WEST (Dame Rebecca, 1892-1983, Novelist, Journalist, Biographer and Critic)

Fine Typed Letter Signed ‘Rebecca W.’ to Diana MARR-JOHNSON (1908-2007, Social Advocate, Novelist and Playwright, niece of Somerset Maugham), apologising for not having written earlier “to thank you for that most consoling lunch. But I had another memorial service, and then Henry got gout, and I was given a new drug for a minor ailment which produce a major one, as I was allergic to it. But I have felt so grateful to you. Not only was I deeply fond of Pamela, but the thought of how much happier she might have been if things had gone differently, and how little I had seen of her lately, for stupid reasons (my being in American when she was here, and t’other way round) - all this depresses me, and you lifted the weight. It occurs to me that I may have sounded rather vague about the trustee business, and that it may interest you. The trustee business, I mean, that had made me see that Liza couldn’t do anything but what she did. About fifteen years or so or more I was named as trustee of a trust fund by a woman who died leaving an adopted child, whom she had named as beneficiary of the trust fund... My co-trustee was an inoffensive solicitor of good repute. My solicitor discovered that the dead woman had induced this solicitor of hers to advance her money out of the trust fund which she had no right to have. My solicitor then explained to me that I must sue this solicitor, unless he replaced the money, because if I left matters as they were the adopted child would have the right to sue me for negligence, and so would her heirs! - and in time the sum claimed might be quite large, with interest added to it...”, 2 sides 8vo., Ibstone House, Ibstone headed paper, 27th June

Marr-Johnson was well known for her charitable activities on behalf of the poor. During World War II she opened a meeting place in London called Beauchamp Lodge, where poor women could find respite from the grinding poverty and shocking living conditions that surrounded them. It wasn't long before the lodge became a sort of women's club, then added a nursery center, youth shelter, and soup kitchen. Marr-Johnson devoted much time and effort to keep the refuge open by raising funds, delivering public lectures, and working at the centre itself. Eventually Beauchamp Lodge collected clothing and found housing for people displaced by wartime bombings during the Blitz; its founder's efforts were so successful that the lodge remains in operation today.
In September 1912, West accused the famously libertine writer H. G. Wells of being "the Old Maid among novelists". This was part of a provocative review of his novel Marriage published in Freewoman an obscure and short-lived feminist weekly review. The review attracted Wells's interest and an invitation to lunch at his home. The two writers became lovers in late 1913, despite Wells being both married and twenty-six years older than West. Their 10-year relationship produced a son, Anthony West. Their friendship lasted until Wells's death in 1946. West is also said to have had relationships with Charlie Chaplin, newspaper magnate Lord Beaverbrook, and journalist John Gunther. In 1930, at the age of 37, she married a banker, Henry Maxwell Andrews, and they remained nominally together, despite one public affair just before his death in 1968.

Item Date:  1967

Stock No:  42637      £225

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