By Elodie Barnes | On August 16, 2022 | Updated March 15, 2025 | Comments (2)
Literary mythology has often portrayed Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield as bitter rivals, but they were close friends and, for the most part, mutually supportive writing colleagues.
The rivalry between the two brilliant writers served as inspiration to both, a spur to do better. Virginia said of Katherine, “I was jealous of her writing. The only writing I have ever been jealous of.”
In October 1917, Virginia Woolf recorded in her diary her first, decidedly mixed impressions of fellow writer Katherine Mansfield. Katherine “stinks like a civet cat that had taken to street walking,” she wrote. “In truth, I’m a little shocked by her commonness at first sight; lines so hard & cheap. However, when this diminishes, she is so intelligent & inscrutable that she repays friendship.” Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On August 2, 2022 | Updated August 2, 2024 | Comments (0)
While the writers highlighted here may not be obscure or totally forgotten (with the possible exception of Vera Caspary), they also may not leap to mind as the authors of our next great read. Let’s revisit these fascinating mid-20th century women novelists.
Midcentury is loosely defined here as 1940s and 1950s, and this is but a small sampling of writers of that era that I find fascinating — there are always others to discover and rediscover. Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On July 29, 2022 | Updated July 29, 2024 | Comments (4)
When I created a roundup of classic women authors and their dogs, it seemed that dogs might have an edge as the preferred furry friends of writers. But digging deeper, I’m no longer convinced that this is the case. As it turns out, women writers and their cats have long been just as companionable.
Let’s take a look at some beloved women writers and the feline companions who at the very least comforted them, and in some cases, even inspired some of their writings.
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By Lynne Weiss | On June 29, 2022 | Updated June 15, 2026 | Comments (2)
In September 1856, the 36-year-old woman heretofore known as Mary Ann Evans (alternatively Marian) wrote in her journal that she had “made a new era” in her life, “for it was then I began to write fiction.”
It was a new era in another way, as well, because it was soon after this that Mary Ann Evans began to transform herself into the author we know as the eminent British novelist and essayist, George Eliot (1819 – 1880).
Mary Ann Evans was in the process of reinventing herself in several ways. A few months after she began writing fiction, she sent a letter to her beloved brother Isaac in which she announced, “You will be surprised to learn … that I have changed my name and have someone to take care of me in the world.” Read More→
By Melanie P. Kumar | On June 27, 2022 | Updated August 20, 2022 | Comments (0)
Like most teenagers in India who enjoyed the English classics, Pride and Prejudice came into my life. It prompted me to borrow the Complete Works of Jane Austen from the library and to read all her novels. But if you were to ask me to recall the plots today, Pride and Prejudice is the one that has etched itself most clearly in my mind.
This could also be because I had to study this novel as part of my English Honors program in college. I recall the name of the teacher who took up this book but can’t remember many insights that she left me with.
What comes to mind is that she spoke of it as a “drawing room novel,” as a lot of the action indeed takes place in these various home settings, starting with that of the Bennet family in Pride and Prejudice. Read More→
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