Rebecca West

Dame Cicily Isabel Fairfield DBE, aka Rebecca West, was a British author, journalist, literary critic, and travel writer. West, a novelist who worked in a variety of genres, reviewed books for The Times, the New York Herald Tribune, The Sunday Telegraph, and The New Republic, as well as serving as a Bookman correspondent. Rebecca West was born Cicily Isabel Fairfield in London, England, in 1892, and grew up in an environment rich in intellectual stimulation, political debate, vibrant...See more

Dame Cicily Isabel Fairfield DBE, aka Rebecca West, was a British author, journalist, literary critic, and travel writer. West, a novelist who worked in a variety of genres, reviewed books for The Times, the New York Herald Tribune, The Sunday Telegraph, and The New Republic, as well as serving as a Bookman correspondent. Rebecca West was born Cicily Isabel Fairfield in London, England, in 1892, and grew up in an environment rich in intellectual stimulation, political debate, vibrant conversation, books, and music. Her Scottish mother, Isabella, was a talented pianist who did not pursue a musical career after marrying Charles Fairfield. The Anglo-Irish Charles had served as a Confederate stretcher-bearer during the siege of Richmond during the American Civil War before returning to the United Kingdom to become a well-known journalist with financial incompetence. He abandoned his family when Cicily was eight years old. He never returned to them, dying poor and alone in a boarding house in Liverpool in 1906, when Cicily was 14. See less