Nancy Clara Cunard (10 March 1896 – 17 March 1965) was a British writer, heiress and political activist. She was born into the British upper class, and devoted much of her life to fighting racism and fascism. She became a muse to some of the 20th century's most distinguished writers and artists, including

Wyndham Lewis Percy Wyndham Lewis (18 November 1882 – 7 March 1957) was a British writer, painter and critic. He was a co-founder of the Vorticist movement in art and edited ''BLAST,'' the literary magazine of the Vorticists. His novels include ''Tarr'' ( ...

Aldous Huxley Aldous Leonard Huxley (26 July 1894 – 22 November 1963) was an English writer and philosopher. He wrote nearly 50 books, both novels and non-fiction works, as well as wide-ranging essays, narratives, and poems. Born into the prominent Huxley ...

Tristan Tzara Tristan Tzara (; ; born Samuel or Samy Rosenstock, also known as S. Samyro; – 25 December 1963) was a Romanian and French avant-garde poet, essayist and performance artist. Also active as a journalist, playwright, literary and art critic, comp ...

Ezra Pound Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an expatriate American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a Fascism, fascist collaborator in Italy during World War II. His works ...

and

Louis Aragon Louis Aragon (, , 3 October 1897 – 24 December 1982) was a French poet who was one of the leading voices of the surrealist movement in France. He co-founded with André Breton and Philippe Soupault the surrealist review ''Littérature''. He wa ...

—who were among her lovers—as well as

Ernest Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century fic ...

James Joyce James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of ...

Constantin Brâncuși Constantin Brâncuși (; February 19, 1876 – March 16, 1957) was a Romanian Sculpture, sculptor, painter and photographer who made his career in France. Considered one of the most influential sculptors of the 20th-century and a pioneer of ...

Langston Hughes James Mercer Langston Hughes (February 1, 1901 – May 22, 1967) was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist from Joplin, Missouri. One of the earliest innovators of the literary art form called jazz poetry, Hug ...

Man Ray Man Ray (born Emmanuel Radnitzky; August 27, 1890 – November 18, 1976) was an American visual artist who spent most of his career in Paris. He was a significant contributor to the Dada and Surrealism, Surrealist movements, although his t ...

and

William Carlos Williams William Carlos Williams (September 17, 1883 – March 4, 1963) was an American poet, writer, and physician closely associated with modernism and imagism. In addition to his writing, Williams had a long career as a physician practicing both pedia ...

MI5 The Security Service, also known as MI5 ( Military Intelligence, Section 5), is the United Kingdom's domestic counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), Go ...

documents reveal that she was involved with Indian socialist leader

V. K. Krishna Menon Vengalil Krishnan Krishna Menon (3 May 1896 – 6 October 1974) was an Indian academic, politician, and non-career diplomat. He was described by some as the second most powerful man in India, after the first Prime Minister of India, Jawa ...

. In later years she suffered from mental illness, and her physical health deteriorated. When she died in the

Hôpital Cochin The Hôpital Cochin is a hospital of public assistance in the rue du Faubourg-Saint-Jacques Paris 14e. It houses the central burn treatment centre of the city. The Hôpital Cochin is a section of the Faculté de Médecine Paris-Descartes. It comm ...

, Paris, she weighed only 26 kg (57 pounds / 4 stone, 1lb).

1910s

Her father was Sir Bache Cunard, an heir to the

Cunard Line Cunard () is a British shipping and cruise line based at Carnival House at Southampton, England, operated by Carnival UK and owned by Carnival Corporation & plc. Since 2011, Cunard and its three ships have been registered in Hamilton, Berm ...

shipping businesses, interested in

polo Polo is a ball game played on horseback, a traditional field sport and one of the world's oldest known team sports. The game is played by two opposing teams with the objective of scoring using a long-handled wooden mallet to hit a small hard ...

and

fox hunting Fox hunting is an activity involving the tracking, chase and, if caught, the killing of a fox, traditionally a red fox, by trained foxhounds or other scent hounds. A group of unarmed followers, led by a "master of foxhounds" (or "master of ho ...

