Winifred Holtby

Winifred Holtby (June 23, 1898 - September 29, 1935) was an English novelist and journalist.

Related Topics:
Winifred Holtby - June 23 - 1898 - September 29 - 1935

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Born to a prosperous Yorkshire family, Holtby was educated at home by a governess and then at boarding school. Although she passed the entrance exam for Somerville College, Oxford, the First World War changed her plans. In early 1918, she joined the Women's Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC), but soon after she arrived in France, the war came to an end.

Related Topics:
Somerville College, Oxford - First World War - Women's Auxiliary Army Corps

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In 1919, she returned to Somerville and met Vera Brittain, with whom she was to maintain a lifelong friendship. Holtby and Brittain graduated together, and in 1921 they moved to London, hoping to establish themselves as writers. Holtby's early novels - Anderby Wold (1923), The Crowded Street (1924) and The Land of Green Ginger (1927) - met with moderate success.

Related Topics:
Vera Brittain - London

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Holtby was also a prolific journalist and, over the next decade and a half, she wrote for more than 20 newspapers and magazines, including the feminist journal Time and Tide and the Manchester Guardian newspaper. She wrote a regular weekly column for the trade union magazine The Schoolmistress. Her books during this period included a critical study of Virginia Woolf and a volume of short stories, Truth is Not Sober.

Related Topics:
Time and Tide - Manchester Guardian - Virginia Woolf

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Like Brittain, Holtby was an ardent pacifist and lectured extensively for the League of Nations Union. Holtby gradually became more critical of the British class system and by the late 1920s she was active in the Independent Labour Party.

Related Topics:
League of Nations Union - Class system - Independent Labour Party

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In 1931, Holtby began to suffer from high blood pressure, recurrent headaches and bouts of lassitude. Eventually she was diagnosed as suffering from sclerosis of the kidneys. Her doctor gave her only two years to live. Aware of her impending death, Holtby put all her remaining energy into what became her most important book, South Riding. Winifred Holtby died on 29th September, 1935. South Riding was published the following year and received high praise from the critics. The book won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for 1937.

Related Topics:
High blood pressure - James Tait Black Memorial Prize

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Vera Brittain subsequently wrote about her friendship with Holtby in her book Testament of Friendship (1940).

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