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Nancy Cunard: Heiress, Muse, Political Idealist
Lois Gordon's absorbing biography tells the story of a writer, activist, and cultural icon who embodied the dazzling energy and tumultuous spirit of her age, and whom William Carlos Williams once called "one of the major phenomena of history."
Nancy Cunard (1896-1965) led a life that surpasses Hollywood fantasy. The only child of an English baronet (and heir to the Cunard shipping fortune) and an American beauty, Cunard abandoned the world of a celebrated socialite and Jazz Age icon to pursue a lifelong battle against social injustice as a wartime journalist, humanitarian aid worker, and civil rights champion.
Cunard fought fascism on the battlefields of Spain and reported firsthand on the atrocities of the French concentration camps. Intelligent and beautiful, she romanced the great writers of her era, including three Nobel Prize winners, and was the inspiration for characters in the works of Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, Aldous Huxley, Pablo Neruda, Samuel Beckett, and Ernest Hemingway, among others.
Cunard was also a prolific poet, publisher, and translator and, after falling in love with a black American jazz pianist, became deeply committed to fighting for black rights. She edited the controversial anthology Negro, the first comprehensive study of the achievement and plight of blacks around the world. Her contributors included Langston Hughes, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Zora Neale Hurston, among scores of others.
Cunard's personal life was as complex as her public persona. Her involvement with the civil rights movement led her to be ridiculed and rejected by both family and friends. Throughout her life, she was plagued by insecurities and suffered a series of breakdowns, struggling with a sense of guilt over her promiscuous behavior and her ability to survive so much war and tragedy. Yet Cunard's writings also reveal an immense kindness and wit, as well as her renowned, often flamboyant defiance of prejudiced social conventions.
Drawing on diaries, correspondence, historical accounts, and the remembrances of others, Lois Gordon revisits the major movements of the first half of the twentieth century through the life of a truly gifted and extraordinary woman. She also returns Nancy Cunard to her rightful place as a major figure in the historical, social, and artistic events of a critical era.
Nancy Cunard (1896-1965) led a life that surpasses Hollywood fantasy. The only child of an English baronet (and heir to the Cunard shipping fortune) and an American beauty, Cunard abandoned the world of a celebrated socialite and Jazz Age icon to pursue a lifelong battle against social injustice as a wartime journalist, humanitarian aid worker, and civil rights champion.
Cunard fought fascism on the battlefields of Spain and reported firsthand on the atrocities of the French concentration camps. Intelligent and beautiful, she romanced the great writers of her era, including three Nobel Prize winners, and was the inspiration for characters in the works of Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, Aldous Huxley, Pablo Neruda, Samuel Beckett, and Ernest Hemingway, among others.
Cunard was also a prolific poet, publisher, and translator and, after falling in love with a black American jazz pianist, became deeply committed to fighting for black rights. She edited the controversial anthology Negro, the first comprehensive study of the achievement and plight of blacks around the world. Her contributors included Langston Hughes, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Zora Neale Hurston, among scores of others.
Cunard's personal life was as complex as her public persona. Her involvement with the civil rights movement led her to be ridiculed and rejected by both family and friends. Throughout her life, she was plagued by insecurities and suffered a series of breakdowns, struggling with a sense of guilt over her promiscuous behavior and her ability to survive so much war and tragedy. Yet Cunard's writings also reveal an immense kindness and wit, as well as her renowned, often flamboyant defiance of prejudiced social conventions.
Drawing on diaries, correspondence, historical accounts, and the remembrances of others, Lois Gordon revisits the major movements of the first half of the twentieth century through the life of a truly gifted and extraordinary woman. She also returns Nancy Cunard to her rightful place as a major figure in the historical, social, and artistic events of a critical era.
504 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2007
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April 13, 2010
After reading this book and other biographies, I'm struck by how little I know about history. In school, history was always men and their wars and the dates of their wars. Reading about Nancy Cunard and other women paint real-life experiences, faces, and personalities onto those events in history. I had no idea about the Spanish civil war, the atrocities that occurred there not only during the war but afterwords. I'm saddened by how our country stood idly behind our policy of non-interference while Franco and his party destroyed the society of Spain (next up is the biography of Alice Roosevelt Longworth to help explain this from the American side). I'm disgusted by the French and their complicity in the formation of concentration camps to further victimize the refugees. Meanwhile I'm revolted by the world-wide attitudes, specifically the American, against the "negro race" (as was the terminology of the time). Yes, I've read about the horrors taking place in the American South, but there was more detail in this book that even growing up a Southerner, I had not heard about. This book really brought to life the horrors of both world wars and the amazing strength of the people who lived and died in them.
