Djuna Barnes

Djuna Barnes (June 12, 1892 - June 18, 1982) played an important part in the development of 20th century English language modernist writing by women and was one of the key figures in 1920s and 30s bohemian Paris.

Early Life and Writings

Barnes was born into Cornwall-on-Hudson, a New York artists' colony. Her father, Henry Budington Barnes, was an unsuccessful artist and her mother, Elizabeth Chappel, had studied the violin in England before her marriage. Barnes was brought up by her mother and grandmother and her early education was received at home. She was sexualy abused by both her father and her grandmother, which strongly influenced her later work. In the early 1910s, she studied art briefly in New York city at the Pratt Institute and the Arts Students League.

Related Topics:
Cornwall-on-Hudson - New York - England - 1910s - Pratt Institute - Arts Students League

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By 1913, her parents had divorced and she was writing and illustrating a regular column for The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. A collection of her celebrity interviews from this period, I Could Never Be Lonely without a Husband: Interviews by Djuna Barnes, was published in 1987. A collection of the magazine stories from the 1910s, Smoke and Other Early Stories, appeared in 1982. In 1915, she published her first book, a collection of poems and drawings called The Book of Repulsive Women. She also wrote one-act plays, three of which were produced at the Provincetown Playhouse in the period 1919 - 1920. She married Courtenay Lemon but the marriage was short-lived and in 1920 she moved to Paris on an assignment for McCall's magazine.

Related Topics:
1913 - Divorce - The Brooklyn Daily Eagle - 1987 - 1910s - 1982 - 1915 - Provincetown Playhouse - 1919 - 1920 - Courtenay Lemon - McCall's

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