Women's Writing of the First World War : An Anthology

by Edited by Angela Smith

• ISBN13: 9780719050725
• ISBN10: 0719050723
• Format: Trade Book
• Copyright: 2000-06-10
• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• More Book Details
• Purchase Benefits

Summary

The literary culture of the early 20th century led a surprising number of women to write about their experiences, recording everything from their emotional responses and political impulses to their new experiences of the world of work. In this book, writings by women as diverse as Sylvia Pankhurst, Virginia Woolf and Vesta Tilley are blended with extracts from the private diaries and letters of "unknown" women, to provide a fully rounded picture of the First World War as it was lived and fought by women across Britain.

Author Biography

Angela Smith is Lecturer in English at the University of Plymouth.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	viii
Acknowledgements	ix
Abbreviations	xii
Introduction	1	(10)
I THE BEGINNING	11	(50)
The outbreak of war	15	(17)
The War	15	(1)
Christabel Pankhurst
from Christine	16	(6)
Elizabeth von Arnim
A Strange London on Sunday	22	(2)
Beatrice Webb
A Terrible Week	24	(1)
Lady Kate Courtney
from The Tree of Heaven	25	(4)
May Sinclair
from Dead Yesterday	29	(3)
Mary Agnes Hamilton
Belgium	32	(29)
Belgium	32	(2)
Mary Borden
A Brave Little Country	34	(1)
Gertrude Holland
from A Journal of Impressions in Belgium	34	(5)
May Sinclair
In Belgium	39	(6)
Emily Hobhouse
German Occupation	45	(5)
Mere Marie Georgine
from William an Englishman	50	(11)
Cecily Hamilton
II ATTITUDES TO THE WAR	61	(116)
Patriotism	70	(23)
The Good of the Empire	70	(1)
Beatrice M. Trefusis
Women and the War	71	(14)
Christabel Pankhurst
On Sylvia Pankhurst	85	(2)
Elizabeth A.
Mary L. Macleod
from The Tree of Heaven	87	(2)
May Sinclair
On Edith Cavell	89	(1)
Ethel Bilborough
War Until the Victory!	90	(3)
Emmeline Pankhurst
Pacifism	93	(21)
The Women's Peace Conference	93	(8)
Sylvia Pankhurst
On Jane Addams	101	(1)
Lady Kate Courtney
On Jane Addams	102	(2)
Beatrice Webb
The War Conscience	104	(5)
Jane Addams
Women and War	109	(5)
Catherine Marshall
Conscription	114	(15)
Conscription in England has Come!	114	(1)
Ethel Bilborough
The Military Service Bill	115	(2)
Sylvia Pankhurst
The No-Conscription Fellowship	117	(3)
Beatrice Webb
The Western Tribunal Appeal Court	120	(2)
Lady Kate Courtney
from Despised and Rejected	122	(7)
A. T. Fitzroy
Love, separation and sexuality	129	(48)
from Letters to Private Will Martin	129	(3)
Emily Chitticks
from Testament of Youth	132	(4)
Vera Brittain
The Loss of a Brother	136	(5)
Lady Cynthia Asquith
from Not So Quiet	141	(2)
Helen Zenna Smith
from Children of No Man's Land	143	(2)
G. B. Stern
from Despised and Rejected	145	(2)
A. T. Fitzroy
from The Well of Loneliness	147	(20)
Radclyffe Hall
from Honourable Estate	167	(2)
Vera Brittain
Women and Wives	169	(8)
Ellen La Motte
III THE EXPERIENCE OF THE WAR	177	(138)
The battle front	189	(34)
from On the Edge of the War Zone	189	(8)
Mildred Aldrich
from England's Effort	197	(12)
Mrs Humphry Ward
The Escape of the Royal Brewsters	209	(1)
Rosie Neale
from An English Woman-Sergeant in the Serbian Army	210	(2)
Flora Sandes
from Flanders and Other Fields	212	(10)
Baroness de T'Serclaes
The Retreat from Serbia	222	(1)
Mabel St Clair Stobart
The home front	223	(22)
Insults to Soldiers' Wives and Mothers	223	(2)
Sylvia Pankhurst
German Guns in St James's Park	225	(1)
Patricia Hanbury
How Poor People Live Is a Mystery	226	(1)
Ethel Bilborough
Suddenly One Has Come to Notice the War	226	(1)
Virginia Woolf
The Potato Queue	227	(2)
Melvina Walker
from Real Food Economy	229	(7)
Ernestine Mills
The Lusitania	236	(1)
Ethel Bilborough
from Children of No Man's Land	236	(5)
G. B. Stern
The East End Air Raid	241	(4)
Sylvia Pankhurst
Under fire	245	(15)
Zeppelins over Hull	245	(1)
Nell Hague
Gothas over Barnes	246	(1)
Virginia Woolf
from The Recollections of Vesta Tilley	247	(1)
Lady De Frece
Fearful Distorted Mechanical Birds	248	(1)
Ethel Bilborough
The Bombing of Scarborough	249	(2)
Phyllis Lunn
from The Crowded Street	251	(5)
Winifred Holtby
An Air Raid on Verdun	256	(1)
Winifred Kenyon
The Evacuation of Gallipoli	257	(1)
Mary Ann Brown
Bombardment	257	(3)
Mary Borden
Medical care	260	(30)
Conspiracy	260	(2)
Mary Borden
The Tragedy of Serbia	262	(9)
Dr Elsie Inglis
from First World War Papers	271	(3)
Margaret Fawcett
Casualties	274	(1)
Eleanora Pemberton
After the Battle of Jutland	274	(2)
Mary Clarke
from We That Were Young	276	(2)
Irene Rathbone
The Boys	278	(4)
Enid Bagnold
The Masseuse	282	(1)
G. K. Brumwell
from Testament of Youth	283	(5)
Vera Brittain
Night Nurse	288	(2)
Lady Cynthia Asquith
Other war work	290	(25)
from Not So Quiet	290	(7)
Helen Zenna Smith
Base Notes	297	(2)
Muriel Thompson
The YMCA Rest Camp	299	(1)
Irene Rathbone
The Censor's Office	300	(1)
Beatrice M. Trefusis
The Land Army	300	(2)
Mary L. Macleod
The Sinews of War -- France	302	(6)
F. Tennyson Jesse
from We That Were Young	308	(5)
Irene Rathbone
from Three Years or the Duration	313	(2)
Peggy Hamilton
IV THE END	315	(11)
Armistice and aftermath	318	(8)
Armistice Signed	318	(1)
Patricia Hanbury
The Great Day of Days	319	(1)
Hilda Craven
The Aspect of Peace	320	(2)
Virginia Woolf
Peace in London	322	(1)
Beatrice Webb
The War Is Won	322	(1)
Britannia
from The Happy Foreigner	323	(1)
Enid Bagnold
The Prospect of Peace	324	(1)
Lady Cynthia Asquith
from Honourable Estate	324	(2)
Vera Brittain
Notes on the authors	326	(7)
Select bibliography	333	(4)
Index	337