, and a

baronet A baronet ( or ; abbreviated Bart or Bt) or the female equivalent, a baronetess (, , or ; abbreviation Btss), is the holder of a baronetcy, a hereditary title awarded by the British Crown. The title of baronet is mentioned as early as the 14th ...

. Her mother was Maud Alice Burke, an American heiress, who adopted the first name Emerald and became a leading London society hostess. Nancy had been brought up on the family estate at

Nevill Holt Nevill Holt is a hamlet and civil parish in the Harborough District of Leicestershire, England. It is situated about northeast of Market Harborough, northwest of Corby and lies close to the borders with Northamptonshire and Rutland. It is on ...

, Leicestershire. When her parents separated in 1911, she moved to London with her mother. Her education was at various boarding schools, including time in France and Germany. In London, she spent a good deal of her childhood with her mother's long-time admirer, the novelist George Moore. It was even rumoured that Moore was her father, and although this has been largely dismissed, there is no question that he played an important role in her life while she was growing up. She would later write a memoir about her affection for "GM". On 15November 1916 she married Sydney Fairbairn, a cricketer and army officer who had been wounded at

Gallipoli The Gallipoli peninsula (; tr, Gelibolu Yarımadası; grc, Χερσόνησος της Καλλίπολης, ) is located in the southern part of East Thrace, the European part of Turkey, with the Aegean Sea to the west and the Dardanelles ...

. After a honeymoon in Devon and Cornwall, they lived in London in a house given to them by Nancy's mother as a wedding present. The couple separated in 1919 and divorced in 1925. At this time she was on the edge of the influential group

The Coterie The Coterie was a fashionable and famous set of English aristocrats and intellectuals of the 1910s, widely quoted and profiled in magazines and newspapers of the period. They also called themselves the "Corrupt Coterie". Members Its members in ...

, associating in particular with

Iris Tree Iris Tree (27 January 1897 – 13 April 1968) was an English poet, actress and artists' model, described as a bohemian, an eccentric, a wit and an adventurer. Biography Tree's parents were actors Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree and Helen Maud, Lady ...

. She contributed to the anthology ''Wheels'', edited by

the Sitwells The Sitwells (Edith Sitwell, Osbert Sitwell, Sacheverell Sitwell), from Scarborough, North Yorkshire, were three siblings who formed an identifiable literary and artistic clique around themselves in London in the period roughly 1916 to 1930. This ...

, for which she provided the title poem; it has been said that the venture was originally her project. Cunard's lover Peter Broughton-Adderley was killed in action in France less than a month before

Armistice Day Armistice Day, later known as Remembrance Day in the Commonwealth and Veterans Day in the United States, is commemorated every year on 11 November to mark Armistice of 11 November 1918, the armistice signed between the Allies of World War I a ...

. Many who knew her claimed that she never fully recovered from Adderley's loss.

Paris

Nancy Cunard moved to Paris in 1920. There, she became involved with literary

Modernism Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...

Surrealists Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to l ...

and

Dada Dada () or Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century, with early centres in Zürich, Switzerland, at the Cabaret Voltaire (Zurich), Cabaret Voltaire (in 1916). New York Dada began c. 1915, and after 192 ...

. Much of her published poetry dates from this period. During her early years in Paris, she was close to

Michael Arlen Michael Arlen (16 November 1895 – 23 June 1956), born Dikran Kouyoumdjian ( hy, Տիգրան Գոյումճեան), was a British essayist, short story writer, novelist, playwright, and scriptwriter of Armenians, Armenian origin, who had his ...

. In 1920 she had a near-fatal

hysterectomy Hysterectomy is the surgical removal of the uterus. It may also involve removal of the cervix, ovaries (oophorectomy), Fallopian tubes (salpingectomy), and other surrounding structures. Usually performed by a gynecologist, a hysterectomy may b ...

, for reasons that are not entirely clear. She recovered, and was then able to lead an active sexual life without the fear of pregnancy. A brief relationship with

influenced several of his novels. She was the model for Myra Viveash in ''

Antic Hay ''Antic Hay'' is a comic novel by Aldous Huxley, published in 1923. The story takes place in London, and depicts the aimless or self-absorbed cultural elite in the sad and turbulent times following the end of World War I. The book follows the ...

