(In this novel, Bottome focuses on the poor living conditi...)
In this novel, Bottome focuses on the poor living conditions that commonly lead to abuse in poverty-stricken families. This novel did not exactly come straight from her imagination, however; she explored the effects of alcoholism and domestic abuse on those who were victims of class oppression.
(In this autobiography, Bottome discussed how young women ...)
In this autobiography, Bottome discussed how young women in the early twentieth century who were without a husband were burdened with “the persistent weight of the older lives we could not help and yet had to support.” She contrasted that burden with the improved status of unmarried daughters in the 1950s: “the most releasing of social changes” is that women are “given the rights of wage earners; and need not become domestic slaves.”
(In Level Crossing, one of the main characters, Deirdre, i...)
In Level Crossing, one of the main characters, Deirdre, is kidnapped, leaving her new husband devastated. The novel explores the bond that is formed between Deirdre and her captor’s girlfriend, who aids in her escape. Once again, Bottome pairs two women from varying backgrounds. Hoder- Salmon commented on the plot twist: “In linking two women of different economic and social statuses Bottome illustrates the commonality between women as pawns of male domination.”
(Phyllis Bottome's book is based on inspired friendship. A...)
Phyllis Bottome's book is based on inspired friendship. Adler himself urged her to undertake a portrait that shines with understanding, swift sympathy and rare brilliance. She has given us the definition of the man and the scientist that is a magnificent picture of an individual with the greatest genius of all the genius for living wholly, fully, warmly and wittily.
(A highly acclaimed anti-fascist novel, The Mortal Storm w...)
A highly acclaimed anti-fascist novel, The Mortal Storm was Phyllis Bottome's dramatic warning against the warmongering, antisemitism, and misogyny of the Nazis. The story pits the developing political and feminist consciousness of Freya Roth against the Nazi machine that will destroy the fabric of her family and nation.
Phyllis Bottome was an English novelist, memoirist, essayist, and a short story writer. Phyllis Bottome led an extraordinary life, traveling, writing, and promoting women’s rights in the late 1800s through the early twentieth century.
Background
Bottome was born on May 31, 1882, in Rochester, Kentucky. Her father was an American clergyman, her mother a British aristocrat.
While she painted her childhood as lovingly idyllic, her parents’ differences in their background would cause much turmoil in the Bottome household. William MacDonald was a well-liked and gifted minister, always chipper and ready to fulfill the goals of his profession. Problems arose, however, when Bottome’s mother, Margaret, expressed her lack of interest in playing the role that she had accepted when she married a clergyman. Margaret Bottome’s apathy toward the family became increasingly apparent over the years, placing a great strain on its members.
Eventually, the family moved to Yonkers, New York, which proved to be beneficial to Bottome because she would be in the presence of family members who would be instrumental in her literary development. These family members consisted of uncles, a grandfather, and most of all, her grandmother and noted author and lecturer, Margaret MacDonald Bottome.
Career
Bottome was unable to follow her dreams of becoming an actress because of her poor health, which is what prompted her to write her first novel when she was just seventeen years old.
Bottome’s health took another downward turn, and she was diagnosed with the illness that plagued her sister Wilmett: tuberculosis. With the help of wealthy friends, she and her closest friend, Hope de Lisle Brock, traveled extensively for the next few years in search of good health.
Bottome spent her time writing a series of novels, as well as some short stories, from 1904 into the late 1920s. Most of her work from this time can be considered social romances, with plots that usually involve two women - again, touching upon the themes of women in the workplace and the importance of being liberated.
Bottome traveled extensively, residing in seven countries over the course of her life.
To keep herself busy while her husband was away during the war, Bottome served as a writer for the Ministry of Information, as well as being a relief worker for Belgian refugees.
After the war, Bottome and Forbes Dennis moved to Vienna. They remained active in political causes, and Bottome continued to write, producing The Crystal Heart (1921), a semi-autobiographical tale of two daughters forced to make choices between happiness and family loyalty; and the Kingfisher (1922), another novel about the ills of poverty.
In 1923, Bottome’s tuberculosis resurfaced. On advice from doctors, she and her husband moved to Mosem, Switzerland. They would remain there, or in Austria or Germany, throughout the 1920s and 1930s. In 1924, Bottome continued writing despite her ill health.
