Time Magazine called Rebecca West the number one women’s writer in the world in 1947. The pioneering feminist and journalist whose life spanned most of the twentieth century is being rediscovered.

In 1911, eighteen year old Cicely Isabel Fairfield became Rebecca West. The Freewoman, a new feminist paper, wanted to publish an article she had written. Four years earlier, The Scotsman had published her letter protesting the treatment of suffragettes and she’d remained active in the suffrage movement in Edinburgh.

But The Freewoman discussed sex “loudly, clearly and repeatedly,” West later wrote. Her mother would be horrified to see her name in a paper which she had forbidden Cicely to even read. So she chose the name of a character from Henrik Ibsen’s play “Rosmersholm” as her nom de plume.

“I think its important to remember one of her first loves was acting,” explains Helen Macleod, Rebecca West’s great-niece. “She would’ve loved being on the stage and she was to some degree playing a part. But it’s because there were no role models in real life. There were women in fiction who were strong and clever and influential. But there were very few in actual life. So she had to write a role for herself and then fill it.”

West and Wells

West wrote a critical review of a new book by H.G. Wells, best known as the author of 'War of the Worlds.'  He invited her to lunch and they soon embarked on an affair that would last ten years. The couple never married, even after West gave birth to their son Anthony.

Macleod believes Wells was very important to West’s development: “The fact that she could hook someone of that calibrer – I mean, he really was a huge star – and the idea that she at 19 could be so fascinating and attractive and intellectually powerful to take on somebody like that more or less as an equal – it must’ve given her enormous confidence and momentum. But then on the other hand, of course, he drove her nuts!”

After her break-up with Wells, West travelled to America for a lecture tour. She had a series of liaisons with lords, princes and actors – including Charlie Chaplin. She married banker Henry Andrews in 1930, and a few years later began travelling in Yugoslavia. These trips provided the basis for what some call her most important work: 'Black Lamb and Grey Falcon.'
    
“I never believed anyone would read a book of half a million words about such a faraway and obscure land as Yugoslavia. Why take the time to do it when, in 1941, the year it appeared, everything was falling apart around one? What did the loss of one more little country mean? But I could not help myself…”       (from 'Rebecca West Remembers.')

Larger than life

After World War II, Rebecca West covered the Nuremberg trials for the New Yorker. In December 1947, Time magazine featured her on its cover hailing West the number one women’s writer in the world. But today her name and work is little know outside women’s studies.

In an effort to change that, Helen Macleod co-founded the International Rebecca West Society. She is also co-author of the play “That Woman: Rebecca West Remembers” with West biographer Carl Rollyson and actress Anne Bobby. When Bobby met Macleod through theatre producer Paul Lucas, she’d never heard of Rebecca West. But once she started reading about the writer, she became extremely drawn to her “larger than life” persona.
  
“I learn from her every day,” says Bobby. “ She has forever changed the way I look at men and women. Her life is a lesson that anyone, everyone could benefit from – which is why I’m so glad that we’re finally putting her life on stage.”

Becoming Rebecca West was produced by David Swatling. The program was originally broadcast in May 2005 as part of the series Vox Humana.