'' (1923) and for Lucy Tantamount in ''

Point Counter Point ''Point Counter Point'' is a novel by Aldous Huxley, first published in 1928. It is Huxley's longest novel, and was notably more complex and serious than his earlier fiction. In 1998, the Modern Library ranked ''Point Counter Point'' 44th on ...

'' (1928). In Paris, Cunard spent much time with

Eugene McCown Eugene McCown or MacCown (July 27, 1898 – April 23, 1966) was an American pianist, painter of the École de Paris and writer, also remembered for being part of the chic bohemian set of Paris in the Roaring Twenties, roaring twenties. Early li ...

, an American artist from the hard-drinking set whom she made her protégé. It has been suggested that she became dependent on alcohol at this time, and may have used other drugs. In 1928, the year she founded her publishing company, Hours Press, she met Henry Crowder, with whom she lived until 1933.

Personal style

Cunard's style, informed by her devotion to the artefacts of African culture, was startlingly unconventional. The large-scale jewellery she favoured, crafted of wood, bone and ivory, the natural materials used by native crafts people, was provocative and controversial. The bangles she wore on both arms snaking from wrist to elbow were considered ''outré'' adornments, which provoked media attention, visually compelling subject matter for photographers of the day. She was often photographed wearing her collection, those of African inspiration and neckpieces of wooden cubes, which paid homage to the concepts of

Cubism Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassemble ...

.Cox, Caroline, "Vintage jewellery design: classics to collect and wear," Lark Crafts, 2010, p. 55. At first considered the bohemian affectation of an eccentric heiress, the fashion world came to legitimize this style as avant garde, dubbing it the "barbaric look". Prestigious jewellery houses such as

Boucheron Boucheron () is a French luxury jewellery and watches house located in Paris, 26 Place Vendôme, owned by Kering. History At the origins The House of Boucheron is a French family dynasty founded by Frederic Boucheron in 1858, with the opening ...

created their own African-inspired cuff of gold beads. Boucheron, eschewing costly gemstones, incorporated into the finished creation green malachite and a striking purple mineral, purpurite, instead. It exhibited this high-end piece at the

Exposition Coloniale The Paris Colonial Exhibition (or "''Exposition coloniale internationale''", International Colonial Exhibition) was a six-month colonial exhibition held in Paris, France, in 1931 that attempted to display the diverse cultures and immense resour ...

in 1931.

The Hours Press

In 1927, Cunard moved into a farmhouse in La Chapelle-Réanville, Normandy. It was there in 1928 that she set up the Hours Press. Previously the

small press A small press is a publisher with annual sales below a certain level or below a certain number of titles published. The terms "indie publisher" and "independent press" and others are sometimes used interchangeably. Independent press is general ...

had been called Three Mountains Press and run by William Bird, an American journalist in Paris, who had published books by its editor from 1923,

' ''The Great American Novel'', Robert McAlmond and

's ''In Our Time''. Cunard wanted to support experimental poetry and provide a higher-paying market for young writers. Her inherited wealth allowed her to take financial risks that other publishers could not. The Hours Press became known for its beautiful book designs and high-quality production. It brought out the first separately published work of

Samuel Beckett Samuel Barclay Beckett (; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish novelist, dramatist, short story writer, theatre director, poet, and literary translator. His literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal and tragicomic expe ...

, a poem called ''Whoroscope'' (1930);

Bob Brown Robert James Brown (born 27 December 1944) is a former Australian politician, medical doctor and environmentalist. He was a senator and the parliamentary leader of the Australian Greens. Brown was elected to the Australian Senate on the Tasman ...

's ''Words''; and Pound's ''A Draft of XXX Cantos''. Cunard published old friends such as George Moore,

Norman Douglas George Norman Douglas (8 December 1868 – 7 February 1952) was a British writer, now best known for his 1917 novel ''South Wind''. His travel books, such as ''Old Calabria'' (1915), were also appreciated for the quality of their writing. L ...

