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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 September 2008
In spite of a welcome and ever growing academic interest in the lives and work of twentieth-century women writers the Yorkshire novelist, Phyllis Bentley, has remained resolutely hidden from view. This article seeks to demonstrate her importance as a ‘middlebrow’ novelist, particularly in the 1930s, and to examine the ways in which her career sheds light on contemporary relationships between the ‘provincial’ and the ‘metropolitan’. Through consideration of both her private papers and her fiction, it analyses Bentley's complex relationship with both her home town of Halifax and the West Riding more widely. It argues that Bentley played a major role in creating a greater space within the national culture for the representation of provincial, especially northern, life, while also displaying a profound ambivalence toward that very life. While in many ways a passionate and articulate interpreter of the region in which she spent virtually all of her adult life, she also clearly felt constricted by her provincial location and cultural setting, especially when in contact with the London-based literary elite; her relationship with Vera Brittain was particularly highly charged in this regard.
1 N. Beauman, A very great profession: the woman's novel, 1914–1939 (London, 1983); A. Light, Forever England (London, 1991); Janet Montefiore, Men and women writers of the 1930s: the dangerous flood of history (London, 1996); A. Trodd, Women's writing in English: Britain, 1900–1945 (London, 1998); M. Joannou, Women writers of the 1930s: gender, politics and history (Edinburgh, 1999); C. Clay, British women writers, 1914–1945: professional work and friendship (Aldershot, 2006); C. Briganti and K. Mezei, Domestic modernism, the interwar novel, and E. H. Young (Aldershot, 2006).
2 Daily Express, 30 Dec. 1948.
3 Three novels featuring the Oldroyd family, Inheritance, The rise of Henry Morcar (London, 1946), and A man of his time (London, 1966), were compressed under the Inheritance title. It was repeated on ten consecutive nights in 1969. A fourth Oldroyd novel, Ring in the new, was published in 1969.
4 D. Read, The English provinces, c. 1760–1960: a study in influence (London, 1964); Dellheim, C., ‘Imagining England: Victorian views of the north’, Northern History, 22 (1980), pp. 216–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar; B. Robson, ‘Coming full circle: London versus the rest, 1890–1980’, in G. Gordon, ed., Regional cities in the UK, 1890–1980 (London, 1986), pp. 217–31; R. Shields, Places on the margin (London, 1991), pp. 207–51; Saler, M., ‘Making it new: visual modernism and the “myth of the north” in interwar England’, Journal of British Studies, 37 (1998), pp. 419–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar; A. J. Kidd and D. Nicholls, eds., The making of the British middle class? Studies of regional and cultural diversity since the eighteenth century (Stroud, 1998) and Gender, civic culture and consumerism: middle-class identity in Britain, 1800–1940 (Manchester, 1999); S. Gunn, The public culture of the Victorian middle class: ritual and authority in the English industrial city, 1840–1914 (Manchester, 2000); N. Kirk, ed., Northern identities: historical interpretations of the ‘the north’ and ‘northernness’ (Aldershot, 2000); D. Russell, Looking north. northern England and the national imagination (Manchester, 2004); Russell, D., ‘The Heaton Review, 1927–1934: culture, class and a sense of place in inter-war Yorkshire’, Twentieth Century British History, 17 (2006), pp. 323–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
5 Walter D. Ferguson of Temple University, Chicago Daily News, 23 Apr. 1941. Bentley was, however, no enemy of Modernism. See her review of Virginia Woolf's The years, Yorkshire Post, 15 Mar. 1937.
6 J. Baxendale and C. Pawling, Narrating the thirties: a decade in the making: 1930 to the present (London, 1996), p. 15.
7 Prefatory note to Manhold (London: Victor Gollancz, 1950 edn).
8 This study makes extensive use of the cuttings, personal correspondence and diaries in the Phyllis Bentley Collection (PB/A–E), housed in the Calderdale section of West Yorkshire Archives Department, Calderdale Central Library, Halifax. It offers much to literary scholars of the period 1920–70, especially those interested in women writers. Each of her diaries concluded with an end of year review, simply termed ‘review’ in subsequent footnotes.
