel depicting a lesbian
affair gone bad, Nightwood. This novel was based on Barnes's relationship with Thelma Wood. In 1933, White completed her first novel, Frost in May, which fictionalized her experiences at Catholic boarding school and her expulsion. She also began writing a second novel, but a failed marriage and mental illness hindered its completion.
Fifteen years later, she completed her second novel The Lost Traveller, which was published in 1950. In the subsequent five years, after undergoing treatment for mental illness and reconverting to Catholicism, she completed the Clara Batchelor trilogy, which includes The Lost Traveller, about her relationship with her mother and father, The Sugar House, about her first unconsummated marriage, and Beyond the Glass, about an intense love-affair followed by a breakdown which is vividly described. As with her previous work, the trilogy was fictional, but mainly autobiographical. The four novels together narrate her life from ages 9 to 23. In 1966, she published a collection of letters entitled The Hound and the Falcon: The Story of a Reconversion to the Catholic Faith. She wrote Three in a Room, a three-act comedy, as well as many short stories, poems and juvenile fiction.
Her career as a writer seems to have been driven by the desire to cope with a sense of failure, resulting initially from her first attempt at writing, and with mental illness. She was quoted as saying, “The old terrors always return and often, with them, a feeling of such paralyzing lack of self-confidence that I have to take earlier books of mine off their shelf just to prove to myself that I actually wrote them and they were actually printed, bound, and read. I find that numbers of writers experience these same miseries over their work and do not, as is so often supposed, enjoy the process. "Creative joy" is something I haven't felt since I was fourteen and don't expect to feel again."
With regard to the content of her writing, White remarked, “My novels and short stories are mainly about ordinary people who become involved in rather extraordinary situations. I do not mean in sensational adventures but in rather odd and difficult personal relationships largely due to their family background and their incomplete understanding of their own natures. I use both Catholic and non-Catholic characters and am particularly interested in the conflicts that arise between them and in the influences they have on each other.” Two of the main themes in White’s novels are her relationship with her father and her Catholic faith.
describes the novel as a school story. She comments that the novel is written for adult readers, but that the language is comprehensible to an intelligent child of twelve. She writes, “We have Nanda’s arrival at Lippington, first impressions, subsequent adaptations, apparent success and, finally, head-on crash.” This plot deviates from what Bowen refers to as the normal school story only in that it does not have a happy ending. Frost in May was written during the rise of anti-school school stories after World War I
. Regarding White's writing style, Bowen wrote: "Antonia White’s style as a story-teller is as precise, clear and unweighty as Jane Austen
's. Without a lapse from this style Antonia White traverses passages of which the only analogy is to be found in James Joyce
's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man." This comparison suggests that White's writing is both reminiscent of 19th century realism and indicative of modernist tendencies.
British people
The British are citizens of the United Kingdom, of the Isle of Man, any of the Channel Islands, or of any of the British overseas territories, and their descendants...
writer.
Early life
White was born as Eirine Botting to parents Cecil and Christine Botting. She later took her mother's maiden name, White. Her father taught GreekGreek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
and Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
at St. Paul’s School. She was baptized in the Protestant Church of England
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
but converted to Roman Catholicism at the age of 7 when her father converted. She struggled with religion and did not feel that she fitted in with the other girls at her school, many of whom were from upper-class Catholic families. She attended the Convent of the Sacred Heart, Roehampton
Roehampton
Roehampton is a district in south-west London, forming the western end of the London Borough of Wandsworth. It lies between the town of Barnes to the north, Putney to the east and Wimbledon Common to the south. The Richmond Park golf courses are west of the neighbourhood, and just south of these is...
(later Woldingham School
Woldingham School
Woldingham School is an all-girls, independent, Roman Catholic, boarding and day school in Woldingham, Surrey, England.-History:The school was founded as the Convent of the Sacred Heart in 1842 in Berrymead, London by the Society of the Sacred Heart...
, Surrey
Surrey
Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...
).
Although she is remembered as a modernist writer, she developed a terrible fear of writing after a misunderstanding when she was 15. She had been working on what was going to her first novel, which was to be a present for her father. She wanted to surprise him with a book about wicked people whose lives are changed as they discover religion. She attempted to give a detailed description of the evil characters, but, because of her lack of experience, she was unable to describe their wickedness except to say that they “Indulged in nameless vices”. The story was found unfinished by officials at her Catholic school and she was then expelled from the school without being given the opportunity to explain her book. She describes this incident as being her most vivid and tragic memory. “My superb gift to my father was absolutely my undoing” she remarked in an interview. She did not begin writing novels again until 20 years later, when her father died.
After she was expelled from the convent at Roehampton, she attended St. Paul’s Girls' School (the sister school to St Paul's School where her father taught), but did not fit in there either. When she left school she attempted to become an actress, but was unsuccessful. She then wrote for magazines and worked in advertising, where she earned £250 a year promoting Mercolized wax. She spent nine years working as a copywriter in London and she also worked for the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
as a translator.
Antonia White's translations of Colette
Colette
Colette was the surname of the French novelist and performer Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette . She is best known for her novel Gigi, upon which Lerner and Loewe based the stage and film musical comedies of the same title.-Early life and marriage:Colette was born to retired military officer Jules-Joseph...
's 'Claudine' novels were recognised for their elegance and erudition and remain the standard texts today.