Nancy sought to expose the evils of the world so that action could be taken to correct the injustices that surrounded her. She fought tirelessly and sacrificed all to help those in need. She used her pen and typewriter to spread the word about discrimination, educate the world about the beauty and intelligence of the black races and their cultures and civilizations, she introduced the world to many of the literary greats of the time, she single-handedly rescued victims of persecution from the concentration camps, fed the hungry refugees and broadcast their stories to the world. I am truly amazed and inspired by what this woman accomplished and the sheer will and power that she demonstrated. And for it all she lost the love and support of her family, the great financial fortune that she inherited from her father of the Cunard Shipping Line, her health, the lives of many of her dear friends, her home, and her trust in all things good.
Later in life she was involuntarily committed to an insane asylum. It was said by many of her friends, artistic and literary giants at the time that, "She was not mad, she was maddened", and after reading about her experiences and the times in which she lived there is no doubt that this is true. From a modern perspective it seems that all the world was mad but Nancy Cunard was a beacon of sanity raging in the utter darkness that was the first half of the 20th century.
Nancy has been described as the first "Modern Woman". She wore trousers and slept with whomever she pleased, taking many lovers including many young men when she was of an advanced age. She set her own course, rejected "Society" and all of its trappings. As an heiress, great beauty, and muse she could easily have chosen to stay at her family's massive estate of Nevill Holt, marry Edward, the Prince of Whales who courted her, and lived a life of luxury and privilege. Instead she chose her conscious over convenience, warfare over complacency, and the cause of the Scottsboro Boys, nine falsely persecuted negro men from Alabama, over the love and acceptance of her powerful mother, Lady Cunard.
After reading a lot of biographies of women - specifically women who do something compelling with their lives, not simply falling in love and having children - I'm struck by how hard these women worked, how much they gave to the world, and yet how lonely they ended up. At least Nancy didn't commit suicide like many others, although her death was perhaps more tragic. At least with suicide, women who lived on their own terms died on their own terms as well. Nancy died broke and alone in a shabby hospital with battles still to be fought and causes to be waged.
The first third of this book can be tedious if one isn't familiar with the artistic and literary greats of her time (as I wasn't), but keep reading. The book can be depressing due to the horrors that were taking place, but keep reading. The book can be disheartening because of the rejection and persecution that she faced as a result of her strong beliefs, but keep reading. This book is inspiring because it will restore one's faith that despite all of the horrors and failures and great struggles, there was one woman who loved passionately and "rage[d:] against the dying of the light".
This book finally ignited my interest in Poetry, especially that of Nancy Cunard and Ezra Pound - also wanting to check out Louis Aragon. I've always found poetry tedious and fluffy but now I understand that in a world before literal images could be broadcast, poetry painted images with words.
Excerpt from "I Think of You" by Nancy Cunard, toward Ezra Pound.
In the fields
When the first fires of the nightly diamonds are lit,
When the stir of the green corn is smoothed and silent,
And the plover circling at peace like a thought in a dream,
I think of you,
Finger the last words you have added to my rosary.
On a white road
High-noon and midsummer witness my love of you
Grown as a firm tree,
Rich, upright, full-hearted, generously spreading
Long shadows on the resting-place of our future days.
In a town
I meet many with the thought of you in my heart,
Your smile on my lips,
I greet many
With the love that I have gathered at your fountains,
.....................................................
I go to the feasts adorned
In a scarlet vestment,
Bejeweled and hung with many trappings -
Under these
Burns the still flame that your hands alone may touch.