Richard Aldington Richard Aldington (8 July 1892 – 27 July 1962), born Edward Godfree Aldington, was an English writer and poet, and an early associate of the Imagist movement. He was married to the poet Hilda Doolittle (H. D.) from 1911 to 1938. His 50-year w ...

and

Arthur Symons Arthur William Symons (28 February 186522 January 1945) was a British poet, critic and magazine editor. Life Born in Milford Haven, Wales, to Cornish parents, Symons was educated privately, spending much of his time in France and Italy. In 1884 ...

, and brought out ''Henry-Music'', a book of poems from various authors with music by Henry Crowder, two books by

Laura Riding Laura Riding Jackson (born Laura Reichenthal; January 16, 1901 – September 2, 1991), best known as Laura Riding, was an American poet, critic, novelist, essayist and short story writer. Early life She was born in New York City to Nathan ...

, the ''Collected Poems of

John Rodker John Rodker (18 December 1894 – 6 October 1955) was an English writer, modernist poet, and publisher of modernist writers. Biography John Rodker was born on 18 December 1894 in Manchester, into a Jewish immigrant family. The family moved t ...

'', poems by Roy Campbell,

Harold Acton Sir Harold Mario Mitchell Acton (5 July 1904 – 27 February 1994) was a British writer, scholar, and aesthete who was a prominent member of the Bright Young Things. He wrote fiction, biography, history and autobiography. During his stay in Ch ...

, Brian Howard and

Walter Lowenfels Walter Lowenfels (May 10, 1897 – July 7, 1976) was an American poet, journalist, and member of the Communist Party USA. He also edited the Pennsylvania Edition of ''The Worker'', a weekend edition of the Communist-sponsored ''Daily Worker' ...

. Wyn Henderson had taken over day-to-day operation of the press by 1931; in the same year it published its last book, ''The Revaluation of Obscenity'' by sexologist

Havelock Ellis Henry Havelock Ellis (2 February 1859 – 8 July 1939) was an English physician, eugenicist, writer, progressive intellectual and social reformer who studied human sexuality. He co-wrote the first medical textbook in English on homosexuality in ...

Political activism

In 1928 (after a two-year affair with

) she began a relationship with Henry Crowder, an African-American jazz musician who was working in Paris. She became an activist in matters concerning racial politics and civil rights in the USA, and visited

Harlem Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street (Manhattan), 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and 110th Street (Manhattan), ...

. In 1931, she published the pamphlet ''Black Man and White Ladyship'', an attack on racist attitudes as exemplified by Cunard's mother, whom she quoted as saying: "Is it true that my daughter knows a Negro?"Renata Morresi,
Set Apart: Nancy Cunard
', HOW2 1.4 (September 2000). She edited the massive '' Negro Anthology'', collecting poetry, fiction, and nonfiction primarily by African-American writers, including

and

Zora Neale Hurston Zora Neale Hurston (January 7, 1891 – January 28, 1960) was an American author, anthropologist, and filmmaker. She portrayed racial struggles in the early-1900s American South and published research on Hoodoo (spirituality), hoodoo. The most ...

.Gordon, as reviewed by Caroline Weber
"The Rebel Heiress"
''

The New York Times Book Review ''The New York Times Book Review'' (''NYTBR'') is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times'' in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely rea ...

'', 1 April 2007. 2 pages. It included writing by

George Padmore George Padmore (28 June 1903 – 23 September 1959), born Malcolm Ivan Meredith Nurse, was a leading Pan-Africanist, journalist, and author. He left his native Trinidad in 1924 to study medicine in the United States, where he also joined the Com ...

and Cunard's own account of the Scottsboro Boys case. Press attention to this project in May 1932, two years before it was published, led to Cunard's receiving anonymous threats and hate mail, some of which she published in the book, expressing regret that " thersare obscene, so this portion of American culture cannot be made public." She identified as an

anarchist Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not neces ...

Anti-fascism

In the mid-1930s she took up the anti-fascist fight, writing about Mussolini's annexation of Ethiopia and the

Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebelión, lin ...

. She predicted, accurately, that the "events in Spain were a prelude to another world war". Her stories about the suffering of Spanish refugees became the basis for a fundraising appeal in the ''

Manchester Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

''. Cunard herself helped deliver supplies and organize the relief effort, but poor health – caused in part by exhaustion and the conditions in the camps – forced her to return to Paris, where she stood on the streets collecting funds for the refugees. In the pages of

Sylvia Pankhurst Estelle Sylvia Pankhurst (5 May 1882 – 27 September 1960) was a campaigning English feminist and socialist. Committed to organising working-class women in London's East End, and unwilling in 1914 to enter into a wartime political truce with ...

