Lady ottoline morrell biography of abraham lincoln
Lady Ottoline Morrell
English aristocrat (–)
Lady Ottoline Morrell | |
|---|---|
Morrell in | |
| Born | Ottoline Violet Anne Cavendish-Bentinck ()16 June Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England |
| Died | 21 April () (aged&#;64) London, England |
| Nationality | British |
| Education | Somerville College, Oxford |
| Occupation(s) | Aristocrat, society hostess and patron |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 2 |
Lady Ottoline Violet Anne Morrell (néeCavendish-Bentinck; 16 June – 21 April ) was an English aristocrat and society hostess.
Her patronage was influential in artistic and intellectual circles, where she befriended writers including Aldous Huxley, Siegfried Sassoon, T. S. Eliot and D. H. Lawrence, and artists including Mark Gertler, Dora Carrington and Gilbert Spencer.
Early life
Born Ottoline Violet Anne Cavendish-Bentinck, she was the daughter of Lieutenant-General Arthur Cavendish-Bentinck (son of Lord and Lady Charles Bentinck) and his second wife, the former Augusta Browne, later created Baroness Bolsover.
Lady Ottoline's great-great-uncle (through her paternal grandmother, Lady Charles Bentinck) was the 1st Duke of Wellington. Through her father, Arthur, she was a first cousin once removed of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, and thus a first cousin twice removed of Queen Elizabeth II, both of whom descended from Arthur's brother Charles Cavendish-Bentinck.[1][2]
Ottoline was granted the rank of a daughter of a duke with the courtesy title of "Lady" soon after her half-brother William succeeded to the Dukedom of Portland in ,[2][3] at which time the family moved into Welbeck Abbey in Nottinghamshire.
The dukedom was a title which belonged to the head of the Cavendish-Bentinck family and which passed to Lady Ottoline's branch upon the death of their cousin, the 5th Duke of Portland, in December [2]
In , Ottoline began studying political economy and Roman history as an out-student at Somerville College, Oxford.[4]
Notable love affairs
Morrell was known to have had many lovers.
Her first love affair was with an older man, the physician and writer Axel Munthe,[5] but she rejected his impulsive proposal of marriage because her spiritual beliefs were incompatible with his atheism. In February , she married the MP Philip Morrell,[6] with whom she shared a passion for art and a strong interest in Liberal politics.
They had what would now be known as an open marriage for the rest of their lives.[7]
Philip's extramarital affairs produced several children who were cared for by his wife, who also struggled to conceal evidence of his mental instability.[7] The Morrells themselves had two children (twins): a son, Hugh, who died in infancy; and a daughter, Julian,[7] whose first marriage was to Victor Goodman and second marriage was to Igor Vinogradoff.[8]
Morrell had a long affair with philosopherBertrand Russell,[9][10] with whom she exchanged more than 3, letters.[11] She also had an affair with Virginia Woolf.[12]
Her lovers may have included the painters Augustus John[13] and Henry Lamb,[10][14] the artist Dora Carrington, and the art historian Roger Fry.[7][10]
In her later years she had a brief affair with a gardener, Lionel Gomme, who was employed at Garsington.[10] According to some literary critics, the fling of Morrell with "Tiger", a young stonemason who came to carve plinths for her garden statues, influenced the story in D.
H. Lawrence's novel Lady Chatterley's Lover.[15]
Her circle of friends included many authors, artists, sculptors, and poets.[10] Her work as a patron was enduring and influential, notably in her contribution to the Contemporary Art Society during its early years.
Hospitality
The Morrells maintained a townhouse in Bedford Square[16] in Bloomsbury and also owned a country house at Peppard, near Henley on Thames.
Selling the house at Peppard in , they subsequently bought and restored Garsington Manor near Oxford. Morrell delighted in opening both as havens for like-minded people. Of Garsington, she said, "it seemed good to gather round us young and enthusiastic pacifists."[17] 44 Bedford Square served as her London salon, while Garsington provided a convenient retreat, near enough to London for many of their friends to join them for weekends.
She took a keen interest in the work of young contemporary artists, such as Stanley Spencer, and she was particularly close to Mark Gertler and Dora Carrington, who were regular visitors to Garsington during the war.[18]Gilbert Spencer lived for a while in a house on the Garsington estate.
