I don't know whether this is a shameful episode in my family history or not. You be the judge.
First there are several extracts from comments, usually from feminist writers, about an element of the sequence of novels by Dorothy Richardson. "Pilgrimage". The lead character is the authoress' alter-ego Miriam.
"Blissful too, in Dawn’s Left Hand, are several memories of time spent with Jan and Mag, Miriam’s modern female friends who live together in intimate informality, seemingly always in camisoles and knickers, smoking, cooking for themselves or bicycling daringly round their Bloomsbury Square."
"Miriam hungrily eyes the next course arriving at the sideboard, all the while amusing her hosts, as expected of a holiday guest, with tales of colourful London. And, to offer another,[example]: in the flat of her lesbian London friends Jan and Mag, Miriam hungrily consumes a bowl of “desiccated” soup at their concerted urgings, but only after first observing the soup’s unseemly presentation in sugar basin, pudding basin, and slop bowl "
"There is a remarkable sense of newfound freedom as she makes friends; attends public lectures at the Royal Society; learns to ride a bike - the latter quite daring for late Victorian times, but obviously exhilarating, as described by Miriam's secretary friend Mag: "You feel like a sprite you are so light, and you feel so strong and capable and so broadshouldered you could knock down a policeman. Jan and I knocked down several last night." Richardson had a good ear for conversation, and despite her deep distrust of easy witticism, she does allow the reader some lighter moments (for instance in the shape of the Jan and Mag secretarial double-act)."
"Richardson has an open broad horizon. Jan and Mag make money by having sex with men and she's not bothered about this."
"The stage is carefully set by a visit Miriam pays to her friends Jan and Mag (Johnny Schleussner and Mabel Heath) on ... the top floor of a Bloomsbury building, which they have just learned is a quietly conducted, lucrative house of prostitution."
So there you have it, the real life people on whom Dorothy Richardson based the "modern" pair, Jan and Mag, were Ellie Schluessner and my great-aunt Alice Mabel Heath. This is also an identification given in M.C. Rintoul's book "Dictionary of Real People and Places in Fiction".
It is said that Dorothy Richardson first meets them in 1896 when she first arrives in London. Certainly the Census of 1901 has the pair of them sharing a flat at 43, Bernard Street in Bloomsbury (still there). Alice Mabel is 29 and Ellie 30. Ellie has translated Strindberg into English as well as other authors. I have a copy of her translation of Strindberg's book of short stories called in English "Marriage". She also wrote an Introduction to her translation of Emil Lucka's "The Evolution of Love" which is larded with references to Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Plato and others of relative obscurity to a peasant like me. Here is a quote
"At the Court of the Viscountess Ermengarde of Narbonne, the question whether the love between lovers was greater than the love between husband and wife was settled as follows: "Nature and custom have erected an insuperable barrier between conjugal affection and the love which unites two lovers. It would be absurd to draw comparisons between two things which have neither resemblance nor connection."
What about Mabel? In 1913 she married Erich Koopman and as Mrs. Koopman was elevated to artistic status as follows:
"With the three founders ( of The Critics Circle, still going strong) being drama critics it was perhaps natural, if a little unkind, that the music members were styled the Music Committee (created in 1918 with Herman Klein as its chairman) whereas the drama representatives were named members, an anomaly not put right until many years later, In 1916 women were admitted to membership, The first lady members were Mrs Mabel Koopman who wrote for The Era and Mrs Cora Lawrence who wrote for Town Topics."
Not bad for two lesbian ladies of ill repute!!!!!!!allegedly.
43, Bernard Street features in another literary episode. It is the address that Bertrand Russell goes to with "Colette", his actress friend, the Lady Constance Malleson, who he is having an affair with after the falling-out with Lady Ottoline Morell.
First there are several extracts from comments, usually from feminist writers, about an element of the sequence of novels by Dorothy Richardson. "Pilgrimage". The lead character is the authoress' alter-ego Miriam.
