Rosamond Lehmann

by Selina Shirley Hastings

The life of Rosamond Lehmann was as romantic and harrowing as that of any of her fictional heroines. She enjoyed an idyllic childhood, had immense literary success, and embarked on a passionate affair with the poet, Cecil Day Lewis. Nine years later, he abandoned her for a young actress—a betrayal from which Rosamond never recovered. This biography of Rosamond Lehmann conjures up the intimate world of a woman whose dramatic life, work, and relationships criss-crossed the cultural, literary, and political landscape of England in the middle of the twentieth century.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction

476 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 2002

About the author

Lady Selina Shirley Hastings is a British journalist, author and biographer.

Reviews

[Bettie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Description: The life of Rosamond Lehmann was as romantic and harrowing as that of any of her fictional heroines. Escaping from a disastrous early marriage, Rosamond moved right into the heart of Bloomsbury society with Wogan Philipps. Later on she would embark on the most important love affair of her life, with the poet Cecil Day Lewis. Nine years later, he abandoned her for a young actress—a betrayal from which she would never recover.

Walter Leslie Runciman (1900-1989) and Rosamond Nina Lehmann. They married in 1923 and divorced 1927

Dora Carrington, Stephen Tomlin and Lytton Strachey

Rosamond and her brother John with Lytton

Ottoline Rosamond and Wogan

After nine years of living together very openly, Cecil dumped Rosamond to marry actress Jill Balcon

[Ali · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an absolutely fascinating biography. I hve not reasd any novels by Rosamond Lehman - yet. However I now feel that this biography will have given me a greater understanding of the woman she was. Her life was a tirbulant one. Married twice, and having had several lovers, a couple of whom were several years her junior, she lived a life that exposed her to a lot of heartache. I always love the old photographs in these biography's and this one certainly has some good ones, an I know I spend far too long scrutinizing them, trying to get a handle on people who are long dead. What is equally fascinating are the number of famous names that litter the pages, names such as, Virginia Woolf, Lytton Strachey, Julia Strachey, Stevie Smith and Katherine Mansfield. This is the second Selina Hastings Biography I have read, and I think I should be putting the third on to my wish list now.

[Alison · Rating 4 out of 5]

This weighty tome is a outstanding biography of the writer Rosamond Lehmann. Having only recently read two of Lehmann's novels, I was sufficiently enticed by their themes, characterisation and motifs and keen to discover more about the author and the reality which fuelled her fiction.

The parallels between Rosamond's experiences, the friends and family from which her characters were drawn, her attitudes and aspirations: from deep seat insecurities which led to a yearning for admiration and approval, to her fascination with the aristocratic echelons of society and feelings of exclusion by way of her, still privileged, but upper middle-class background, can be clearly seen.

What we learn of Rosamond Lehmann is as tragic as the fate of many of the characters which she put on the page. Her raison d'etre was to be adored, falling in love with the idea of being loved - it took her from the heady heights of ill-judged passions and rapidly entered affairs through to destructive behaviours, which as she aged, became exaggerated - ultimately pushing away the people she sought manacle to her.

Her story is set against an epoch-making period of history - from the dispersing ripples of the Great War, to the hedonistic and liberal coterie of the Bloomsbury set, through to the Second World War and an era of female emancipation in the 70s and '80s. The latter may have been lost on the 'feminine' Rosamond, despite the many ways she blazed a trail: a successful woman author, a wage earner, someone who pushed aside domestic convention and embraced a colourful life in pursuit of beauty and sense of freedom.

A meticulously researched undertaking, Rosamond Lehmann: A Life, is as important in its credentials as an anthology of unique historical sources as it is a biography. The cumulative effect of interviews and letters pieced together, provides a thorough understanding of this complicated individual but also tells allows us into a converted world of literary doyens through her relationships with the likes of Virginia Woolf, Laurie Lee, Siegfried Sassoon and others.

It is a lengthy work. The nine-year affair with Cecil Day-Lewis is chronicled to the point of exhaustion but is indicative of the weight she invested in the relationship which spanned a significant part of her life. It was also the catalyst in the acceleration of her negativity which resulted in a spiralling decline - magnified over time, consuming the greater part of her personality.

Selina Hastings achieved a magnificent undertaking in piecing together this work, aided and laboured by her relationship with Rosamond, as outlined in the Afterword. It gave her unfretted access to the woman her herself, an exhaustive supply of secondary sources but in equal measure was hindered by the control and demands of a woman who had once been great and was now trapped by her own decay and self-absorption. Bitter sweet and captivating, it provides a valuable chronicle of a remarkable woman and remarkable time.

[Chrissy Frost · Rating 5 out of 5]

I stumbled upon Rosamond Lehmann's novels in the early 1980s when Virago published their new editions. I was delighted to discover this fascinating biography by an author with her own personal links to Ms Lehmann (revealed in the Afterword). Born into a wealthy, upper middle class family, Rosamond enjoyed a privileged upbringing and attended Cambridge University (before full degrees were awarded to women). Her desire to write was apparent from an early age and she enjoyed astonishing success with her very first novel. Her success as a young writer was offset by a disastrous love life - two failed marriages and the relationship that caused her the greatest trauma: a nine year affair with the married poet Cecil Day Lewis. Her success as an author seemed to be constantly overshadowed by her messy and stressful love life. Beautiful and protected financially by her family background and the success of her novels, happiness still seemed to elude her. Late in life, following the tragic death of her daughter Sally, Lehmann embraced spiritualism and devoted a great deal of time engaged in writing and other activities connected with spiritualist organisations. This looks like a daunting, dense biography - but it really zips along and is a surprisingly quick read. Highly recommended to fans of Lehmann's novels.