During World War I, the Morrells were pacifists.
They invited conscientious objectors such as Duncan Grant, Clive Bell and Lytton Strachey to take refuge at Garsington. Siegfried Sassoon, recuperating there after an injury, was encouraged to go absent without leave as a protest against the war.
The hospitality offered by the Morrells was such that most of their guests had no suspicion that they were in financial difficulties.
Many of them assumed that Ottoline was a wealthy woman. This was far from being the case and during , the Morrells were compelled to sell the manor house and its estate, and move to more modest quarters in Gower Street, London. In , she was diagnosed with cancer, which resulted in a long hospitalisation and the removal of her lower teeth and part of her jaw.[19]
Later life
Later, Lady Ottoline remained a regular host to the adherents of the Bloomsbury Group, in particular Virginia Woolf, and to many other artists and authors, who included W.
B. Yeats, L. P. Hartley, and T. S. Eliot, and maintained an enduring friendship with Welsh painter Augustus John.
She was an influential patron to many of them, and a valued friend, who nevertheless attracted understandable mockery, due to her combination of eccentric attire with an aristocratic manner, extreme shyness and a deep religious faith that set her apart from her times.
In , Lady Ottoline was Vice President of The Eugenics Society, alongside writer and sexologist Henry Havelock Ellis, while Major Leonard Darwin, son of Charles Darwin, was President.
Her work as a decorator, colourist, and garden designer remains undervalued, but it was for her great gift for friendship that she was mourned when she died in April She died from an experimental drug given by a doctor.[20]
The novelist Henry Green wrote to Philip Morrell of "her love for all things true and beautiful which she had more than anyone no one can ever know the immeasurable good she did".[21]
Monuments carved by Eric Gill are in St Winifred's Church, Holbeck and St Mary's Church, Garsington.
A blue plaque in her honour was erected at her London home, 10 Gower Street, by the Greater London Council, in [22]
Literary legacy
Morrell wrote two volumes of memoirs,[23][24] but these were edited and revised after her death. She also maintained detailed journals, over a period of 20 years, which remain unpublished.
But perhaps Lady Ottoline's most interesting literary legacy is the wealth of representations of her that appear in 20th-century literature.
She was the inspiration for Mrs Bidlake in Aldous Huxley's Point Counter Point, for Hermione Roddice in D. H. Lawrence's Women in Love,[25] for Lady Caroline Bury in Graham Greene's It's a Battlefield,[26] and for Lady Sybilline Quarrell in Alan Bennett's Forty Years On.
The Coming Back (), another novel which portrays her, was written by Constance Malleson, one of Ottoline's many rivals for the affection of Bertrand Russell, as was Pugs and Peacocks () by Gabriel Cannan. Some critics consider her the inspiration for Lawrence's Lady Chatterley.[27]
Huxley's roman à clefCrome Yellow depicts the life at a thinly veiled Garsington, with a caricature of Lady Ottoline Morrell for which she never forgave him.[28]In Confidence, a short story by Katherine Mansfield, portrays the "wits of Garsington" some four years in advance of Crome Yellow, and with more wit than Huxley, according to Mansfield's biographer Antony Alpers.[29] Published in The New Age of 24 May , it was not reprinted until in Alpers' collection of her short stories.
Portrayals in the arts
Non-literary portraits are also part of this interesting legacy, as seen in the artistic photographs of her by Cecil Beaton. There are portraits by Henry Lamb, Duncan Grant, Augustus John, and others.
She is portrayed by Tilda Swinton in Derek Jarman's film Wittgenstein, by Roberta Taylor in Brian Gilbert's film Tom & Viv, by Penelope Wilton in Christopher Hampton's film Carrington and by Suzanne Bertish in Terence Davies' film Benediction.
The first production of a biographical play, Ottoline by Janet Bolam, took place in the gardens of Garsington Manor in July [30]
Photography
Morrell took hundreds of photographs of the people in her circle. Carolyn Heilbrun edited Lady Ottoline's Album (), a collection of snapshots and photographic portraits of Morrell and of her famous contemporaries, mostly taken by Morrell.
