Sheila Kaye-Smith
Encyclopedia
Sheila Kaye-Smith was an English writer, known for her many novels set in the borderlands of Sussex
and Kent
in the English regional tradition. Her 1923 book The End of the House of Alard became a best-seller, and gave her prominence; it was followed by other successes and her books enjoyed worldwide sales.
, near Hastings, in Sussex, and lived most of her life in that county, apart from a period in London in her youth. She was a distant relative of writer M M Kaye (The Far Pavilions).
In 1924 she married Theodore Penrose Fry, an Anglican clergyman, and in 1925 wrote a book on Anglo-Catholicism
. By 1929 she and her husband had converted to Roman Catholicism. Penrose Fry therefore had to give up his Anglican curacy, and they moved to Northiam
in Sussex
, where they lived in a large converted oast house
. Soon afterwards, having noted their own and some of their neighbours' need for a nearby Catholic church, they bought land on which they established a Catholic chapel dedicated to St Theresa of Lisieux, at Northiam
, which still enjoys a large congregation. Sheila is buried in the churchyard there. Their house, Little Doucegrove, was later owned by novelist Rumer Godden
, another female Catholic convert novelist.
), Thomas Hardy
, and Noel Coward
.
Kaye-Smith's novels straddle more than one genre of fiction. Her earliest novels partly fit into the 'earthy' rural category, together with that of Mary E Mann, Mary Webb
, D. H. Lawrence
, and Thomas Hardy
, a genre which inspired Stella Gibbons
's parody "Cold Comfort Farm
". Kaye-Smith's descriptions of the Sussex countryside, coast and marsh are still regarded as some of the finest. Several of her heroines become single parents and most face various gender-related trials, reflecting her early feminism as well as influences such as George Moore and Thomas Hardy. Kaye-Smith also produced many short stories, and journalism published in national journals, magazines and newspapers.
Arguably Kaye-Smith's most famous novel, Joanna Godden was based in Romney Marsh
and filmed in 1947 as The Loves of Joanna Godden
starring Googie Withers
and with a score by Ralph Vaughan Williams
. The screenplay by H. E. Bates
has a very different conclusion to the story.
Her later books increasingly reflected her own religious preoccupations, featuring characters tussling with spiritual crises and conversions within subtle discussions of the differences between Anglicanism, Anglo-Catholicism and Roman Catholicism. Nevertheless her plots reflect the pre- and post- WW2 preoccupations of women's 'middle-brow' fiction of the time, including national anxieties about social class, divorce, and women's 'role', within a mainly rural but rapidly modernising milieu. They therefore share similarities with contemporary writers such as Barbara Pym
, Marghanhita Laski and H E Bates. Her descriptions of farming practices and economics, and village vernacular are particularly detailed and accurate for this genre.
Joanna Godden and Susan Spray were reissued in the 1980s by feminist publishing house Virago. Her books are out of print, but easily available on the used book market.
Sussex
Sussex , from the Old English Sūþsēaxe , is an historic county in South East England corresponding roughly in area to the ancient Kingdom of Sussex. It is bounded on the north by Surrey, east by Kent, south by the English Channel, and west by Hampshire, and is divided for local government into West...
and Kent
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...
in the English regional tradition. Her 1923 book The End of the House of Alard became a best-seller, and gave her prominence; it was followed by other successes and her books enjoyed worldwide sales.
Life
The daughter of a doctor, Sheila was born in St Leonards-on-SeaSt Leonards-on-Sea
St Leonards-on-Sea is part of Hastings, East Sussex, England, lying immediately to the west of the centre. The original part of the settlement was laid out in the early 19th century as a new town: a place of elegant houses designed for the well-off; it also included a central public garden, a...
, near Hastings, in Sussex, and lived most of her life in that county, apart from a period in London in her youth. She was a distant relative of writer M M Kaye (The Far Pavilions).
In 1924 she married Theodore Penrose Fry, an Anglican clergyman, and in 1925 wrote a book on Anglo-Catholicism
Anglo-Catholicism
The terms Anglo-Catholic and Anglo-Catholicism describe people, beliefs and practices within Anglicanism that affirm the Catholic, rather than Protestant, heritage and identity of the Anglican churches....