Nancy sought to expose the evils of the world so that action could be taken to correct the injustices that surrounded her. She fought tirelessly and sacrificed all to help those in need. She used her pen and typewriter to spread the word about discrimination, educate the world about the beauty and intelligence of the black races and their cultures and civilizations, she introduced the world to many of the literary greats of the time, she single-handedly rescued victims of persecution from the concentration camps, fed the hungry refugees and broadcast their stories to the world. I am truly amazed and inspired by what this woman accomplished and the sheer will and power that she demonstrated. And for it all she lost the love and support of her family, the great financial fortune that she inherited from her father of the Cunard Shipping Line, her health, the lives of many of her dear friends, her home, and her trust in all things good.
Later in life she was involuntarily committed to an insane asylum. It was said by many of her friends, artistic and literary giants at the time that, "She was not mad, she was maddened", and after reading about her experiences and the times in which she lived there is no doubt that this is true. From a modern perspective it seems that all the world was mad but Nancy Cunard was a beacon of sanity raging in the utter darkness that was the first half of the 20th century.
Nancy has been described as the first "Modern Woman". She wore trousers and slept with whomever she pleased, taking many lovers including many young men when she was of an advanced age. She set her own course, rejected "Society" and all of its trappings. As an heiress, great beauty, and muse she could easily have chosen to stay at her family's massive estate of Nevill Holt, marry Edward, the Prince of Whales who courted her, and lived a life of luxury and privilege. Instead she chose her conscious over convenience, warfare over complacency, and the cause of the Scottsboro Boys, nine falsely persecuted negro men from Alabama, over the love and acceptance of her powerful mother, Lady Cunard.
After reading a lot of biographies of women - specifically women who do something compelling with their lives, not simply falling in love and having children - I'm struck by how hard these women worked, how much they gave to the world, and yet how lonely they ended up. At least Nancy didn't commit suicide like many others, although her death was perhaps more tragic. At least with suicide, women who lived on their own terms died on their own terms as well. Nancy died broke and alone in a shabby hospital with battles still to be fought and causes to be waged.
The first third of this book can be tedious if one isn't familiar with the artistic and literary greats of her time (as I wasn't), but keep reading. The book can be depressing due to the horrors that were taking place, but keep reading. The book can be disheartening because of the rejection and persecution that she faced as a result of her strong beliefs, but keep reading. This book is inspiring because it will restore one's faith that despite all of the horrors and failures and great struggles, there was one woman who loved passionately and "rage[d:] against the dying of the light".
This book finally ignited my interest in Poetry, especially that of Nancy Cunard and Ezra Pound - also wanting to check out Louis Aragon. I've always found poetry tedious and fluffy but now I understand that in a world before literal images could be broadcast, poetry painted images with words.
Excerpt from "I Think of You" by Nancy Cunard, toward Ezra Pound.
In the fields
When the first fires of the nightly diamonds are lit,
When the stir of the green corn is smoothed and silent,
And the plover circling at peace like a thought in a dream,
I think of you,
Finger the last words you have added to my rosary.
On a white road
High-noon and midsummer witness my love of you
Grown as a firm tree,
Rich, upright, full-hearted, generously spreading
Long shadows on the resting-place of our future days.
In a town
I meet many with the thought of you in my heart,
Your smile on my lips,
I greet many
With the love that I have gathered at your fountains,
.....................................................
I go to the feasts adorned
In a scarlet vestment,
Bejeweled and hung with many trappings -
Under these
Burns the still flame that your hands alone may touch.
January 23, 2016
I wanted to love Lois Gordon’s biography of Nancy, Nancy Cunard: Heiress, Political,Idealist. Finally I’d found a book devoted to a woman I’d seen glimpses of in other memoirs, biographies and histories. Unfortunately, Nancy is too often a supporting player in her own story and, even more unfortunately, Gordon does not delve into what drove and shaped her. For instance, very early on we learn that “Nancy’s dislike of continued throughout her life and as an adult she remained model-thin in figure.” Let me put this in perspective – this is a woman who was regularly described as tall who weighed 57 pounds when she died. That sounds like more than a mere “dislike” of food. Anorexia? Serious digestive issues? Who knows? Gordon doesn’t pursue it.
