The Young Rebecca: Writings of Rebecca West, 1911-17 (Paperback)

~ Jane Connor Marcus (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

"Some of West's earliest writings -- devastatingly funny, fiercely feminist and socialist -- now have been rescued from obscurity and published with Jane Marcus's excellent commentary in The Young Rebecca." -- St. Louis Post-Dispatch

"Thanks to Marcus's arduous labor of selection, we have here a living, breathing evocation of the early feminist and socialist movements in England as recorded by a highly opinionated participant." -- Jessica Mitford

"The Young Rebecca reflects [West's] consuming interest in feminist and socialist issues. Quite apart from their technical excellence, these articles are remarkable because they were produced by a girl barely out of her teens, and because many of them read as if they were written last Tuesday." -- The Atlanta Journal

"... a fierce and funny scourge of establishment figures... her prose sparkles... " -- Book World, The Washington Post

Jane Marcus brings together some of Rebecca West's early journalistic writings, collected here for the first time, which reveal West's passionate responses to political and literary events as well as her experience in the suffrage campaign. Included are articles from The Freewoman, The Clarion, and the Daily News, among others.

Product Details

• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Indiana University Press (November 1, 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0253231019
• ISBN-13: 978-0253231017
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 4.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #765,354 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I wish I'd been writing like this when I was in my 20s!, March 14, 2001

By	Kathy Skaggs (Maple, KY USA) - See all my reviews

This is one of the wittiest books I've ever read and even though it's a book of mostly political essays, in coming back to it after having put it down for a day, I have that same sense of reentering another time and place populated by a host of interesting characters that you have with a really good novel. Here are just a couple quotes, selected at random:

"...the true tragedy of Oscar Wilde, the common enough tragedy of the clever young provincial who enters the deadly dull salons of London and, finding that the wit which was exacted from him as ordinary conversation by the more particular provinces is hailed as genius by the bored Londoners, forthwith abandons honest, artistic work."

[Defending Gaby Deslys, a dancer who was criticized for her scantily clad performance:] "When she crossed the Palace stage she turned the audience's thoughts to May mornings, and ices and money enough to go where you like. Now if most of us crossed the Palace stage, we would turn the audience's thoughts to November evenings and cold cocoa and thirty shillings a week in the Post Office."

And now a nonrandom selection, from a book review:

"The immense significance of this work lies in its binding."

The immense significance of this book lies not in the binding but in the ideas and observations of the brilliant mind whose words lie inside.