Rosamond Lehmann’s Followers (125)

Rosamond Lehmann

Born

in Buckinghamshire, The United Kingdom

February 03, 1901

Died

March 12, 1990

Genre

Literature & Fiction

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Rosamond Nina Lehmann was born in Bourne End, Buckinghamshire, as the second daughter of Rudolph Lehmann and his wife Alice Davis, a New Englander. Her father Rudolph Chambers Lehmann was a liberal MP, and editor of the Daily News. John Lehmann (1907-1989) was her brother; one of her two sisters was the famous actress Beatrix Lehmann.

In 1919 she went to Girton College, University of Cambridge to read English Literature, an unusual thing for a woman to do at that time. In December 1923 she married Leslie Runciman (later 2nd Viscount Runciman of Doxford) (1900-1989), and the couple went to live in Newcastle upon Tyne. It was an unhappy marriage, and they separated in 1927 and were divorced later that year.

In 1927, Lehmann published her first Rosamond Nina Lehmann was born in Bourne End, Buckinghamshire, as the second daughter of Rudolph Lehmann and his wife Alice Davis, a New Englander. Her father Rudolph Chambers Lehmann was a liberal MP, and editor of the Daily News. John Lehmann (1907-1989) was her brother; one of her two sisters was the famous actress Beatrix Lehmann.

In 1919 she went to Girton College, University of Cambridge to read English Literature, an unusual thing for a woman to do at that time. In December 1923 she married Leslie Runciman (later 2nd Viscount Runciman of Doxford) (1900-1989), and the couple went to live in Newcastle upon Tyne. It was an unhappy marriage, and they separated in 1927 and were divorced later that year.

In 1927, Lehmann published her first novel, Dusty Answer, to great critical and popular acclaim. The novel's heroine, Judith, is attracted to both men and women, and interacts with fairly openly gay and lesbian characters during her years at Cambridge. The novel was a succès de scandale. Though none of her later novels were as successful as her first, Lehmann went on to publish six more novels, a play (No More Music, 1939), a collection of short stories (The Gypsy's Baby & Other Stories, 1946), a spiritual autobiography (The Swan in the Evening, 1967), and a photographic memoir of her friends (Rosamond Lehmann's Album, 1985), many of whom were famous Bloomsbury figures such as Leonard and Virginia Woolf, Carrington, and Lytton Strachey. She also translated two French novels into English: Jacques Lemarchand's Genevieve (1948) and Jean Cocteau's Children of the Game (1955). Her novels include A Note in Music (1930), Invitation to the Waltz (1932), The Weather in the Streets (1936), The Ballad and the Source (1944), The Echoing Grove (1953), and A Sea-Grape Tree (1976).

In 1928, Lehmann married Wogan Philipps, an artist. They had two children, a son Hugo (1929-1999) and a daughter Sarah or Sally (1934-1958), but the marriage quickly fell apart during the late Thirties with her Communist husband leaving to take part in the Spanish Civil War. During World War II she helped edit and contributed to New Writing, a periodical edited by her brother. She had an affair with Goronwy Rees and then a "very public affair" for nine years (1941-1950) with the married Cecil Day-Lewis, who eventually left her for his second wife.

Her 1953 novel The Echoing Grove was made into the 2002 film Heart of Me, with Helena Bonham Carter as the main character, Dinah. Her book The Ballad and the Source depicts an unhappy marriage from the point of view of a child, and has been compared to Henry James' What Maisie Knew.

The Swan in the Evening (1967) is an autobiography which Lehmann described as her "last testament". In it, she intimately describes the emotions she felt at the birth of her daughter Sally, and also when Sally died abruptly of poliomyelitis at the age of 23 (or 24) in 1958 while in Jakarta. She never recovered from Sally's death. Lehmann claimed to have had some psychic experiences, documented in Moments of Truth.

Lehmann was awarded the CBE in 1982 and died at Clareville Grove, London on 12 March 1990, aged 89. ...more

Combine Editions
Rosamond Lehmann’s books

Average rating: 3.84 · 8,077 ratings · 875 reviews · 43 distinct works • Similar authors

	Invitation to the Waltz by Rosamond Lehmann, Roland Philipps (Foreword) 3.88 avg rating — 1,505 ratings — published 1932 — 80 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Weather in the Streets by Rosamond Lehmann, Carmen Callil (Introduction) 3.96 avg rating — 1,027 ratings — published 1936 — 45 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Dusty Answer by Rosamond Lehmann, Jonathan Coe (Goodreads Author) (Introduction) 3.83 avg rating — 952 ratings — published 1927 — 18 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Echoing Grove 3.58 avg rating — 376 ratings — published 1953 — 48 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Ballad and the Source 3.71 avg rating — 208 ratings — published 1944 — 54 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	A Note in Music 3.95 avg rating — 177 ratings — published 1930 — 24 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Swan in the Evening 3.29 avg rating — 79 ratings — published 1967 — 26 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Gipsy's Baby by Rosamond Lehmann, Niall Griffiths (Foreword) 3.55 avg rating — 73 ratings — published 1946 — 21 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	A Sea-Grape Tree 3.48 avg rating — 66 ratings — published 1976 — 12 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Virago Modern Classics Omnibus: The Weather in the Streets / All Passion Spent / Frost in May by Rosamond Lehmann, Antonia White, Vita Sackville-West 4.13 avg rating — 15 ratings — 7 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Rosamond Lehmann…

Series by Rosamond Lehmann

Olivia Curtis (2 books)
by

Rosamond Lehmann,

Carmen Callil (Introduction)

3.92 avg rating — 2,531 ratings

Rebecca Landon (2 books)
by

Rosamond Lehmann

3.66 avg rating — 274 ratings

Quotes by Rosamond Lehmann (?)

“Advice to Young Journal Keepers. Be lenient with yourself. Conceal your worst faults, leave out your most shameful thoughts, actions, and temptations. Give yourself all the good and interesting qualities you want and haven't got. If you should die young, what comfort would it be to your relatives to read the truth and have to say: It is not a pearl we have lost, but a swine?”
― Rosamond Lehmann, Invitation to the Waltz

35 likes

“I want to do something absolutely different, or perhaps nothing at all: just stay where I am, in my home, and absorb each hour, each day, and be alone; and read and think; and walk about the garden in the night; and wait, wait...”
― Rosamond Lehmann, Invitation to the Waltz

24 likes

“It'll all come right. Because, of course, I do believe...I believe - I believe in everything...sun, moon, stars, in seasons - trees, flowers - people, music, life...yes, in life.”
― Rosamond Lehmann

7 likes

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Polls

Which work of fiction would you like to read with the group during October 2017?

Cakes and Ale by W. Somerset Maugham

7 votes, 53.8%

Closely Watched Trains by Bohumil Hrabal

3 votes, 23.1%

Dusty Answer by Rosamond Lehmann

2 votes, 15.4%

The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton

1 vote, 7.7%

13 total votes

7 comments

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