1900

by Rebecca West

1900 (A Studio Book) [hardcover] West, Rebecca [Apr 27, 1982] …

Genres: History, Reference

192 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Cicely Isabel Fairfield, known by her pen name Rebecca West, or Dame Rebecca West, DBE was an English author, journalist, literary critic, and travel writer. She was brought up in Edinburgh, Scotland, where she attended George Watson's Ladies College.

A prolific, protean author who wrote in many genres, West was committed to feminist and liberal principles and was one of the foremost public intellectuals of the twentieth century. She reviewed books for The Times, the New York Herald Tribune, the Sunday Telegraph, and the New Republic, and she was a correspondent for The Bookman. Her major works include Black Lamb and Grey Falcon (1941), on the history and culture of Yugoslavia; A Train of Powder (1955), her coverage of the Nuremberg trials, published originally in The New Yorker; The Meaning of Treason, later The New Meaning of Treason, a study of World War II and Communist traitors; The Return of the Soldier, a modernist World War I novel; and the "Aubrey trilogy" of autobiographical novels, The Fountain Overflows, This Real Night, and Cousin Rosamund. Time called her "indisputably the world's number one woman writer" in 1947. She was made CBE in 1949, and DBE in 1959, in recognition of her outstanding contributions to British letters.

Reviews

[Paul Wilner · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is occasional work, but when Rebecca West is in good form, which is almost all of the time, she is untouchable. She is particularly good here with sharp-eyed portraits of Henry James, Wilde and Proust, along with a comic take on Colette. In between, she takes apart some of the British politicians of the time. With illustrations.

[Anton]

Why this book? I'm reading her bio by Rollyson. I've read a great deal of her work, though not everything..., (and not this book, yet),..that would be like reading all of Rollyson. I'd love to be the kind of biography fiend that had read all of him. In my next life I plan to be a book collector, (and a cowboy), and I'll probably need 1900 for my collection. Have you read Larry McMurtry's Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Freeze? do I have the title right? Who am I addressing here?

[AJ · Rating 3 out of 5]

To learn about the period I recommend reading Barbara Tuchman's The Proud Tower. Then read 1900 and imagine hearing the voice of Maggie Smith as Downton Abbey's Dowager Countess at age 88. She meanders through personal memories and historical discourse about a pivotal year, replete with sometimes bizarre digressions and witty bon mots about the classes, the Queen, the Boer War, and so on.

[Jrobertus · Rating 4 out of 5]

captivating text and photos of the 'new

[Maureen Rue · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting book on what western life was like, especially for women, at the beginning of the last century.

[Pam Torres · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent study of 1900. West's prose is creates not only accurate description but conveys the nuances of the time in history.