Relationships
In 1921 she was married to the first of her three husbands. The marriage was annulled only 2 years later, and reportedly was never consummated. She immediately fell in love again with a man named Robert, who was an officerOfficer (armed forces)
An officer is a member of an armed force or uniformed service who holds a position of authority. Commissioned officers derive authority directly from a sovereign power and, as such, hold a commission charging them with the duties and responsibilities of a specific office or position...
in the Scots Guards
Scots Guards
The Scots Guards is a regiment of the Guards Division of the British Army, whose origins lie in the personal bodyguard of King Charles I of England and Scotland...
. They never married, and their relationship was brief but intense, which led to her experiencing a severe mental breakdown. She was committed to Bethlem, a public asylum, where she spent the next year of her life.
She had described her breakdown as a period of “mania”. After she left the hospital, she spent four years participating in Freudian studies. She struggled the rest of her life with mental illness which she referred to as “The Beast”.
Her second marriage was to a man named Eric Earnshaw Smith, but this marriage ended in divorce. By the age of 30, she had been married 3 times. During her second marriage, she had fallen in love with two men. One was Rudolph 'Silas' Glossop
Rudolph Glossop
Rudolph Glossop was a mining and civil engineer and one of the founders of Geotechnical Engineering in the UK.The Glossop Lecture at the Geological Society is named after him.-External links:*...
. The other was a man named Tom Hopkinson, a copywriter and S.G. who is described as “a tall handsome young man with a slightly melancholy charm”. She had trouble deciding whom she should marry following her divorce, and she married Hopkinson in 1930. She had two daughters, Lyndall Hopkinson and Susan Chitty, who have both written autobiographical books about their hard and difficult relationship with their mother.
Writing career, personal strifes
By 1931, she was married to Tom Hopkinson and was friends with novelist Djuna BarnesDjuna Barnes
Djuna Barnes was an American writer who played an important part in the development of 20th century English language modernist writing and was one of the key figures in 1920s and '30s bohemian Paris after filling a similar role in the Greenwich Village of the teens...
, and she was with Barnes when the latter wrote her now famous novel depicting a lesbian
Lesbian
Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...
affair gone bad, Nightwood. This novel was based on Barnes's relationship with Thelma Wood. In 1933, White completed her first novel, Frost in May, which fictionalized her experiences at Catholic boarding school and her expulsion. She also began writing a second novel, but a failed marriage and mental illness hindered its completion.
Fifteen years later, she completed her second novel The Lost Traveller, which was published in 1950. In the subsequent five years, after undergoing treatment for mental illness and reconverting to Catholicism, she completed the Clara Batchelor trilogy, which includes The Lost Traveller, about her relationship with her mother and father, The Sugar House, about her first unconsummated marriage, and Beyond the Glass, about an intense love-affair followed by a breakdown which is vividly described. As with her previous work, the trilogy was fictional, but mainly autobiographical. The four novels together narrate her life from ages 9 to 23. In 1966, she published a collection of letters entitled The Hound and the Falcon: The Story of a Reconversion to the Catholic Faith. She wrote Three in a Room, a three-act comedy, as well as many short stories, poems and juvenile fiction.
Her career as a writer seems to have been driven by the desire to cope with a sense of failure, resulting initially from her first attempt at writing, and with mental illness. She was quoted as saying, “The old terrors always return and often, with them, a feeling of such paralyzing lack of self-confidence that I have to take earlier books of mine off their shelf just to prove to myself that I actually wrote them and they were actually printed, bound, and read. I find that numbers of writers experience these same miseries over their work and do not, as is so often supposed, enjoy the process. "Creative joy" is something I haven't felt since I was fourteen and don't expect to feel again."
With regard to the content of her writing, White remarked, “My novels and short stories are mainly about ordinary people who become involved in rather extraordinary situations. I do not mean in sensational adventures but in rather odd and difficult personal relationships largely due to their family background and their incomplete understanding of their own natures. I use both Catholic and non-Catholic characters and am particularly interested in the conflicts that arise between them and in the influences they have on each other.” Two of the main themes in White’s novels are her relationship with her father and her Catholic faith.
Legacy
In the introduction to Frost in May, Elizabeth BowenElizabeth Bowen
Elizabeth Dorothea Cole Bowen, CBE was an Irish novelist and short story writer.-Life:Elizabeth Bowen was born on 7 June 1899 at 15 Herbert Place in Dublin, Ireland and was baptized in the nearby St Stephen's Church on Upper Mount Street...
describes the novel as a school story. She comments that the novel is written for adult readers, but that the language is comprehensible to an intelligent child of twelve. She writes, “We have Nanda’s arrival at Lippington, first impressions, subsequent adaptations, apparent success and, finally, head-on crash.” This plot deviates from what Bowen refers to as the normal school story only in that it does not have a happy ending. Frost in May was written during the rise of anti-school school stories after World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
. Regarding White's writing style, Bowen wrote: "Antonia White’s style as a story-teller is as precise, clear and unweighty as Jane Austen
Jane Austen
Jane Austen was an English novelist whose works of romantic fiction, set among the landed gentry, earned her a place as one of the most widely read writers in English literature, her realism and biting social commentary cementing her historical importance among scholars and critics.Austen lived...
's. Without a lapse from this style Antonia White traverses passages of which the only analogy is to be found in James Joyce
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...
's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man." This comparison suggests that White's writing is both reminiscent of 19th century realism and indicative of modernist tendencies.