Nor does she pursue the root causes of Nancy’s “promiscuity” other than to rack up all the famous men she bedded. Was Nancy truly promiscuous or did she simply enjoy sex without emotional entanglements? Again, who knows? Nancy blamed her promiscuity on her despair over World War I but it continued well beyond the war and even the 1920s, leading her into relationships with men who beat her (we learn that in one sentence), destroying romantic relationships and without appearing to provide Nancy with any satisfaction. The author mentions Nancy’s promiscuity frequently, so frequently that when she describes Nancy going to the local train station to greet the soldiers with a sense of mission it sounded like she was giving out numbers like a deli counter. Gordon doesn’t pursue the subject, never truly delving into, say, the impact of George Moore (a man Nancy adored and believed to be her biological father) asking Nancy for details about her sex life and to see her naked. Just as a for instance. Ditto Nancy’s very serious drinking problem. Smashed relationships, broken bones and a trip to the mental ward are just a few of the by-products but Gordon just mentions it an moves on to the next famous person Nancy meets.
Gordon leaves too much un-examined for my taste. Nancy’s lost love gets a few pages but no insight. We aren’t even sure when Nancy met him or when he died. We don’t learn why Nancy’s marriage failed – except for Gordon to dismiss another biographer’s theory – or examine why Nancy had a hysterectomy at such a young age and how it might have effected her.
Instead we get pictures of Virginia Woolf (who barely makes an appearance in Nancy’s life,) a slightly bitter take down of the Bloomsbury Group and long, long stretches of narratives about the famous writers Nancy encountered. It’s as if Nancy’s own life is only interesting because she knew Pablo Neruda. At least provide a few details about how she came to love bangles so much.
If, like me, you want to learn more about Nancy Cunard this isn’t the worst place to start. The chapters are a bit odd – they start with a summary of the entire chapter and then move on to the details. (In the Kindle version it wasn’t clear that’s what was going on so for the first five chapters I couldn’t figure out why Gordon was repeating things.)
Anne Chisolm's biography of Nancy Cunard is out of print.
Nor does she pursue the root causes of Nancy’s “promiscuity” other than to rack up all the famous men she bedded. Was Nancy truly promiscuous or did she simply enjoy sex without emotional entanglements? Again, who knows? Nancy blamed her promiscuity on her despair over World War I but it continued well beyond the war and even the 1920s, leading her into relationships with men who beat her (we learn that in one sentence), destroying romantic relationships and without appearing to provide Nancy with any satisfaction. The author mentions Nancy’s promiscuity frequently, so frequently that when she describes Nancy going to the local train station to greet the soldiers with a sense of mission it sounded like she was giving out numbers like a deli counter. Gordon doesn’t pursue the subject, never truly delving into, say, the impact of George Moore (a man Nancy adored and believed to be her biological father) asking Nancy for details about her sex life and to see her naked. Just as a for instance. Ditto Nancy’s very serious drinking problem. Smashed relationships, broken bones and a trip to the mental ward are just a few of the by-products but Gordon just mentions it an moves on to the next famous person Nancy meets.
Gordon leaves too much un-examined for my taste. Nancy’s lost love gets a few pages but no insight. We aren’t even sure when Nancy met him or when he died. We don’t learn why Nancy’s marriage failed – except for Gordon to dismiss another biographer’s theory – or examine why Nancy had a hysterectomy at such a young age and how it might have effected her.
Instead we get pictures of Virginia Woolf (who barely makes an appearance in Nancy’s life,) a slightly bitter take down of the Bloomsbury Group and long, long stretches of narratives about the famous writers Nancy encountered. It’s as if Nancy’s own life is only interesting because she knew Pablo Neruda. At least provide a few details about how she came to love bangles so much.
If, like me, you want to learn more about Nancy Cunard this isn’t the worst place to start. The chapters are a bit odd – they start with a summary of the entire chapter and then move on to the details. (In the Kindle version it wasn’t clear that’s what was going on so for the first five chapters I couldn’t figure out why Gordon was repeating things.)
Anne Chisolm's biography of Nancy Cunard is out of print.
November 21, 2023
Wow, I love a good biography. I picked this up because of the famous name, not because I had ever heard of Nancy Cunard, but it was well worth the read.
Nancy was born to an upper class english father and an American society princess mother (Maud Cunard). She grew up under strict governess supervision and had a very lonely and unhappy childhood, however she always loved literature and writing poetry.
The book takes us through Nancy's life in chronological order. Starting with the effects of the great War on her and many of her literary friends. It focused on her extreme promiscuity, her need to "give comfort" to any soldier who was about to be shipped off to the front, and the effects of losing many of the young men in her set.
