Bryher (1894-1985)—adventurer, novelist, publisher—flees Victorian Britain for the raucous streets of Cairo and sultry Parisian cafes. Amidst the intellectual circles of the twenties and thirties, she develops relationships with Marianne Moore, Freud, Paul Robeson, her longtime partner H.D., Stein, and others. This compelling memoir, first published in 1962, reveals Bryher’s exotic childhood, her impact on modernism, and her sense of social justice by helping over 100 people escape from the Nazis. “A work so rich in interest, so direct, revealing, and, above all, thought-provoking that this reader found it the most consistently exciting book of its kind to appear in many years.”—The New York Times
Bryher (born Annie Winifred Ellerman) is perhaps best known today as the lifelong partner of the poet H.D. She was, however, a central figure in modernist and avant-garde cultural experimentation in the early twentieth century; a prolific producer of poetry, novels, autobiography, and criticism; and an intimate and patron of such modernist artists as Gertrude Stein, Marianne Moore, and Dorothy Richardson. Bryher’s own path-breaking writing has remained largely neglected, long out of print, and inaccessible to those interested in her oeuvre. Now, for the first time since their original publication in the early 1920s, two of Bryher's pioneering works of fictionalized autobiography, titled Development and Two Selves, are reprinted in one volume for a new audience of readers, scholars, and critics. Blending poetry, prose, and autobiographical details, Development and Two Selves together constitute a compelling bildungsroman that is among the first ever to follow a young woman's process of coming out. Through the fictionalized character Nancy, the novels trace Bryher’s life through her childhood and young adulthood, giving the reader an account of the development of a unique lesbian, feminist, and modernist consciousness. Development and Two Selves recover significant work by one of the first experimenters of the modernist movement and are a welcome reintroduction of the enigmatic Bryher.
"This dual biography takes on the daring task of examining how two women, who didn't feel like women, survived as a couple, raising an illegitimate child during a period when such arrangements were frowned upon, if even recognized. When they met in 1918, H.D. (born Hilda Doolittle in 1886), had already achieved recognition as an Imagist poet, engaged in a lesbian affair, was married to a shell-shocked adulterous poet, and was pregnant by another. She fell in love with Bryher (born Annie Winifred Ellerman in 1894), trapped both in a female body and in the shadow of her father, Sir John Ellerman, a wealthy shipping magnate. They felt a telepathic and electric connection, bonding over Greek poetry, geography, ancient history, and a shared bodily dysphoria. Bryher introduced H.D. to cinema, psychoanalysis, and politics, herself rescuing refugees from Nazis throughout the 1930s. Bryher engaged in legal strategies to protect H.D., marrying Kenneth Macpherson, who adopted H.D.'s child and collaborated with the couple in filmmaking, discovering his queerness. Both H.D. and Bryher were on vision quests, and their cerebral eroticism led them to otherworldly experiences. During World War II, they held séances in London. After "V-J Day" was announced, H.D. had a severe nervous breakdown, which Bryher, taking great pains, ensured she survived. As a love story born out of war and modernism, the book speaks to their struggles to escape binary gender, homophobic and white supremacist agendas, while celebrating their creative triumphs and courageous aspirations"--
In this remarkable novel, Bryher takes the reader into sixth century Britain—Cornwall, the Scillys, Ireland and Wales. Arthur is dead and the uneasy peace which he established is drawing to its close. Young Ruan, nephew of a high priest, is destined for the priesthood. Turbulent and restless for adventure, he feels caged and longs for the high seas. At last he breaks free and sets out on the quest for those islands which are to him both an image and reality. The sights, sounds, passions and ordeals of Celtic Britain filter through Bryher’s haunting prose. With Ruan’s eyes we see the throngs at the Cornish fair, the religious ritual, the burial of the king on the mysterious Scilly Isles. With him we experience the mariners’ winter camp in Ireland and with him we flee for life through an Irish bog.
At the heart of this collection of correspondences are the letters of the poet H.D. (1886-1961) to her companion, the novelist Bryher, during the time she underwent psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud. Friedman (English and women's studies, U. of Wisconsin at Madison) presents the letters as giving an alternative view of Freud's therapeutic style, as well as offering portraits both of late 19th century Vienna and of the literary circle H.D. was part of, which included Havelock Ellis, Kenneth MacPherson, and Ezra Pound. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
This collection of twelve essays discusses the principles and practices of women's autobiographical writing in America, England, and France from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries.
The orphaned James Sands anticipated a magnificent career as apprentice to an Elizabethan theater troupe. But when his masters die unexpectedly, Sands must fight for his art, his home, and ultimately his life as the violent reign of James I overshadows the glory of the Elizabethan era. An historical novel with profound contemporary reverberations.
In this groundbreaking re-visioning of lesbianism, Magee and Miller transcend a literature that, for decades, has focused on the timeworn and misconceived task of formulating a lesbian-specific psychology. Rather, they focus on a set of interrelated issues of far greater salience in our time: the developmental and psychological consequences of identifying as homosexual and of having lesbian relationships. Their consideration of these issues leads to a rigorous review of major psychoanalytic and biological theories about female homosexuality and a probing examination of current notions of gender identity. These tasks set the stage for Magee and Miller's own model of psychologically mature sexuality between members of the same sex. The developmental and clinical issues taken up in specific chapters of Lesbian Lives include the challenges facing lesbian adolescents; the psychological and social significance of "coming out"; the various meanings and contexts of coming out as a gay or lesbian analyst; the interaction of individual psyche and social context in clinical work with lesbian patients; and the history of homosexual therapists and psychoanalytic training. The chapter on "Bryher," the lesbian-identified life partner of the poet Hilda Doolittle (Freud's patient "H.D."), relying on unpublished documents, is not only a wonderful exemplification of themes developed throughout the work, but an invaluable contribution to psychoanalytic history. Lesbian Lives is a heartening sign of the generous scholarship and humane impulse that are transforming psychoanalysis in our time. In writing infused with an experiential immediacy born of personal participation in the stories they tell, Magee and Miller weave a multiplicity of narratives into a fabric of explanation far richer, far more colorful --far truer to lived experience--than anything psychoanalysis has heretofore offered on the subject.
