Isobel Violet Hunt (28 September 1862 – 16 January 1942) was a British author and literary hostess. She wrote feminist novels. She founded the Women Writers' Suffrage League in 1908 and participated in the founding of

International PEN PEN International (known as International PEN until 2010) is a worldwide association of writers, founded in London in 1921 to promote friendship and intellectual co-operation among writers everywhere. The association has autonomous Internationa ...

Biography

Hunt was born in

Durham Durham most commonly refers to: *Durham, England, a cathedral city and the county town of County Durham *County Durham, an English county * Durham County, North Carolina, a county in North Carolina, United States *Durham, North Carolina, a city in N ...

. Her father was the artist

Alfred William Hunt Alfred William Hunt (15 November 1830 – 3 May 1896), was a British painter. He was son of the landscapist Andrew Hunt. Biography Hunt was born in Liverpool in 1830. He began to paint while at the Liverpool Collegiate School. However at h ...

, her mother the novelist and translator

Margaret Raine Hunt Margaret Hunt (née Raine; 1831–1912) was a British novelist and translator of the tales of the Brothers Grimm. Life Margaret Raine, was born in Durham, England, 1831. She was the daughter of James Raine and sister to James Raine the younger, ...

. The family moved to London in 1865 and she was brought up in the

Pre-Raphaelite The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (later known as the Pre-Raphaelites) was a group of English painters, poets, and art critics, founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti, James ...

group, knowing

John Ruskin John Ruskin (8 February 1819 20 January 1900) was an English writer, philosopher, art critic and polymath of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany and politi ...

and

William Morris William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896) was a British textile designer, poet, artist, novelist, architectural conservationist, printer, translator and socialist activist associated with the British Arts and Crafts Movement. He ...

. There is a story that

Oscar Wilde Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is ...

, a friend and correspondent, proposed to her in

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...

in 1879; the significance of this event requires her to have been old enough to get engaged at that time, leading us to her correct birth date of 1862 (not 1866 as often given). Hunt's writings ranged over a number of literary forms, including short stories, novels, memoir, and biography. She was an active feminist, and her novels ''The Maiden's Progress'' and ''A Hard Woman'' were works of the

New Woman The New Woman was a feminist ideal that emerged in the late 19th century and had a profound influence well into the 20th century. In 1894, Irish writer Sarah Grand (1854–1943) used the term "new woman" in an influential article, to refer to ...

genre, while her short story collection ''Tales of the Uneasy'' is an example of

supernatural fiction Supernatural fiction or supernaturalist fiction is a genre of speculative fiction that exploits or is centered on supernatural themes, often contradicting naturalist assumptions of the real world. Description In its broadest definition, supe ...

. Her novel ''White Rose of Weary Leaf'' is regarded as her best work, while her biography of

Elizabeth Siddal Elizabeth Eleanor Siddall (25 July 1829 – 11 February 1862), better known as Elizabeth Siddal, was an English artist, poet, and artists' model. Significant collections of her artworks can be found at Wightwick Manor and the Ashmolean. Siddal ...

is considered unreliable, with animus against Siddal's husband,

Dante Gabriel Rossetti Gabriel Charles Dante Rossetti (12 May 1828 – 9 April 1882), generally known as Dante Gabriel Rossetti (), was an English poet, illustrator, painter, translator and member of the Rossetti family. He founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhoo ...

. She was also active in writers' organisations, founding the Women Writers' Suffrage League in 1908 and participated in the founding of

in 1921.Barbara Belford, "Hunt, (Isabel) Violet", in ''The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', H.C.G. Matthew and Brian Harrison, eds. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), vol. 28, p. 875. Despite her considerable literary output, Hunt's reputation rests more with the literary salons she held at her home, South Lodge, in

Campden Hill Campden Hill is a hill in Kensington, West London, bounded by Holland Park Avenue on the north, Kensington High Street on the south, Kensington Palace Gardens on the east and Abbotsbury Road on the west. The name derives from the former ''Campde ...

. Among her guests were

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 ...

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 ...

Joseph Conrad Joseph Conrad (born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, ; 3 December 1857 – 3 August 1924) was a Poles in the United Kingdom#19th century, Polish-British novelist and short story writer. He is regarded as one of the greatest writers in t ...

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'' ( ...

D. H. Lawrence David Herbert Lawrence (11 September 1885 – 2 March 1930) was an English writer, novelist, poet and essayist. His works reflect on modernity, industrialization, sexuality, emotional health, vitality, spontaneity and instinct. His best-k ...

, and

Henry James Henry James ( – ) was an American-British author. He is regarded as a key transitional figure between literary realism and literary modernism, and is considered by many to be among the greatest novelists in the English language. He was the ...

. She helped

Ford Madox Hueffer Ford Madox Ford (né Joseph Leopold Ford Hermann Madox Hueffer ( ); 17 December 1873 – 26 June 1939) was an English novelist, poet, critic and editor whose journals ''The English Review'' and ''The Transatlantic Review (1924), The Transatlant ...

