British Author
Born 1901 Died 1990
Rosamond Nina Lehmann was born on the 3rd February 1901 at
the family home of 'Fieldhead' at Bourne End in
Buckinghamshire, the second child of Rudolph Chambers
Lehmann, and his wife Alice Marie Davis. Rosamond was born
into an affluent and well-educated family of mixed German,
Jewish, Scottish and American origin. Her father was a Liberal
Member of Parliament and an occasional contributor to
Punch magazine, her great-uncle was the artist
Rudolf Lehmann, and her great-grandfather was Robert
Chambers who established the publishing company of
Chambers.
Unfortunately her parent's marriage was marred by quarrels
and to make matters worse, her father favoured her sister
Beatrix, (who grew up to be an actress) while her mother
preferred her brother John (the future poet and publisher) and
so Rosamond felt rather left out during most of her childhood.
Apparently the result of this neglect was a compulsion to
write, as she later explained, "I was bound to write, I never
considered anything else as a possibility."
Rosamond was educated at home until she won a scholarship to
read English at Girton College, Cambridge in 1919. She
eventually graduated with a second class degree in both English
(1921) and modern and medieval languages (1922), and also found
the time to contribute articles to the magazine
Granta, which had earlier been founded by her
father. It was also at Cambridge that she met Leslie Runciman
the son and heir of the 1st Viscount Runciman. They were
married on the 20th December 1923 and moved to Newcastle, but
the marriage was brief and unsatisfactory. Her husband forced
her to have an abortion against her will and the marriage was
said to be 'sexually unsatisfactory' from her point of view.
They were divorced in 1928 allowing her to remarry another
aristocratic heir named Wogan Philipps, who later became the
second Baron Milford. This second marriage was initially more
succesful and produced two children; a son named Hugo born in
1929, and a daughter named Sarah born in 1934 but commonly
known as Sally.
By this time her first novel Dusty Answer had
been published in 1927 and become both a critical and a popular
success, which made her something of a literary star. Like all
of her fiction this was autobiographical in nature and excited
a certain amount of controversy due to its frank (in 1920s
terms) treatment of female sexual desire. The follow up A
Note in Music (1930) was less well received as its
subject matter was considered to be too depressing, but her
next two books Invitation to the Waltz (1932), and
The Weather in the Streets (1936) were more
succesful and established her reputation as one of the leading
women authors of her time.
Between 1930 and 1939 Rosamnund and her husband lived at
Ipsden House in Oxfordshire, where they entertained a wide
circle of literary and artistic friends. But her second husband
later became more interested in fighting the Spanish Civil
War and advancing his painting career and by 1939 this
marriage was also failing. Rosamond began an affair with
Goronwy Rees which came to an end when she read of his
engagement to another woman in in The Times. She
then began a relationship with the poet Cecil Day-Lewis,
despite the fact that he was already married with two children.
They set up home together in 1941 and lived together for the
next nine years. Her own marriage to Wogan Philips was
dissolved in 1944, but when Day-Lewis was eventually divorced
in 1950, he then abandoned her in favour of the actress Jill
Balcon, whom he then married in 1953.
Her rather tortuous love-life however provided the
inspiration and background for two further novels The
Ballad and the Source (1944), and The Echoing
Grove (1953). But having been emotionally traumatised by
her experiences with men, she was further traumatised by the
news of the the death of her daughter Sally in 1958 who
contracted poliomyelitis in Jakarta and died at the age of
only twenty-four. In consequence Rosamond abandoned writing and
devoted herself instead to spiritualism. She became convinced
that Sally was in "heaven teaching unborn baby birds to sing
with St Francis of Assisi". When she did eventually return to
writing her belief that her daughter was alive and well on the
'Other side' and in regular communication permeated both her
autobiography, The Swan in the Evening (1967) as
well as her rather confusing last novel A Sea-Grape
Tree (1976).
As a result her work was rather forgotten about until the
1980s. Rosamond was created a Commander of the British Empire
in 1982 and was also made a fellow of the Royal Society of
Literature. Virago Press reissued many of her novels at the
time which brought her a new audience at least for a time. She
also served for a time as the president of the British end of
International PEN, was a member of the council of the
Society of Authors, and vice-president of the College of
Psychic Studies. She died at her London home of 30
Clareville Grove on the 12th March 1990.
Her work attracts a certain amount of interst from those
literary critics who praise her for the manner in which her
writing addresses the "conflict between intelligence and
passion" and the "centrality of female experience", as well as
issues such as homosexuality and abortion, she is probably no
longer that widely read. Her 1936 novel The Weather in the
Streets was filmed in 1983 as was her 1953 novel The
Echoing Grove in 2002 under the title The Heart of
Me.
Bibliography
Novels
Collections
Plays
Autobiography
REFERENCES
Judith Priestman, ‘Lehmann, Rosamond Nina (1901–1990)’, rev.,
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University
Press, 2004
Rosamond Lehmann: Profile: Virago
http://www.virago.co.uk/virago/meet/lehmann_profile.asp
Reviews of the biography of Rosamond Lehmann by Selina Hastings
(Chatto & Windus)
-
Kathryn Hughes, 'Fat and posh', Published 17 June 2002
http://www.newstatesman.com/200206170044
-
Alex Clark,'O I must tell Osbert!' The Guardian Saturday June
8, 2002
http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/biography/0,6121,729085,00.
html
-
Gillian Tindall, 'Rosamond Lehmann's sad retreat'
http://www.arlindo-correia.com/060902.html
-
Anne Chisholm, 'Love in a literary climate' The Daily
Telegraph (Filed: 02/06/2002)
http://www.arlindo-correia.com/060902.html