It moved from the great war into her discovery of the injustices of black people. This is where she started to shift from a person with questionable morals to someone who took a stand for human rights. She fell in love with a black musician and they lived together in France without too much discrimination but when they traveled together to the United States, she started to get death threats from the KKK! As a result of her continued association with him, her mother disinherited her. I don't believe they ever spoke again in their lifetime.
Her interest in Black rights led Nancy to travel extensively to research and put together an anthology called Negro which she ended up publishing in her own press.
The next era was the Spanish Civil War, where Nancy acted as a correspondent for the Guardian. She walked for miles, raised money and procured food for the starving and helped secure release from prison camps for people and getting them out of the country too. Her escapades read like a mission impossible movie at times, but always downplayed as simply a small thing she could do.
In WW2 she did her part translating German broadcasts for the English and felt solidarity with the English for the first time since she was shunned from society there. But she returned to France after the war to find her house ransacked and her property in ruins.
The last part of the book was very sad. She was penniless, drunk, homeless in the sense of no permanent abode and was committed as insane. She was released from the institution after a few weeks of clean living, but her life deteriorated until she finally passed away.
Apart from learning a lot about Nancy Cunard, this was an amazing history lesson and a who's who of literary times and culture in Europe 1920s to 1950s. Recommended. I'd like to find her book about the Hours Press, I'm sure her writing would be fascinating.
Nancy was born to an upper class english father and an American society princess mother (Maud Cunard). She grew up under strict governess supervision and had a very lonely and unhappy childhood, however she always loved literature and writing poetry.
The book takes us through Nancy's life in chronological order. Starting with the effects of the great War on her and many of her literary friends. It focused on her extreme promiscuity, her need to "give comfort" to any soldier who was about to be shipped off to the front, and the effects of losing many of the young men in her set.
It moved from the great war into her discovery of the injustices of black people. This is where she started to shift from a person with questionable morals to someone who took a stand for human rights. She fell in love with a black musician and they lived together in France without too much discrimination but when they traveled together to the United States, she started to get death threats from the KKK! As a result of her continued association with him, her mother disinherited her. I don't believe they ever spoke again in their lifetime.
Her interest in Black rights led Nancy to travel extensively to research and put together an anthology called Negro which she ended up publishing in her own press.
The next era was the Spanish Civil War, where Nancy acted as a correspondent for the Guardian. She walked for miles, raised money and procured food for the starving and helped secure release from prison camps for people and getting them out of the country too. Her escapades read like a mission impossible movie at times, but always downplayed as simply a small thing she could do.
In WW2 she did her part translating German broadcasts for the English and felt solidarity with the English for the first time since she was shunned from society there. But she returned to France after the war to find her house ransacked and her property in ruins.
The last part of the book was very sad. She was penniless, drunk, homeless in the sense of no permanent abode and was committed as insane. She was released from the institution after a few weeks of clean living, but her life deteriorated until she finally passed away.
Apart from learning a lot about Nancy Cunard, this was an amazing history lesson and a who's who of literary times and culture in Europe 1920s to 1950s. Recommended. I'd like to find her book about the Hours Press, I'm sure her writing would be fascinating.
April 2, 2009
If Gordon's prose is sometimes workmanlike, the content of this book is extremely thorough and Cunard's story is one worth learning about. Cunard was the first to publish Beckett, had affairs with Pound, Huxley, Aragon, and, lordy, everyone else living at the time whom you can imagine. She was a intrepid reporter during the Spanish Civil War and saved the lives of many Spanish refugees, became lovers with an African American man and was moved to explore African and African American culture which resulted in the monumental anthology Negro, which was the first anthology to celebrate this work--it included creative work as well as historical and critical writing. In short, Cunard was a remarkable person and a lynchpin of many modernist projects. She's too little known nowadays.
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March 28, 2015I just heard about this book and have ordered it from the library. I'll note here, before I forget, that Nancy Cunard's concern for racial justice was something of a family tradition. She is a descendant of Thunes Kunders, a Quaker who emigrated to Pennsylvania in 1683. In 1688, some of his fellow Quakers drafted, in his house, what is regarded as the first public protest against slavery in American history.
