« Le coin noir » : irruption du français dans la fiction de Rosamond Lehmann

Patterns: Rosamond Lehmann

10.3366/edinburgh/9781474427418.003.0004 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Vike Martina Plock

Keyword(s):

Coming Of Age ◽

Public Image ◽

Market Forces ◽

The Novel ◽

Fashion Industry ◽

To The Lighthouse ◽

Fashion Magazines ◽

Female Authorship ◽

Rosamond Lehmann

This chapter analyzes the role of fashion as a discursive force in Rosamond Lehmann’s 1932 coming-of-age novel Invitation to the Waltz. Reading the novel alongside such fashion magazines as Vogue, it demonstrates Lehmann’s awareness that 1920s fashion, in spite of its carefully stylized public image as harbinger of originality, emphasized the importance of following preconceived (dress) patterns in the successful construction of modern feminine types. Invitation to the Waltz, it argues, opposes the production of patterned types and celebrates difference and disobedience in its stead. At the same time, the novel’s formal appearance is nonetheless dependent on the very same tenets it criticizes. On closer scrutiny, it is seen to reveal its resemblance to Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse (1927). A tension between imitation and originality determines sartorial fashion choices. This chapter shows that female authorship in the inter-war period was subjected to the same market forces that controlled and sustained the organization of the fashion industry.

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The Torment of Loving: The Inter-War Novels of Rosamond Lehmann

Writers of the Old School ◽

10.1007/978-1-349-11827-4_9 ◽

1992 ◽

pp. 138-151

Author(s):

Judy Simons

Keyword(s):

War Novels ◽

Rosamond Lehmann

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John Lehmann’s War Effort: The Penguin New Writing (1940–1950)

10.3366/edinburgh/9781474461085.003.0013 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 250-272

Author(s):

Tessa Thorniley

Keyword(s):

Short Stories ◽

Short Story ◽

Elizabeth Bowen ◽

World War Two ◽

World War ◽

Graham Greene ◽

Literary Periodicals ◽

The World ◽

War Effort ◽

Rosamond Lehmann

John Lehmann’s The Penguin New Writing (1940-1950) is considered one of the finest literary periodicals of World War Two. The journal was committed to publishing writing about all aspects of wartime life, from the front lines to daily civilian struggles, by writers from around the world. It had an engaged readership and a high circulation. This chapter specifically considers Lehmann’s contribution to the wartime heyday for the short story form, through the example of The Penguin New Writing. By examining Lehmann’s editorial approach this chapter reveals the ways he actively engaged with his contributors, teasing and coaxing short stories out of them and contrasts this with the editorial style of Cyril Connolly at rival Horizon magazine. Stories by, and Lehmann’s interactions with, established writers such as Elizabeth Bowen, Henry Green and Rosamond Lehmann, the emerging writer William Sansom and working-class writers B.L Coombs and Jim Phelan, are the main focus of this chapter. The international outlook of the journal, which promoted satire from China alongside short, mocking works by Graham Greene, is also evaluated as an often overlooked aspect of Lehmann’s venture. Through the short stories and Lehmann’s editorials, this chapter traces how Lehmann sought to shape literature and to elevate the short story form. The chapter concludes by considering how the decline of the short story form in Britain from the 1950s onwards was closely linked to the demise of the magazines which had most actively supported it.

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