. By 1929 she and her husband had converted to Roman Catholicism. Penrose Fry therefore had to give up his Anglican curacy, and they moved to Northiam
Northiam
Northiam is a village and civil parish in the Rother District of East Sussex, England. The village is located thirteen miles north of Hastings in the valley of the River Rother. The main road that passes through it is the A28 which goes to Canterbury and Hastings.-Governance:The lowest level of...
in Sussex
Sussex
Sussex , from the Old English Sūþsēaxe , is an historic county in South East England corresponding roughly in area to the ancient Kingdom of Sussex. It is bounded on the north by Surrey, east by Kent, south by the English Channel, and west by Hampshire, and is divided for local government into West...
, where they lived in a large converted oast house
Oast house
An oast, oast house or hop kiln is a building designed for kilning hops as part of the brewing process. They can be found in most hop-growing areas and are often good examples of vernacular architecture...
. Soon afterwards, having noted their own and some of their neighbours' need for a nearby Catholic church, they bought land on which they established a Catholic chapel dedicated to St Theresa of Lisieux, at Northiam
Northiam
Northiam is a village and civil parish in the Rother District of East Sussex, England. The village is located thirteen miles north of Hastings in the valley of the River Rother. The main road that passes through it is the A28 which goes to Canterbury and Hastings.-Governance:The lowest level of...
, which still enjoys a large congregation. Sheila is buried in the churchyard there. Their house, Little Doucegrove, was later owned by novelist Rumer Godden
Rumer Godden
Margaret Rumer Godden OBE was an English author of over 60 fiction and nonfiction books written under the name of Rumer Godden. A few of her works were co-written by her sister, Jon Godden, who wrote several novels on her own...
, another female Catholic convert novelist.
Writing
Kaye-Smith's fiction was noted for being rooted in rural concerns: the nineteenth century agricultural depression, farming, legacies, land rents, strikes, the changing position of women, the effects of industrialisation on the countryside and provincial life. Admirers of her work included her close friend G. B. Stern (with whom she collaborated on two books about Jane AustenJane 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...
), Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy, OM was an English novelist and poet. While his works typically belong to the Naturalism movement, several poems display elements of the previous Romantic and Enlightenment periods of literature, such as his fascination with the supernatural.While he regarded himself primarily as a...
, and Noel Coward
Noël Coward
Sir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy...
.
Kaye-Smith's novels straddle more than one genre of fiction. Her earliest novels partly fit into the 'earthy' rural category, together with that of Mary E Mann, Mary Webb
Mary Webb
Mary Webb , was an English romantic novelist and poet of the early 20th century, whose work is set chiefly in the Shropshire countryside and among Shropshire characters and people which she knew. Her novels have been successfully dramatized, most notably the film Gone to Earth in 1950 by Michael...
, D. H. Lawrence
D. H. Lawrence
David Herbert Richards Lawrence was an English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter who published as D. H. Lawrence. His collected works represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanising effects of modernity and industrialisation...
, and Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy, OM was an English novelist and poet. While his works typically belong to the Naturalism movement, several poems display elements of the previous Romantic and Enlightenment periods of literature, such as his fascination with the supernatural.While he regarded himself primarily as a...
, a genre which inspired Stella Gibbons
Stella Gibbons
Stella Dorothea Gibbons was an English novelist, journalist, poet, and short-story writer.Her first novel, Cold Comfort Farm, won the Femina Vie Heureuse Prize for 1933...
's parody "Cold Comfort Farm
Cold Comfort Farm
Cold Comfort Farm is a comic novel by Stella Gibbons, published in 1932. It parodies the romanticised, sometimes doom-laden accounts of rural life popular at the time, by writers such as Mary Webb...
". Kaye-Smith's descriptions of the Sussex countryside, coast and marsh are still regarded as some of the finest. Several of her heroines become single parents and most face various gender-related trials, reflecting her early feminism as well as influences such as George Moore and Thomas Hardy. Kaye-Smith also produced many short stories, and journalism published in national journals, magazines and newspapers.