(later known as Ford Madox Ford) establish ''

The English Review ''The English Review'' was an English-language literary magazine published in London from 1908 to 1937. At its peak, the journal published some of the leading writers of its day. History The magazine was started by 1908 by Ford Madox Hueffer (lat ...

'' in 1908. Many of these people were subsequently characterised in her novels, most notably ''Their Lives'' and ''Their Hearts''. Though never married, Hunt carried on a number of relationships, mostly with older men. Among her lovers were

Somerset Maugham William Somerset Maugham ( ; 25 January 1874 – 16 December 1965) was an English writer, known for his plays, novels and short stories. Born in Paris, where he spent his first ten years, Maugham was schooled in England and went to a German un ...

and

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

The Good Soldier ''The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passion'' is a 1915 novel by the British writer Ford Madox Ford. It is set just before World War I, and chronicles the tragedy of Edward Ashburnham and his seemingly perfect marriage, along with that of his two A ...

'' and as the promiscuous Sylvia Tietjens in his tetralogy ''

Parade's End ''Parade's End'' is a tetralogy of novels by the British novelist and poet Ford Madox Ford, written from 1924 to 1928. The novels chronicle the life of a member of the English gentry before, during and after World War I. The setting is mainly ...

''. She was also the inspiration for the character Rose Waterfield in Somerset Maugham's novel ''

The Moon and Sixpence ''The Moon and Sixpence'' is a novel by W. Somerset Maugham, first published on 15 April 1919. It is told in episodic form by a first-person narrator providing a series of glimpses into the mind and soul of the central character, Charles Stric ...

'' and Norah Nesbit in ''

Of Human Bondage ''Of Human Bondage'' is a 1915 novel by W. Somerset Maugham. The novel is generally agreed to be Maugham's masterpiece and to be strongly autobiographical in nature, although he stated, "This is a novel, not an autobiography; though much in i ...

''. She is also the basis for Claire Temple, the central character of Norah Hoult's ''There Were No Windows'' (1944). Alfred William Hunt Grave

Hunt also wrote two collections of supernatural stories, ''Tales of the Uneasy'' and ''More Tales of the Uneasy''. ''Tales of the Uneasy'' was described by

E. F. Bleiler Everett Franklin Bleiler (April 30, 1920 – June 13, 2010) was an American editor, bibliographer, and scholar of science fiction, detective fiction, and fantasy literature. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, he co-edited the first "year's best" s ...

as containing "Excellent stories, in which the supernatural is used as a technical device to indicate ironies of fate and the intimate relationship of life and death." ''Tales of the Uneasy'' was also included by horror historian R. S. Hadji on his list of "unjustly neglected" horror books. Violet Hunt died of

pneumonia Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of productive or dry cough, chest pain, fever, and difficulty breathing. The severity ...

in her home in 1942. Her grave and those of her parents is at

Brookwood Cemetery Brookwood Cemetery, also known as the London Necropolis, is a burial ground in Brookwood, Surrey, England. It is the largest cemetery in the United Kingdom and one of the largest in Europe. The cemetery is listed a Grade I site in the Regist ...

Works

*''The Maiden's Progress'' (1894) *''A Hard Woman, a Story in Scenes'' (1895) *''The Way of Marriage'' (1896) *''Unkist, Unkind!'' (1897) *''The Human Interest – A Study in Incompatibilities'' (1899) *''Affairs of the Heart'' (1900) stories *''The Celebrity at Home'' (1904) *''Sooner Or Later'' (1904)
''The Cat''
(1905)
''The Workaday Woman''
(1906)
''White Rose Of Weary Leaf''
(1908)
''The Wife of Altamont''
(1910) *''The Life Story of a Cat'' (1910)
''Tales of the Uneasy''
(1911) stories *''The Doll'' (1911) *''The Governess'' (1912) with

*''The Celebrity's Daughter'' (1913) *''The Desirable Alien'' (1913) (with Ford Madox Hueffer) *''The House of Many Mirrors'' (1915) *''Zeppelin Nights: A London Entertainment'' (1916) with

*''Their Lives'' (1916)
''The Last Ditch''
(1918) *''Their Hearts'' (1921) *''Tiger Skin'' (1924) stories *''More Tales of The Uneasy'' (1925) stories *''The Flurried Years'' (1926) autobiography, (U.S., ''I Have This To Say'') *''The Wife of Rossetti – Her Life and Death'' (1932) *''Return of the Good Soldier: Ford Madox Ford and Violet Hunt's 1917 Diary'' (1983) (with Ford Madox Ford)

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Hunt, Violet British women short story writers British women novelists 1862 births 1942 deaths English horror writers People educated at Notting Hill & Ealing High School People from Durham, England Writers from London 19th-century British novelists 19th-century British women writers 19th-century British writers 20th-century British novelists 20th-century British women writers Women horror writers 19th-century British short story writers 20th-century British short story writers Burials at Brookwood Cemetery Members of the Fabian Society British socialist feminists British salon-holders

Biography

Works

Further reading

References

External links