"Blissful too, in Dawn’s Left Hand, are several memories of time spent with Jan and Mag, Miriam’s modern female friends who live together in intimate informality, seemingly always in camisoles and knickers, smoking, cooking for themselves or bicycling daringly round their Bloomsbury Square."
"Miriam hungrily eyes the next course arriving at the sideboard, all the while amusing her hosts, as expected of a holiday guest, with tales of colourful London. And, to offer another,[example]: in the flat of her lesbian London friends Jan and Mag, Miriam hungrily consumes a bowl of “desiccated” soup at their concerted urgings, but only after first observing the soup’s unseemly presentation in sugar basin, pudding basin, and slop bowl "
"There is a remarkable sense of newfound freedom as she makes friends; attends public lectures at the Royal Society; learns to ride a bike - the latter quite daring for late Victorian times, but obviously exhilarating, as described by Miriam's secretary friend Mag: "You feel like a sprite you are so light, and you feel so strong and capable and so broadshouldered you could knock down a policeman. Jan and I knocked down several last night." Richardson had a good ear for conversation, and despite her deep distrust of easy witticism, she does allow the reader some lighter moments (for instance in the shape of the Jan and Mag secretarial double-act)."
"Richardson has an open broad horizon. Jan and Mag make money by having sex with men and she's not bothered about this."
"The stage is carefully set by a visit Miriam pays to her friends Jan and Mag (Johnny Schleussner and Mabel Heath) on ... the top floor of a Bloomsbury building, which they have just learned is a quietly conducted, lucrative house of prostitution."
So there you have it, the real life people on whom Dorothy Richardson based the "modern" pair, Jan and Mag, were Ellie Schluessner and my great-aunt Alice Mabel Heath. This is also an identification given in M.C. Rintoul's book "Dictionary of Real People and Places in Fiction".
It is said that Dorothy Richardson first meets them in 1896 when she first arrives in London. Certainly the Census of 1901 has the pair of them sharing a flat at 43, Bernard Street in Bloomsbury (still there). Alice Mabel is 29 and Ellie 30. Ellie has translated Strindberg into English as well as other authors. I have a copy of her translation of Strindberg's book of short stories called in English "Marriage". She also wrote an Introduction to her translation of Emil Lucka's "The Evolution of Love" which is larded with references to Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Plato and others of relative obscurity to a peasant like me. Here is a quote
"At the Court of the Viscountess Ermengarde of Narbonne, the question whether the love between lovers was greater than the love between husband and wife was settled as follows: "Nature and custom have erected an insuperable barrier between conjugal affection and the love which unites two lovers. It would be absurd to draw comparisons between two things which have neither resemblance nor connection."
What about Mabel? In 1913 she married Erich Koopman and as Mrs. Koopman was elevated to artistic status as follows:
"With the three founders ( of The Critics Circle, still going strong) being drama critics it was perhaps natural, if a little unkind, that the music members were styled the Music Committee (created in 1918 with Herman Klein as its chairman) whereas the drama representatives were named members, an anomaly not put right until many years later, In 1916 women were admitted to membership, The first lady members were Mrs Mabel Koopman who wrote for The Era and Mrs Cora Lawrence who wrote for Town Topics."
Not bad for two lesbian ladies of ill repute!!!!!!!allegedly.
43, Bernard Street features in another literary episode. It is the address that Bertrand Russell goes to with "Colette", his actress friend, the Lady Constance Malleson, who he is having an affair with after the falling-out with Lady Ottoline Morell.
- very Dickensian - but was baled out by family members. Her husband my 4xgreat grandfather was a soldier of fortune and disappeared abroad. But his eldest son (my 3xgg) opted for respectability, became a Freeman of the City of London at 30 and was a member of the Spectaclemakers Company of London - his son became an architect.....
- thanks, I may well have - there was a greatgrandfather named James Irving who sounds as if he ought to be - but he's very elusive, I know only the barest facts about him so far
Comment