The Kunders later Anglicized their surname in at least three different ways: Conard, Conrad, and Cunard.
During the American Revolutionary War, several Kunders remained loyal to England and fled to Canada. One of them, Samuel Cunard, founded a shipping company, which evolved into the celebrated ocean liner business.
The Kunders later Anglicized their surname in at least three different ways: Conard, Conrad, and Cunard.
During the American Revolutionary War, several Kunders remained loyal to England and fled to Canada. One of them, Samuel Cunard, founded a shipping company, which evolved into the celebrated ocean liner business.
March 30, 2016
A true symbol of 1920's, Nancy love life, alcohol and men. She hated discrimination and oppression of minorities. As a poet essayist and publisher, she expressed her intolerance of prejudice. This book contains extremely personal and descriptions of her experiences during the Spanish Civil War and its aftermath. If her life was written no one believe one women could do so much.
April 2, 2011
This is not a fast read, which is too bad because my reading time is mostly limited to my 15 minute subway commute. It is endlessly fascinating, and (as with most biographies) I really, REALLY wish I could have met this woman. So progressive and interesting. Brave, really.
July 16, 2012
Wow....just Wow. Never has a book moved me as much as this incredible story of a woman who was so ahead of her time.
I will cherish this book and hold it dear. Thank you Ms. Gordon for the relentless research and powerful biography you shared with us all. Bravo!!
I will cherish this book and hold it dear. Thank you Ms. Gordon for the relentless research and powerful biography you shared with us all. Bravo!!
July 11, 2020
She could have, and should have, been a heroine of modern times. A battler against racism, a fighter against Nazism, a supporter of Republican Spain against General Franco, a champion of civil rights, and a patron of literature and the arts. All of that was too often overshadowed by a fondness for alcohol and the appearance – in her youth - of being the spoiled brat of the enormously wealthy Cunard family, living by the rules of licentiousness and immorality.
Towards the end of her life, when she was temporarily confined to a mental institution, the following was written by her friend Louise Morgan to the administrators. It sums up the state she had driven herself into, but also the state she had been driven into.
“She [Nancy Cunard] has never shown signs of insanity. She feels the world has been against her, as indeed it was throughout all her childhood and youth. She got the habit of rebellion in her cradle and nursery, and had an army of nannies and governesses, one after the other, to 'control' (not educate her by a mother who knew nothing and cared nothing about children and was jealous of her as she grew up...But [they] did not kill an innate gentleness, loyalty and utter sweetness of nature which overflows like a suddenly unfrozen fountain in the presence of understanding friends...I can tell you that it was one of the most hideous shocks of my life when I learned she had become a certified lunatic.”
Now admittedly part of what had led to her committal was being stopped by the police in Chelsea for being drunk and disorderly, resisting arrest and kicking a police officer, and when in court taking off her shoes and throwing them at the magistrate. That was only the last of a series of incidents, some of which happened in Spain: setting a taxi driver's car ablaze with a flame-thrower, attempting to set a policeman on fire and blow up a post office, and lifting her skirt in a restaurant to reveal her nakedness. You can see how easy it is to see her life through the eyes of a tabloid journalist, and forget about the work she did in the struggle against racial abuse, helping Spanish prisoners held in French concentration camps after Franco's victory, and fighting Nazism in the Second World War.
If one puts to the side the author's continual name dropping, usually in the form of lengthy lists of personalities and celebrities, this is a very well written and absorbing biography of a woman with more talent, loyalty and crusading drive than sense.
Towards the end of her life, when she was temporarily confined to a mental institution, the following was written by her friend Louise Morgan to the administrators. It sums up the state she had driven herself into, but also the state she had been driven into.
“She [Nancy Cunard] has never shown signs of insanity. She feels the world has been against her, as indeed it was throughout all her childhood and youth. She got the habit of rebellion in her cradle and nursery, and had an army of nannies and governesses, one after the other, to 'control' (not educate her by a mother who knew nothing and cared nothing about children and was jealous of her as she grew up...But [they] did not kill an innate gentleness, loyalty and utter sweetness of nature which overflows like a suddenly unfrozen fountain in the presence of understanding friends...I can tell you that it was one of the most hideous shocks of my life when I learned she had become a certified lunatic.”
