About this item
Rebecca West was a leading figure in the twentieth century literary scene. A passionate suffragist, socialist, fiercely intelligent, Rebecca West began her career as a writer with articles in The Freewoman and The Clarion. Her first book, a biography of Henry James, was published when she was only twenty-four, and her first novel followed just two years later. She had a notorious affair with H.G. Wells, and their illegitimate son, Anthony, was born at the beginning of the First World War.The author of several novels, she is perhaps best remembered for her classic account of pre-war Yugoslavia, Black Lamb, Grey Falcon (published by Macmillan in 1941 and as relevant today as it was sixty years ago) and for her coverage of the Nuremberg Trials. When she died in 1983 at the age of 90, William Shawn, then editor-in-chief of the New Yorker, said: "Rebecca West was one of the giants and will have a lasting place in English literature.
About the Author
Lorna was born in Bellshill, North Lanarkshire and used to work as a professional dancer. She has a PhD in Linguistics. She lectures part time at the University of Herts where she is Head of Creative Writing. In the past she's lived in four different countries but now lives in Hertfordshire with her husband, two rescue cats from Qatar, a rescue snow Bengal from Chichester and a melanistic savannah cat. Lorna's latest book was published on Feb 7th 2019, called Childless Voices, it combines a global portrait of the childless and childfree with a memoir by the author of her own experience of infertility and childlessness.Her debut novel A Ghost's Story was published by Granta in Nov 2015. Prior to this she wrote two biographies, West's World, on the fabulous Dame Rebecca West (Pan MacMillan) and Lady Hester on the wondrous Lady Hester Stanhope (Faber) .She is currently writing a book about some of the more esoteric languages of the world, and what we can learn from them, called Rare Tongues, for Atlantic Books.