When Bottome’s health improved, Forbes Dennis founded a language school for British and American boys in Innsbruck in 1924. The school was open for a period of four years, but sparked the couple’s interest in education, and subsequently introduced them to psychiatrist Alfred Adler. Both would study under Adler, as well as undergo analysis with him. Bottome and her husband quickly moved to Munich after their school closed, with hopes that they could open a new and similar one. Unfortunately, the Nazi party’s rise to power made their plans unattainable.
Still, Bottome kept on writing. Her work during this period included Tatter’d Loving (1929), an intimate look at family relations, and Level Crossing (1936), one of Bottome’s most famous romances.
In the 1930s, Bottome and her husband bounced back and forth between Germany, Austria, and England. Upon Dr. Adler’s sudden death in 1936, they went to Austria to complete work on his biography. They remained in Austria for ten months, interviewing friends and colleagues, and escaping Hitler’s entry into Vienna by a mere three days. Bottome’s biography, Alfred Adler, Apostle of Freedom, became a best seller, and would remain in print throughout the 1950s.
Bottome continued writing throughout the 1950s and into the 1960s, until her death in 1963.
Achievements
A prolific writer, Phyllis Bottome produced over thirty novels, as well as several autobiographical volumes, travel books, and numerous essays during the course of her career, achieving both critical and popular success.
Bottome liked to explore the society women who “husband-hunt” and the need for women to be educated and liberated.
While she considered herself a strong feminist, she credited Meynell with giving her the impetus to expand her concerns from merely higher education and equal career opportunities to include political gain as well.
Bottome deal with some of her favorite themes in her books, including the women who served in the Ambulance Corps and the Women’s Royal Naval Service, the trials of a working class child, the treatment of mental illness, the obstacles faced by independent women, and the threat of fascism. Bottome was clearly shaped by the issues surrounding her, and was unafraid to address them through her work, a trait admirable for a woman of her era.
Personality
Plagued by ongoing poor health, family problems, two world wars, and numerous other distractions, Bottome remained faithful to her craft of writing, and promoting women’s rights, a trait not often acknowledged in the women of her era.
In 1904, Bottome became engaged to Alban Eman Forbes Dennis, a Scottish aristocrat. She, eventually, broke off the engagement, fearing that she would never regain her health.
Bottome was a traditionalist whose strengths lay in her heroic and confident female protagonists, as well as her ability to engage the reader in her cause, whatever it may be. Bottome herself was a heroic character, surviving poor health, world wars, and family strife, all the while keeping her pen in motion. Her voice was passionate, weaving her values throughout her fiction. It is for these reasons that her work deserves to be read for generations to come.
Quotes from others about the person
“The chief merit of Miss Bottome’s stirring story resides in the sparkling and mordantly witty dialogue. A temptation to quote some of the aphorisms of her characters is almost irresistible, but they are too firmly embedded in the texture of her narrative. It is a meaty novel.”
Connections
In 1914, Bottome crossed paths with Forbes Dennis in London. Forbes was heavily involved in World War I, and was off to France. In 1917, however, they finally married.
Her many adventures allowed her a wide circle of literary friends, including Ezra Pound, May Sinclair, Alice Meynell, and Hilda Doolittle.
Father:
William MacDonald Bottome
Mother:
Margaret Leatham
husband:
Alban Eman Forbes
Friend:
Ezra Pound
Friend:
May Sinclair
Friend:
Alice Meynell
Friend:
Hilda Doolittle
References
Rediscovering Forgotten Radicals: British Women Writers, 1889-1939
Rediscovering Forgotten Radicals reintroduces the work of writers and activists whose texts, and often whose very lives, were passionately engaged in the major political issues of their times but who have been displaced from both the historical and the literary record. Focusing on seventeen writers whose common concern was radically to change the status quo, this collection of thirteen essays challenges not only the neglect of these particular writers but also the marginalization of women from British political life and literary history.
1993
British Women Writers of World War II: Battlegrounds of their Own
In British Women Writers of World War II , Phyllis Lassner offers a challenging analysis of politicized literature in which such British women writers as Virginia Woolf, Elizabeth Bowen, Stevie Smith and Storm Jameson debated the `justness' of World War II. Lassner questions prevailing approaches to women's war writing by exploring the complex range of pacifist and activist literary forms of women who redefined such pieties as patriotism and duty and heroism and victimization.