Now admittedly part of what had led to her committal was being stopped by the police in Chelsea for being drunk and disorderly, resisting arrest and kicking a police officer, and when in court taking off her shoes and throwing them at the magistrate. That was only the last of a series of incidents, some of which happened in Spain: setting a taxi driver's car ablaze with a flame-thrower, attempting to set a policeman on fire and blow up a post office, and lifting her skirt in a restaurant to reveal her nakedness. You can see how easy it is to see her life through the eyes of a tabloid journalist, and forget about the work she did in the struggle against racial abuse, helping Spanish prisoners held in French concentration camps after Franco's victory, and fighting Nazism in the Second World War.
If one puts to the side the author's continual name dropping, usually in the form of lengthy lists of personalities and celebrities, this is a very well written and absorbing biography of a woman with more talent, loyalty and crusading drive than sense.
April 10, 2024
Well I have read at least 14 books since this though I rarely post here as most of what I read are loans from friends and other sources BUT since I portrayed Nancy Cunard in both the workshop and the off Broadway production of TELLING TALES OUT OF SCHOOL by Wesley Brown this book provided me with much needed insight into this complicated important and forgotten woman. She was a devoted activist, journalist, a muse for so so many artists of fame ( the first publisher of Beckett) she used her status in society and any place she could wield influence to champion the African cultural and artistic diaspora and fight racism with blind passion. It led to a lonely life, a sad end but she should be remembered as well as others lost to history whose shoulders we stand on
May 6, 2019
I heard this book described on a radio program on NPR some years ago and made a mental note to read it.
Finally got around to it.
I guess I could have waited a few more years.
For whatever reason, it just didn't grab me. Or maybe I remember Cunard as being described as much more interesting. Or maybe I remember the writing being described as much more interesting.
And now I can't remember anything about what I read other than I was bored.
But it might be someone else's cup of tea. Not mine, though.
Finally got around to it.
I guess I could have waited a few more years.
For whatever reason, it just didn't grab me. Or maybe I remember Cunard as being described as much more interesting. Or maybe I remember the writing being described as much more interesting.
And now I can't remember anything about what I read other than I was bored.
But it might be someone else's cup of tea. Not mine, though.
February 17, 2022
I'd chanced upon Nancy Cunard's name in previous histories but didn't give her much thought. Well, shame on me! Gordon's comprehensive biography makes you appreciate this remarkable woman as a cultural icon (muse to Neruda, Eliot, Pound, Tzara, and on on), a noteworthy poet ("Parallax"), a Civil Rights Activist, a small press publisher (Beckett, Crowder, Aragon), a war correspondent, a modest memoirist ("The Were the Hours") and a high-functioning alcoholic. To say that this British heiress led a remarkable life would be an unforgiveable understatement.
June 8, 2018
original sjw queen!! immensely enjoyed reading this tbh
August 25, 2022
I've long been aware of Nancy Cunard as an artist's muse and fashion plate of Paris in the 1920s, and expected little more from this biography...perhaps anecdotes of fabulous parties, peopled with her friends amongst the avant-garde. It turns out she was far more than that, striking as her appearance and highly individual fashion sense were.
She was a gifted poet, and there are many brief segments of her work offered here to amply demonstrate as much...her long poem "Parallax" drew favorable comparisons to Eliot's "The Wasteland" from literary contemporaries.
With no previous publishing experience, she bought an old hand press and set up her own small publishing house at her home in Normandy. Dubbed the Hours Press, it published luxurious limited editions by some of the avant-garde's leading lights, featuring cover art designed by her talented friends like Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp. For the decade or so it existed, it was the most successful press of its type.
She was far ahead of her time in crusading for the equality of blacks in society. Her relationship with the black American jazz musician Henry Crowder saw her disinherited from the Cunard fortune to which she was sole heir; rather than chastening her, it only redoubled her efforts to address the public on the injustice of racial prejudice. Her efforts culminated in the magisterial -- and totally unprecedented -- anthology "Negro", an account of the cultural achievements of blacks throughout the world, and of the prejudices they faced in the contemporary (1930s) world. Contributors included many of the leading lights of the Harlem Renaissance, as well as her many friends in the European literary establishment.
She was a tireless foe of fascism, risking her life and giving all she had to support the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War, and continuing her efforts through World War II.