9 The following is based on her autobiography, ‘O dreams, O destinations’ (London, 1962).
10 Ibid., p. 78.
11 Bookman, Dec. 1932; Punch, 6 June 1932; Spectator, 2 Feb. 1932; see, too, for the sense of the book's impact, Alan Bishop, ed., Vera Brittain: diary of the thirties, 1932–1939: chronicle of friendship (London, 1986), pp. 38–110.
12 ‘O dreams’, p. 173; Yorkshire Evening Post, 4 July 1963.
13 Russell, Looking north, passim.
14 P. Davidson, The idea of north (London, 2005), p. 83 and, passim, pp. 83–109.
15 ‘O dreams’, p. 163.
16 Evening Standard, 2 Feb. 1932; Reynold's News, 4 Feb. 1932; News Chronicle, 2 Feb. 1932.
17 ‘O dreams’, pp. 202–4.
18 Diary, 10 May, 31 Dec. 1933, Calderdale Archives, PB/C.
19 Manchester Evening Chronicle, 28 Nov. 1932.
20 Her many works on the Brontës were especially important.
21 V. Brittain, Testament of youth (London, 1978 edn), p. 19.
22 New Statesman and Nation, 10 Feb. 1934; Time and Tide, 17 Feb. 1934.
23 ‘O dreams’, pp. 12–32.
24 J. Hargreaves, Halifax (Edinburgh, 1999), pp. 167–78.
25 That its struggle was ultimately successful was at least partially the result of an injection of money earned from her writing. ‘O dreams’, pp. 164–5; diary, 3 Oct. 1933.
26 This phrase was coined by Lucien LeClaire in A general analytical bibliography of the regional novelists of the British Isles, 1800–1950 (Paris, 1954), pp. 12–13, and intended to capture the overall tone of the 1930s regional novel.
27 ‘Provincial women of today: their opportunities’, Yorkshire Post, 5 Feb. 1929.
28 ‘O dreams’, p. 178.
29 Bentley, English regional, p. 45.
30 North Mail, 23 June 1933.
31 Russell, Looking north, pp. 57–61.
32 Yorkshire Post, 3 May 1930.
33 Modern tragedy, p. 11.
34 Sleep in peace, pp. 524–5.
35 ‘Yorkshire as a novelist's country: her infinite variety’, Yorkshire Post, 5 Feb. 1930.
36 ‘O dreams’, p. 167.
37 Carr (Bath, 1967 edn), pp. 308–9.
38 Inheritance, p. 210; Russell, Looking north, pp. 101–2.
39 There are certain overlaps here with Priestley. See Baxendale and Pawling, Narrating, pp. 63–4.
40 Letter to Yorkshire Post, 11 Nov. 1938.
41 ‘O dreams’, pp. 27, 107, 238–9; diary, 20 Sept. 1937: letter to Marie Hartley and Joan Ingilby, 25 Oct. 1951, PB/C 69.
42 Modern tragedy, p. 454.
43 P. Bentley, ‘Novels as peace-makers’, Clarion, 16 July 1932.
44 For perceptive critiques of Bentley's class analysis from the left see, Leeds Weekly Citizen, 23 June 1933, and the American publication, New Republic, 26 Oct. 1932.
45 Inheritance, pp. 22–37.
46 Modern tragedy, pp. 238–64.
47 See, for example, Jonathan Bamforth in Inheritance; Henry Clay Crosland in Modern tragedy and Thomas Armstrong in Quorum (London, 1950).
48 ‘O dreams’, p. 134.
49 Modern tragedy, pp. 160–1.
50 Diary, 19 July 1933; Modern tragedy, pp. 442–8.
51 Yorkshire Post, 5 Feb. 1930.
52 Inheritance, pp. 389, 391–2.
53 See Modern tragedy, Sleep in peace, Manhold, and Henry Morcar.
54 Inheritance, p. 210.
55 Henry Morcar, p. 106. All references are to the 1966 edition.
56 Inheritance, pp. 299, 305–6.
57 Sleep in peace, pp. 392–5. This section was an extension of ideas first expressed in ‘Provincial women of today: their limitations’, Yorkshire Post, 11 Feb. 1929
58 Sleep in peace, pp. 181, 467–8. See also pp. 14–17, 161–3.
59 Modern tragedy, p. 409. For London as attraction, Inheritance, pp. 187, 299–300; Sleep in peace, pp. 517–20; Quorum, pp. 47–8, 242.
