Alice Meynell by John Singer Sargent
(22 September 1847 - 27 November 1922) was an
English writer,
editor,
critic, and
suffragist, now remembered mainly as a
poet.
She was born in
Barnes,
London, to Thomas James and Christiana (née Weller) Thompson. The family moved around
England,
Switzerland, and
France, but she was brought up mostly in
Italy, where a daughter of Thomas from his first marriage had settled. Her father was a friend of
Charles Dickens.
Preludes (1875) was her first poetry collection, illustrated by her elder sister Elizabeth (the artist
Lady Elizabeth Butler, 1850-1933, whose husband was
Sir William Francis Butler). The work was warmly praised by
Ruskin, although it received little public notice. Ruskin especially singled out the sonnet
Renunciation for its beauty and delicacy.
After Alice, the entire Thompson family converted to the
Roman Catholic Church (1868 to 1880), and her writings migrated to subjects of religious matters. This eventually led her to the Catholic newspaper publisher and editor
Wilfrid Meynell (1852 - 1948) in 1876. A year later (1877) she married Meynell, and they settled in
Kensington. They became proprietor and editor of
The Pen, the
Weekly Register,
Merry England, and other magazines. Alice and Wilfrid had a family of eight children, Sebastian, Monica, Everard, Madeleine,
Viola, Vivian (who died at three months), Olivia, and
Francis.
Viola Meynell (1885-1956) became an author in her own right, and the youngest child
Francis Meynell (1891-1975) was the poet and printer at the
Nonesuch Press.
Alice was much involved in editorial work on publications with her husband, and in her own writing, poetry and prose. She wrote regularly for
The World,
The Spectator,
The Magazine of Art,
The Scots Observer,
The Tablet,
The Art Journal, the
National Observer, edited by
W. E. Henley the
Pall Mall Gazette, and
The Saturday Review.
The British poet
Francis Thompson, down and out in London and trying to recover from the
opium addiction that had overtaken him, sent the couple a manuscript. His poems were first published in Wilfred's
Merrie England, and the Meynells became a supporter of Thompson. His 1893 book
Poems was a Meynell production and initiative. Another supporter of Thompson was the poet
Coventry Patmore. Alice had a deep friendship with Patmore, lasting several years, which led to his becoming obsessed with her, forcing her to break with him.
At the end of the nineteenth century, in conjunction with uprisings against the British (among them the
Indians', the
Zulus', the
Boxer Rebellion, and the
Muslim revolt lead by
Muhammad Ahmed in the
Sudan), many European scholars, writers, and artists, especially Catholics, began to question Europe’s colonial imperialism, and its attempt to rule the world. This led Alice, Wilfrid, Elizabeth, and others in their circle to speak out for the oppressed. Alice became a leading figure in the
Women Writers' Suffrage League, which was founded by
Cicely Hamilton and active 1908 to 1919.
Her prose essays were remarkable for fineness of culture and peculiar restraint of style. After a series of illnesses, including migraine and depression, she died 27 November 1922. She is buried at
Kensal Green Catholic Cemetery, London, England.
Works
- The Rhythm of Life (1893) essays
- Poems by Francis Thompson (1893) editor and producer
- The Color of Life and other Essays (1896)
- The Flower of the Mind (1897) anthology of English verse, editor, critic.
- The Children (1897) essays
- The Spirit of Place (1898) essays
- London Impressions (1898)
- The Second Person Singular (1921)
- The Poems of Alice Meynell, Complete Edition (Oxford University Press, 1940)
See also