's ''The New Times and Ethiopia News,'' in a comment on how ingrained race and colonial prejudices were even among the Left, she suggested that had the

Spanish Popular Front The Popular Front ( es, Frente Popular) in Spain's Second Republic was an electoral alliance and pact signed in January 1936 by various left-wing political organizations, instigated by Manuel Azaña for the purpose of contesting that year's el ...

government engaged the good-will of its colonial subjects, the fascist rebellion against the republic might have strangled where it first broke out – in

Spanish Morocco Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to ...

. In 1937 she published a series of pamphlets of war poetry, including the work of

W. H. Auden Wystan Hugh Auden (; 21 February 1907 – 29 September 1973) was a British-American poet. Auden's poetry was noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in ...

and

Pablo Neruda Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto (12 July 1904 – 23 September 1973), better known by his pen name and, later, legal name Pablo Neruda (; ), was a Chilean poet-diplomat and politician who won the 1971 Nobel Prize in Literature. Nerud ...

. Later in 1937, together with Auden and

Stephen Spender Sir Stephen Harold Spender (28 February 1909 – 16 July 1995) was an English poet, novelist and essayist whose work concentrated on themes of social injustice and the class struggle. He was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry by the ...

, she distributed a questionnaire about the war to writers in Europe. The results were published by the ''

Left Review ''Left Review'' was a journal set up by the British section of the Comintern-sponsored International Union of Revolutionary Writers (previously known as the International Bureau for Revolutionary Literature; also known as the Writers' Internationa ...

'' as ''Authors Take Sides on the Spanish War''. The questionnaire to 200 writers asked the following question: "Are you for, or against, the legal government and people of Republican Spain? Are you for, or against, Franco and Fascism? For it is impossible any longer to take no side." There were 147 answers, of which 126 supported the Republic, including

and

Rebecca West Dame Cicily Isabel Fairfield (21 December 1892 – 15 March 1983), known as Rebecca West, or Dame Rebecca West, was a British author, journalist, literary critic and travel writer. An author who wrote in many genres, West reviewed books ...

.Gayle Rogers, ''Modernism and the New Spain: Britain, Cosmopolitan Europe, and Literary History'', Oxford University Press, 2012 (p. 147). Five writers explicitly responded in favour of Franco: they were

Evelyn Waugh Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh (; 28 October 1903 – 10 April 1966) was an English writer of novels, biographies, and travel books; he was also a prolific journalist and book reviewer. His most famous works include the early satires ''Decli ...

Edmund Blunden Edmund Charles Blunden (1 November 1896 – 20 January 1974) was an English poet, author, and critic. Like his friend Siegfried Sassoon, he wrote of his experiences in World War I in both verse and prose. For most of his career, Blunden was als ...

Arthur Machen Arthur Machen (; 3 March 1863 – 15 December 1947) was the pen-name of Arthur Llewellyn Jones, a Welsh author and mystic of the 1890s and early 20th century. He is best known for his influential supernatural, fantasy, and horror fiction. Hi ...

Geoffrey Moss Major Geoffrey Cecil Gilbert McNeill-Moss (11 December 1885 – 13 August 1954) was a British soldier and writer, who published under the name Geoffrey Moss. Moss was educated at Rugby and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, and was commissio ...

and Eleanor Smith. Among sixteen responses that Cunard, in her eventually published compendium, grouped under the sceptical heading "Neutral?" were

H. G. Wells Herbert George Wells"Wells, H. G."
Revised 18 May 2015. ''

T. S. Eliot Thomas Stearns Eliot (26 September 18884 January 1965) was a poet, essayist, publisher, playwright, literary critic and editor.Bush, Ronald. "T. S. Eliot's Life and Career", in John A Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (eds), ''American National Biogr ...

and

Vera Brittain Vera Mary Brittain (29 December 1893 – 29 March 1970) was an English Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) nurse, writer, feminist, socialist and pacifist. Her best-selling 1933 memoir ''Testament of Youth'' recounted her experiences during the First ...