[Margaret · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a thorough, entertaining, and well written biography. Hastings does draw some unavoidable parallels between Lehmann's life and her novels, but she stays away from too much biographical criticism. Her handling of Lehmann's later-life spiritualism, which started at the death of Lehmann's beloved daughter Sally, is also very good, showing respect for Lehmann's beliefs but also showing how Lehmann unconsciously began to use those beliefs to feed her own ego (for instance, saying that Cecil Day Lewis had visited her from the afterlife in order to implore her forgiveness for how he'd treated her).

[Debbie Robson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m not sure when I started reading Rosamond Lehmann by Selena Hastings. I think it was at least two years ago and about a third of the way through the book I became really frustrated. I was confused by Rosamond’s life. What was going on with all the affairs? I mean where was the woman who wrote Dusty Answer and A Note In Music in all this domestic mess? What did she actually think she was doing?
I finally picked it up again this year and with more time to really “read” the book I decided (rightly or wrongly) that Hastings was being a little backward in coming forward in revealing Lehmann’s true nature (or perhaps I just didn’t pick up her clues). However by the time Lehmann embarks on the affair with C.D. Lewis there is no denying the egomaniacal behaviour. I breathed a sigh of relief when I finally read this passage about Rosamund’s personality:
“When Cecil was away, Rosamond talked obsessively about her situation, bemoaning Cecil’s failure to leave his wife, and endlessly asking for advice on how to make him marry her. Dadie recalled once typical weekend, when he, Maurice Bowra and Barbara Warner were at the Manor House and:
‘there was a great discussion about her whole relationship with Cecil....In a way Cecil was a cruel fellow and a feeble fellow. I was devoted to him, but he was a cruel man really, and a vain man and highly sexy...We all said exactly the same thing: “Half a loaf is better than no bread. For God’s sake, hang on to Cecil who adores you, and with whom you’ve got so much common....Let him do what he likes, but enjoy the half you’ve got.” She paid no attention.’
“It may have been after this occasion that Bowra, exasperated, told Edith Sitwell that if she (Rosamond) had one more affair, he was either going into the lunatic asylum or was going to shoot himself, because he couldn’t stand being kept up all night while R. examined her and everybody else’s motives.”
So now I understood. She threw so much of herself into each relationship it is a wonder that she was able to write the books she did. I appreciated Hastings descriptions of each book and I now know (without having to read several of them) that my incomparable book by Rosamond Lehmann is the matchless A Note in Music. This biography is highly recommended for fans of Rosamond Lehmann’s fiction.

[Mel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a proper biography of Beatrix's sister that I read for more background research. I found it really useful as it outlined many of the sources she used in writing it which will also be of use to me. I learned about Bea's childhood and parents, apparently she was her father's favourite and, unlike Rosamond, played with the poor children next door. The biography tended to focus more on Rosamond's romantic relationships that it did her friends and family. There were hints of things that were very interesting to me. While it mentioned quite explicitly about the homosexuality of John, and their male homosexual friends very little was said about the sexuality of the women. Indeed there was only one sentence about Bea having "relationships with both men and women". And a mention that she had a "friend" who she'd had a "relationship" with for 15 years, which left me unclear if it was a relationship or a friendship. I assumed relationship as Bea left her nearly everything in her will, her sister disputed it and didn't want the "friend" to come to Bea's funeral despite being the one who nursed her in the last month of her life! I must admit it did not make me think very highly of Rosamond!

[Tim Rideout · Rating 4 out of 5]

Selina Hastings creates a vivid and compelling picture of Rosamond Lehmann, a figure in time as part of the Bloomsbury literary set and then out of time as towards the end of her life she became obsessed with spiritualism and past grievances.

As always with Hastings, the detailed material is well marshalled, offering a thorough account of Lehman's life and work. I would however have welcomed more placing of Lehmann's novels and short stories in their literary and historical context. That said, the rich and nuanced description of Lehmann's private life is of the highest biographical quality.

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Probably deserves more stars for its author, but I wanted to feel sympathy for the subject as I have enjoyedd her novels so much and I began to be very irritated by her snobbery and neediness. Only felt sympathy when she suffered loss.Perhaps I should have stuck with ner novels.

[August · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well written and interesting bio on writer, Rosamund Lehman, who is rarely mentioned today. As with the author's previous biographies on S. Maugham and Mitford, this one is meticulously researched; perhaps her best.

[Ruth Brumby · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rosamund Lehmann comes across as an awful person. "Being in love was a vocation - just as important as - if not more important than her vocation as a writer" p 211. It seems that being in love was based for her on appearance, status and wealth and willingness to admire Rosamund's own appearance. She is portrayed as living with a very false impression of what others thought, based on her own wishes, finally to the extent of believing messages from the dead supported her views.
However this may be partly because of the emphasis of the biographer. Less time is given to her political activity and her work for writers' organisations.
Like so many biographers the detailed research is recorded in excessive detail and this reads like a first draft.

[ReadingwhileWalking · Rating 5 out of 5]

When young, Rosamond Lehmann appeared to have everything. She was wealthy, privileged, talented, ravishingly beautiful and had an aura that affected all she met. Her life, however, was filled with heartbreak and tragedy -- as well as professional success -- some of it self-inflicted, some of it certainly not. Hastings has written the consummate classic biography, balancing deep research with an emotional underpinning and a suspenseful narrative that has you desperate to turn the page.

[Paul French · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've already recommended Hastings's great bios of Nancy Mitford and Somerset Maugham, this, of the lesser known Rosamund Lehmann is also excellent