Arguably Kaye-Smith's most famous novel, Joanna Godden was based in Romney Marsh
Romney Marsh
Romney Marsh is a sparsely populated wetland area in the counties of Kent and East Sussex in the south-east of England. It covers about 100 mi ² .-Quotations:*“As Egypt was the gift of the Nile, this level tract .....
and filmed in 1947 as The Loves of Joanna Godden
The Loves of Joanna Godden
The Loves of Joanna Godden is a 1947 British historical drama film directed by Charles Frend and produced by Michael Balcon. The screenplay was written by H E Bates and Angus McPhail from the novel by Sheila Kaye-Smith. It stars Googie Withers, Jean Kent, John McCallum, Derek Bond, Chips Rafferty...
starring Googie Withers
Googie Withers
Georgette Lizette "Googie" Withers CBE, AO was an English theatre, film and television actress. She was a longtime resident of Australia with her husband, the actor John McCallum, with whom she often appeared.-Biography:...
and with a score by Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams OM was an English composer of symphonies, chamber music, opera, choral music, and film scores. He was also a collector of English folk music and song: this activity both influenced his editorial approach to the English Hymnal, beginning in 1904, in which he included many...
. The screenplay by H. E. Bates
H. E. Bates
Herbert Ernest Bates, CBE , better known as H. E. Bates, was an English writer and author. His best-known works include Love for Lydia, The Darling Buds of May, and My Uncle Silas.-Early life:...
has a very different conclusion to the story.
Her later books increasingly reflected her own religious preoccupations, featuring characters tussling with spiritual crises and conversions within subtle discussions of the differences between Anglicanism, Anglo-Catholicism and Roman Catholicism. Nevertheless her plots reflect the pre- and post- WW2 preoccupations of women's 'middle-brow' fiction of the time, including national anxieties about social class, divorce, and women's 'role', within a mainly rural but rapidly modernising milieu. They therefore share similarities with contemporary writers such as Barbara Pym
Barbara Pym
Barbara Mary Crampton Pym was an English novelist. In 1977 her career was revived when two prominent writers, Lord David Cecil and Philip Larkin, nominated her as the most underrated writer of the century...
, Marghanhita Laski and H E Bates. Her descriptions of farming practices and economics, and village vernacular are particularly detailed and accurate for this genre.
Joanna Godden and Susan Spray were reissued in the 1980s by feminist publishing house Virago. Her books are out of print, but easily available on the used book market.
Literary Society
The Sheila Kaye-Smith literary society is based in St Leonards-on-Sea, meets regularly, and has published a chronology of her life and works, as well producing an annual journal, The Gleam. There are extensive archives relating to Sheila Kaye-Smith in West Sussex County Library in Chichester.Works
- The Tramping Methodist (1908)
- Spell Land: The Story of a Sussex Farm (1910)
- Samuel Richardson (1911)
- Isle of Thorns (1913)
- Willow's Forge and other poems (1914)
- Three against the World (1914)
- Sussex Gorse (1916)
- John Galsworthy (1916) biography
- The Challenge to Sirius (1917)
- Little England (1918)
- Tamarisk Town (1919)
- Green Apple Harvest (1920)
- Joanna Godden (1921)
- Saints in Sussex (1923) poems
- The End of the House of Alard (1923)
- Starbrace (1923)
- Anglo-Catholicism (1925)
- The George and the Crown (1925)
- The Mirror of the Months (1925)
- Joanna Godden Married and other Stories (1926)
- Iron and Smoke (1928)
- A Wedding Morn (1928)
- The Village Doctor (1929)
- Shepherds in Sackcloth (1930)
- Songs Late and Early (1931) poems
- Susan Spray (1931)
- The Children's Summer (1932)
- The Ploughman's Progress (1933)
- Superstition Corner (1934)
- Gallybird (1934)
- Selina is Older (1935)
- Rose Deeprose (1936)
- Three Ways Home (1937) autobiographyAutobiographyAn autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...
- Faithful Stranger and Other Stories (1938) short stories
- The Valiant Woman (1939)
- Ember Lane (1940)
- Tambourine, Trumpet and Drum (1943)
- Talking of Jane Austen (1943) with G. B. Stern
- Kitchen Fugue (1945)
- The Lardners and the Laurelwoods (1948)
- The Happy Tree (1949)
- The Treasures of the Snow (1949)
- More Talk of Jane Austen (1950) with G. B. Stern
- Mrs. Gailey (1951)
- The Hidden Son (1953)
- The Weald of Kent and Sussex (1953) topography
- Quartet in Heaven (1953) religious biography
- The View from the Parsonage (1954)
- All the Books of My Life (1956) autobiography