In short, she was a remarkable woman, who deserves to be remembered for much more than the bewitching portraits of her by Man Ray and Cecil Beaton. This biography does a good job of making the case for her importance in both artistic and political/sociolgical history, documenting her many talents, contributions, and her ceaseless self-sacrifice for noble causes. It makes for a fascinating and ultimately very moving read.
She was a gifted poet, and there are many brief segments of her work offered here to amply demonstrate as much...her long poem "Parallax" drew favorable comparisons to Eliot's "The Wasteland" from literary contemporaries.
With no previous publishing experience, she bought an old hand press and set up her own small publishing house at her home in Normandy. Dubbed the Hours Press, it published luxurious limited editions by some of the avant-garde's leading lights, featuring cover art designed by her talented friends like Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp. For the decade or so it existed, it was the most successful press of its type.
She was far ahead of her time in crusading for the equality of blacks in society. Her relationship with the black American jazz musician Henry Crowder saw her disinherited from the Cunard fortune to which she was sole heir; rather than chastening her, it only redoubled her efforts to address the public on the injustice of racial prejudice. Her efforts culminated in the magisterial -- and totally unprecedented -- anthology "Negro", an account of the cultural achievements of blacks throughout the world, and of the prejudices they faced in the contemporary (1930s) world. Contributors included many of the leading lights of the Harlem Renaissance, as well as her many friends in the European literary establishment.
She was a tireless foe of fascism, risking her life and giving all she had to support the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War, and continuing her efforts through World War II.
In short, she was a remarkable woman, who deserves to be remembered for much more than the bewitching portraits of her by Man Ray and Cecil Beaton. This biography does a good job of making the case for her importance in both artistic and political/sociolgical history, documenting her many talents, contributions, and her ceaseless self-sacrifice for noble causes. It makes for a fascinating and ultimately very moving read.
September 30, 2016
Soy una gran fan del surrealismo y dadaísmo así que fue un gran shock para mí enterarme de la existencia e importancia de Nancy Cunard, no sólo como musa (de Man Ray, Louis Aragon, Pablo Neruda, Ezra Pound y así): escritora, traductora, periodista, figura trágica y gran editora (Hours Press). Era una fuerza de la naturaleza (trabajó como corresponsal de guerra en la Guerra Civil española y en la 2GM). La biografía jamás es complaciente con ella y no intenta explicar todas sus actitudes con las dificultades que tuvo (gran fortuna, desheredada por su madre por sus actitudes liberales y apoyo a la causa afroamericana). Increíble cómo se conoce tan poco de ella.
January 12, 2015
Gave up on this book before page 100...found it had way too much detail...I didn't think that this book was the place to have so much description about World War 1 for example. Anyone picking this book up would probably already have a fairly good grasp of the events. And why give half a page to a photo of Virginia Woolf when we all know what she looked like anyway and the book is about Nancy.
Also the American style of the book grated on my nerves. I didn't like that American spellings had been given in Nancy's poems which would have been written with English spellings. And sorry but I will never accept that "gotten" is a proper word. Pah.
Also the American style of the book grated on my nerves. I didn't like that American spellings had been given in Nancy's poems which would have been written with English spellings. And sorry but I will never accept that "gotten" is a proper word. Pah.
January 4, 2013
Fascinating. The book serves as an interesting insight and cultural reference through the entire early- 20th century. Nancy Cunard is the poster child for the aristocrat living La Vie Boheme. She is literally the embodiment of 30s glam... intelligent, author, poet, publisher, muse, social activist, lover of many, and depressive free spirit... all goes hand in hand. Really captivating story. Loved it.
Want to read
October 19, 2007I heard about this book on KPFA or NPR, and months late, and 2,000 miles later, when I needed distraction in an urgent way I remembered it and ordered it from amazon.... then while waiting for it I got sucked up into Octavia Butler's world and when it came I was distracted again, so I haven't yet started it, but will soon.
June 6, 2008
Enjoyable bio about an unusual woman who lived during unusual times.
September 13, 2014
--------- HO IL CUORE SPEZZATO.
Eleonora, devi abituarti. Alla fine delle biografie, solitamente, il protagonista muore.
Eleonora, devi abituarti. Alla fine delle biografie, solitamente, il protagonista muore.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews