A detailed biography that offers valuable insight into the lives of three accomplished women.
Judd (More Lasting Than Brass, 2004) offers a real-life epistolary tale of a bizarre literary love triangle.
In the 1930s, three well-educated women—English novelist Sylvia Townsend Warner, English poet Valentine Ackland and American heiress-turned–activist/writer Elizabeth Wade White—became tangled up in one another’s lives. When White met Warner in New York City in 1929, White was 12 years Warner’s junior and struggling to free herself from the expectations of her wealthy conservative family. Warner fostered an intimate, impassioned and largely epistolary friendship with White; Warner’s lifelong lover, the boldly androgynous Ackland, corresponded with White as well. However, when the philandering Ackland took the inexperienced White as her lover, the three women found themselves caught in a web of conflicting desires. Until 1950, White would periodically return to England (leaving another companion behind) and take up with the two women—relegating Warner to the spare bedroom. Judd’s book is a straightforward biographical account set against the backdrop of mid-20th-century political unrest; all three women campaigned for the Loyalist cause during the Spanish Civil War. Much of the text consists of the women’s correspondence and, less frequently, their journals; these are true treasures, as Warner, Ackland and White were all superb writers. The book might have focused a bit more on their riveting interpersonal dramas, but Judd commits to telling their full stories faithfully, even to the most quotidian detail. Their missives about politics, their literary and artistic friends, and even the behaviors of their beloved pet cats are as finely wrought as their heartfelt notes on their romantic complications.
A detailed biography that offers valuable insight into the lives of three accomplished women.Pub Date: April 30, 2013
ISBN: 978-1484867181
Page Count: 414
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Sept. 7, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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