. The most famous response was not included: it came from

George Orwell Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist, and critic. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to totalitar ...

, and began:

Will you please stop sending me this bloody rubbish. This is the second or third time I have had it. I am not one of your fashionable pansies like Auden or Spender, I was six months in Spain, most of the time fighting, I have a bullet hole in me at present and I am not going to write blah about defending democracy or gallant little anybody... .

Several other writers also declined to contribute, including

Virginia Woolf Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer, considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors and a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device. Woolf was born i ...

Bertrand Russell Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British mathematician, philosopher, logician, and public intellectual. He had a considerable influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, linguistics, ...

E. M. Forster Edward Morgan Forster (1 January 1879 – 7 June 1970) was an English author, best known for his novels, particularly ''A Room with a View'' (1908), ''Howards End'' (1910), and ''A Passage to India'' (1924). He also wrote numerous short stori ...

, and

. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, Cunard worked, to the point of physical exhaustion, as a translator in London on behalf of the

French Resistance The French Resistance (french: La Résistance) was a collection of organisations that fought the German occupation of France during World War II, Nazi occupation of France and the Collaborationism, collaborationist Vichy France, Vichy régim ...

Later life

After the war, she gave up her home at Réanville and travelled extensively. In June 1948, she travelled from Trinidad to the United Kingdom, on board the . The voyage and the ship later became well-known because the other passengers on board included one of the first large groups of post-war

West Indian A West Indian is a native or inhabitant of the West Indies (the Antilles and the Lucayan Archipelago). For more than 100 years the words ''West Indian'' specifically described natives of the West Indies, but by 1661 Europeans had begun to use it ...

immigrants to the United Kingdom.

David Kynaston David Thomas Anthony Kynaston (; born 30 July 1951 in Aldershot) is an English historian specialising in the social history of England. Early life and education Kynaston was educated at Wellington College, Berkshire and New College, Oxford, fr ...

, ''Austerity Britain 1945–1951'', London: Bloomsbury, 2007, p. 276; . In September 1948 she started renting a small house in the French village Lamothe-Fénelon in the Dordogne Valley. In later years she suffered from mental illness and poor physical health, worsened by alcoholism, poverty, and self-destructive behaviour. She was committed to a mental hospital after a fight with London police. After her release, her health declined even further, and she weighed less than 60 pounds when she was found on the street in Paris and brought to the

, where she died two days later. Her body was returned to England for cremation and the remains were sent back to the Cimetière du Père-Lachaise in Paris. Her ashes rest in urn number 9016.

Tributes

's ''La Jeune Fille Sophistiquée'' (''Portrait de Nancy Cunard''), a polished bronze on a carved marble base (1932), sold in May 2018 for US$71 million (with fees) at Christie's New York, setting a world record auction price for the artist. According to an account of drafts of the poem "Nancy Cunard" by

Mina Loy Mina Loy (born Mina Gertrude Löwy; 27 December 1882 – 25 September 1966) was a British-born artist, writer, poet, playwright, novelist, painter, designer of lamps, and bohemian. She was one of the last of the first-generation modernists to ...

held in

Yale University Library The Yale University Library is the library system of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Originating in 1701 with the gift of several dozen books to a new "Collegiate School," the library's collection now contains approximately 14.9 milli ...

Works

*''Outlaws'' (1921), poems *''Sublunary'' (1923), poems *''Parallax'' (1925,

Hogarth Press The Hogarth Press is a book publishing imprint of Penguin Random House that was founded as an independent company in 1917 by British authors Leonard Woolf and Virginia Woolf. It was named after their house in Richmond (then in Surrey and now ...

), poems *''Poems (Two)'' (1925,

Aquila Press Aquila may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Aquila'', a series of books by S.P. Somtow * ''Aquila'', a 1997 book by Andrew Norriss * ''Aquila'' (children's magazine), a UK-based children's magazine * ''Aquila'' (journal), an orni ...

