Rebecca West

Dame Rebecca West (born Cicily Isabel Fairfield, 21 December 1892 – 15 March 1983) was an English writer whose extraordinary range — novels, literary criticism, political journalism, travel writing, trial reportage, feminist polemic — made her one of the most formidable and versatile English-language writers of the twentieth century. Her masterpiece, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon (1941), is one of those rare books that defies classification: it is a travel book, a history, a work of political philosophy, a meditation on the nature of civilisation, and an impassioned argument about why Europe was destroying itself — and it is, by common critical consent, one of the greatest works of non-fiction in the English language.

Early Life and Feminism

West was born in London and grew up in Edinburgh. She adopted the pen name “Rebecca West” from the strong-willed heroine of Ibsen’s Rosmersholm — a choice that announced her sympathies. She began writing feminist journalism for The Freewoman and The Clarion as a teenager, producing criticism of such ferocity and intelligence that she was immediately recognised as a major voice. Her early journalism attacked male complacency, artistic mediocrity, and political cowardice with a wit that drew comparisons to Shaw.

In 1913, she began a ten-year affair with H.G. Wells, by whom she had a son, Anthony West. The relationship was intense, unequal, and ultimately destructive — Wells was married, patronising, and unfaithful, and West was young, brilliant, and furiously independent. Their son’s embittered memoir, H.G. Wells: Aspects of a Life, painted an unflattering portrait of both parents.

The Return of the Soldier (1918)

West’s first novel is a short, precise, psychologically devastating story about a shell-shocked officer who returns from the trenches having lost fifteen years of memory — he remembers only his youthful love for a working-class woman and has forgotten his wife, his home, and the war entirely. The novel is narrated by his cousin Jenny, whose unreliable perspective deepens the story’s exploration of memory, class, and the violence of cure. It is one of the finest novels to come out of the First World War.

Black Lamb and Grey Falcon (1941)

West’s masterwork was the product of three trips to Yugoslavia in 1936, 1937, and 1938, undertaken as Hitler’s shadow was falling over Europe. The resulting book — 1,200 pages in two volumes — is ostensibly an account of these journeys through Croatia, Dalmatia, Herzegovina, Bosnia, Serbia, Macedonia, and Montenegro. In reality, it is a vast meditation on the history of the Balkans, the nature of European civilisation, the relationship between East and West, the meaning of sacrifice, and the reasons why the West was about to destroy itself.

The book’s title refers to two images: the black lamb sacrificed at a Muslim shrine in Macedonia (a symbol of the human need for blood sacrifice) and the grey falcon of Serbian myth (which chooses defeat and death over worldly triumph). West uses these images to explore the fatal attraction of self-destruction — the tendency of civilisations to choose death over the hard work of living — and she wrote with the urgency of a woman who could see what was coming.

Black Lamb and Grey Falcon is one of those books that is more admired than read, because its length and density are formidable. Those who read it tend to regard it as one of the supreme achievements of English prose. Geoff Dyer called it “one of the great books of the twentieth century.”

Trial Reporting

West covered the Nuremberg trials for The New Yorker — her reports were collected as A Train of Powder (1955) — and the treason trials of William Joyce (“Lord Haw-Haw”) and other wartime traitors for The Meaning of Treason (1947). Her trial reportage is distinguished by its psychological penetration: she was less interested in the facts of treason than in the mental and moral conditions that produced traitors.

Later Novels

The Thinking Reed (1936) is a social comedy about a wealthy American widow navigating the French upper classes. The Fountain Overflows (1956) is an autobiographical novel about a family of gifted, impoverished children — warm, funny, and deeply felt. The Birds Fall Down (1966) is a Cold War spy novel based on the true story of the Okhrana agent Azef.

Critical Standing

West is one of the most underrated great writers of the twentieth century. Black Lamb and Grey Falcon alone would secure her place, but her range — the early feminist journalism, the novels, the trial reporting, the literary criticism (her study of Henry James is superb) — is extraordinary. She was made a Dame of the British Empire in 1959 and was a Companion of Honour.

Collecting West

Black Lamb and Grey Falcon (1941, Macmillan, two volumes) in first edition with dust jackets is highly sought, bringing $500–$1,500. The Return of the Soldier (1918, Nisbet) is scarce. The Meaning of Treason (1947, Viking) is affordable. West’s papers are held at the Beinecke Library at Yale.