Alice Meynell

Alice Meynell (September 22, 1847 – November 27, 1922) was an English writer and suffragist, now remembered mainly as a poet.

She was born Alice Christiana Gertrude Thompson, in Barnes, London, to Thomas James and Christiana (nee Weller) Thompson. The family moved from England, Switzerland, and France, but she was brought up mostly in Italy. 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).

After Alice, following inline with the entire Thompson family, converted to the Roman Catholic Church (1868 to 1880), her writings migrated to subjects of religious matters. This would eventually lead her to a Catholic newspaper publisher and editor Wilfrid Meynell (1852 – 1948) in 1876. A year later (1877) she would marry Meynell, and settle in Kensington. They became proprietor and editor of the The Pen, the Weekly Register, Merry England, and other magazines. Alice and Wilfrid would have a family of eight children (Sebastian, Monica, Everard, Madeleine, Viola, Vivian (who died at three months), Olivia, and Francis. Viola Meynell (1885–1956) would go on to become an author in her own right, and the youngest child Francis Meynell (1891–1975) is the poet and printer at the Nonesuch Press).

During this time 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.

Francis Thompson down and out in London, 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 would become a supporter of Thompson. His 1893 book Poems was a Meynell production and initiative.

At the end of the nineteenth century, in conjunction with uprisings against the British (among them; the Indian’s, the Zulu’s, the Boxer Rebellion, and the Muslim revolt lead by Muhammad Ahmed in the Sudan), many European scholars, writers, and artists, (especially Catholic’s) began to question Europe’s colonial imperialism, and its attempt to rule the world. This would lead Alice, Wilfrid, Elizabeth, and others in their circle to speak out for the oppressed. Eventually Alice was a leading figure in the Women Writers' Suffrage League, active 1908 to 1919, founded by Cicely Hamilton.

After a series of illnesses, she passed away 27 November 1922. She is buried at Kensal Green Catholic Cemetery, London, England.

Works

• Preludes (1875) poems
• The Rhythm of Life (1893) essays
• Poems (1893),
• Holman Hunt (1893)
• Selected Poems of Thomas Gordon Hake (1894) editor
• The Colour of Life and other Essays (1896)
• Poetry of Pathos and Delight by Coventry Patmore (1896) editor
• The Flower of the Mind (1897) anthology.
• The Children (1897) essays
• The Spirit of Place (1898) essays
• London Impressions (1898) and
• Ruskin (1900)
• Later Poems (1901)
• The Work of John S. Sargent (1903)
• The Second Person Singular (1921)
• Prose and Poetry (1947) introduction Vita Sackville-West, various editors

External Links:

• Alice's Bio @ the University of Virginia