), poems *''Poems'' (1930) *''Black Man and White Ladyship'' (1931) polemic pamphlet *''Negro'' (1934) anthology of African literature and art, editor *''Authors Take Sides'' (1937) pamphlet, compiler *''Los poetas del mundo defienden al pueblo español'' (1937, Paris), co-editor with

*''The White Man's Duty: An analysis of the colonial question in the light of the Atlantic Charter'' (with

) (1942) *''Poems for France'', La France libre, London, 1944 and ''Poèmes à la France'', Seghers, Paris, 1947 *''Releve into Marquis'' (1944) *''Grand Man: Memories of Norman Douglas'' (1954) *''GM: Memories of George Moore'' (1956) *''These Were the Hours: Memories of My Hours Press, Réanville and Paris, 1928–1931'' (1969), autobiography *''Poems of Nancy Cunard: from the Bodleian Library'' (2005), edited with an introduction by John Lucas. *''Selected Poems'' (2016), edited with an introduction by

Sandeep Parmar Sandeep Parmar is a contemporary poet, who was born in Nottingham, England, and raised in Southern California. She currently lives in the UK. Parmar is a Professor of English Literature at the University of Liverpool. Her poetry collections incl ...

Notes

References

*Bankes, Ariane
"Nancy Cunard, Rebel Lover"
''

The Times Literary Supplement ''The Times Literary Supplement'' (''TLS'') is a weekly literary review published in London by News UK, a subsidiary of News Corp. History The ''TLS'' first appeared in 1902 as a supplement to ''The Times'' but became a separate publication i ...

'', 7 April 2007. (Review of Gordon.) *Chisholm, Anne. ''Nancy Cunard: A Biography''. 1979. New York: Penguin Books, 1981. * Fielding, Daphne. ''Those Remarkable Cunards, Emerald and Nancy'' (1968). *Ford, Hugh, ed. ''Nancy Cunard: Brave Poet, Indomitable Rebel 1896–1965'' (1968). *Gordon, Lois. ''Nancy Cunard: Heiress, Muse, Political Idealist''. New York: Columbia UP, 2007. (10). (13). * * Loy, Mina. "Nancy Cunard". 103 in ''The Lost Lunar Baedeker: Poems''. Selected and ed. Roger L. Conover. New York:

Farrar, Straus, and Giroux Farrar, Straus and Giroux (FSG) is an American book publishing company, founded in 1946 by Roger Williams Straus Jr. and John C. Farrar. FSG is known for publishing literary books, and its authors have won numerous awards, including Pulitze ...

, 1996. *Lyden, Jackie
"Nancy Cunard: Rebellious Heiress, Inspired Life"
Interview of Lois Gordon and featured excerpts from her biography of Cunard (includes NPR Media Player link). ''

All Things Considered ''All Things Considered'' (''ATC'') is the flagship news program on the American network National Public Radio (NPR). It was the first news program on NPR, premiering on May 3, 1971. It is broadcast live on NPR affiliated stations in the United ...

''.

National Public Radio National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other n ...

. 21 July 2007. Accessed 30 January 2008. *Mackrell, Judith. ''Flappers: Six Women of a Dangerous Generation''. 2013. * Weber, Caroline
"The Rebel Heiress"
''

'', 1 April 2007. 2 pages. (Review of Gordon.) *Weiss, Andrea. ''Paris Was a Woman: Portraits from the Left Bank'' (2001).

External links

Nancy Cunard
– Biography on ''SchoolNet'' at

Spartacus Educational Spartacus Educational is a free online encyclopedia with essays and other educational material on a wide variety of historical subjects principally British history from 1700 and the history of the United States. Based in the United Kingdom, Spart ...

. Accessed 30 January 2008.
Henry Crowder and Nancy Cunard

Nancy Cunard's Collection
at th
Harry Ransom Center
at

the University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

. Retrieved 30 January 2008.
Nancy Cunard correspondence and other archival material
at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Special Collections Research Center * {{DEFAULTSORT:Cunard, Nancy 1896 births 1965 deaths British people of the Spanish Civil War Burials at Père Lachaise Cemetery English polo players English women poets English people of American descent Women in the Spanish Civil War English anti-fascists 20th-century English poets 20th-century English women writers Fairbairn family Nancy Private press movement people Daughters of baronets