60 Inheritance, p. 303; Sleep in peace, p. 226; see also Henry Morcar, pp. 181, 194, 269, 272.
61 Halifax Authors' Circle, attendance book, Calderdale Archives, Soc 10/1; ‘O dreams’, p. 154.
62 For a particularly spirited defence of this position, see PB to Stan Barstow, 21 Oct. 1968, PB/C 56/1. See also on the issue of a southward drift of talent ‘Stars and geography’, Yorkshire Post, 13 June 1929.
63 ‘O dreams’, p. 82.
64 Ibid., pp. 161–2.
65 Ibid., p. 165.
66 TV Times (Northern edition), 14–21, 21–8 October, 4–11 November 1967.
67 Modern tragedy, pp. 409–54; Sleep in peace, pp. 517–20.
68 Royal Society of Literature, Reports for 1977–8 and 1978–9, p. 18; Bookseller, 9 Sept. 1977; diary, 4 Jan. 1935.
69 Russell, Looking north, pp. 80–5, 95–9, 209–13.
70 For the growth of the friendship with Priestley, see letters in PB/C 56/1; ‘O dreams’, pp. 150–2.
71 Diary, 25 May 1932.
72 PB to her mother, 12 June 1932, in 1932 diary folder; Bishop, ed., Chronicle, p. 63.
73 Diary, 22 March, 22 July 1936.
74 Diary, 6 August 1936, 5 June 1939.
75 For example, diary entries for 24 June 1936, 18 January 1939, and 21 July 1961.
76 Diary review, 1937.
77 ‘O dreams’, pp. 22–3.
78 Diary, 4 Jan. 1935, 7 Jan. 1936, 31 Dec. 1949.
79 P. Berry and M. Bostridge, Vera Brittain: a life (London, 1995), p. 250; Dorothy Whipple to PB, 21 Jan. 1949, PB/C 56/2.
80 Diary, 29 May 1931.
81 Diary review, 1935.
82 Diary, 20 Feb. 1936.
83 Bishop, ed., Chronicle, p. 38.
84 D. Gorham, Vera Brittain: a feminist life (Oxford, 1996), p. 227.
85 See, for example, diary, 27 June 1937. For Bentley's (heavily sanitized) public account of the relationship, see ‘O dreams’, pp. 174–79. See also Gorham, D., ‘“The friendship of women”: friendship, feminism and achievements in Vera Brittain's life and work in the interwar decades’, Journal of Women's History, 3 (1992), pp. 58–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
86 Diary, 4 Dec. 1932. See also letter from Dorothy Whipple, 22 Dec. 1932, PB/C 56/2.
87 Berry and Bostridge, Brittain, p. 250.
88 Gorham, ‘“Friendship of women”’, p. 59.
89 ‘O dreams’, p. 177.
90 Ibid., pp. 174–5.
91 Ibid., pp. 153, 176.
92 Trodd, Women's writing, pp. 47–8; Clay, British women, pp. 15–26.
93 Undated document, PB/B 99/1.
94 Winifred Holtby to PB, 15 Dec. 1932, PB/C 57/1.
95 ‘O dreams’, p. 177.
96 Gorham, Brittain, p. 228.
97 Dorothy Whipple to PB, 22 Dec. 1932, PB/C 56/2.
98 PB to Marie Hartley and Joan Ingilby, 12 Nov. 1951, PB/C 69.
99 Marion Shaw, The clear stream: a life of Winifred Holtby (London, 1999), p. 222.
100 Berry and Bostridge, Brittain, pp. 295–7, 303, 313–15.
101 Bishop, ed., Chronicle, pp. 44, 115.
102 Brittain, Testament of youth, pp. 54–5.
103 Berry and Bostridge, Brittain, p. 271.
104 Diary, 10 Jan. 1933.
105 Vera Brittain to PB, 10 Dec. 1932, PB/C 59. See, too, her comments on the poor dress sense of Halifax women, Bishop, ed., Chronicle, p. 111.
106 ‘O dreams’, p. 192.
107 Diary, 1 March 1962.