Lytton Strachey, –12
D.H. Lawrence,
Katherine Mansfield, –17
John Middleton Murry,
Duncan Grant,
Jean de Menasce, Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant, and Eric Siepmann,
Dora Carrington, Ralph Partridge, Lytton Strachey, Oliver Strachey, and Frances Partridge,
Virginia Woolf and T.
S. Eliot,
See also
References
- ^Foster, Joseph (–). "Bentinck, Rev. Charles William Cavendish"&#;. Alumni Oxonienses: the Members of the University of Oxford, –. Oxford: James Parker &#; via Wikisource.
- ^ abcBurke's Peerage (nd Ed., ), p.
- ^"No. ". The London Gazette.Lady ottoline morrell biography of abraham lincoln author Lady Morrell had multiple lovers, including writer and philosopher Bertrand Russell, artists Roger Fry and Augustus John, and artist Dora Carrington bisexuality was common among members of the Bloomsbury Group. Strachey claimed that Lamb was "a genius there can be no doubt, but whether a good or an evil one? Even her other friends and recipients of her generosity in Bloomsbury frequently made fun of her, which upset Carrington greatly. Lawrence later commented on Ottoline's desire for sexual relationships with men: "She had no natural sufficiency, there was a terrible void, a lack, a deficiency of being within her.
10 February p.&#;
- ^Ottoline Morrell – Spartacus Educational
- ^Rolphe, Katie. Uncommon Arrangements: Seven Marriages, Random House Digital, Inc.: New York, , p.
- ^"Court circular". The Times. No.&#; London.Lady ottoline morrell biography of abraham lincoln Retrieved 10 September I was dismal enough about Mark and then suddenly without any warning Philip Morrell after dinner asked me to walk round the pond with him and started without any preface, to say, how disappointed he had been to hear I was a virgin! She left a message to her friends "not to send any wreaths for my dead body, but gladden my soul for the poor and destitute - those who have no shelter". Morrell was known to have had many lovers.
10 February p.&#;6.
- ^ abcdRolphe, Katie. Uncommon Arrangements: Seven Marriages, Random House Digital, Inc.: New York,
- ^"Julian Ottoline Vinogradoff (née Morrell) – Person – National Portrait Gallery".
Retrieved 11 September
- ^Moran, Margaret (). "Bertrand Russell Meets His Muse: The Impact of Lady Ottoline Morrell (–12)".
Biography of john f. kennedy: An entertaining new novel explores if women working on OnlyFans are victims or savvy capitalists. She showed it to Walter Sickert , and described Gertler "standing by his picture, thin, erect and trembling internally, if not externally, at the excitement of having his work looked at and discussed by anyone like Sickert, whom he so respected. This was a shock to Ottoline, but it did not affect the immense loyalty that they both had to the marriage, which stood the test of time and was strong enough to survive their considerably involved love affairs with other people. Miranda Seymour has argued: "Ottoline's flaws remain more immediately apparent than her virtues.
McMaster University Library Press. Archived from the original on 11 May Retrieved 1 March
- ^ abcdeCaws, Mary Ann and Wright, Sarah Bird. Bloomsbury and France: Art and Friends New York: Oxford University Press,
- ^"BRACERS".
. Retrieved 31 January
- ^Essen, Leah Rachel von (1 July ). "Who Was Virginia Woolf? From Her Craft to Her Lovers".Lady ottoline morrell biography of abraham lincoln for kids McMaster University Library Press. The character of Lady Ottoline Morrell is reflected in various works of 20th-century English literature. Virginia was especially impressed with Ottoline and confessed to Violet Dickinson that their relationship was like "sitting under a huge lily, absorbing pollen like a seduced bee. His and Carrington's introduction to the Bloomsbury group involved Marsh.
BOOK RIOT. Retrieved 10 September
- ^"Lady Ottoline Morrell". National Portrait Gallery. Retrieved 24 July
- ^Felix, David. Keynes: A Critical Life, Greenwood Press: Westport, CT, p.
- ^Kennedy, Maev (10 October ), "The real Lady Chatterley: society hostess loved and parodied by Bloomsbury group", The Guardian, London, retrieved 19 June .
- ^Plaque # on Open Plaques
- ^Morrell, Ottoline ().
Gathorne-Hardy, Robert (ed.). Ottoline at Garsington: Memoirs of Lady Ottoline Morrell, . New York: Alfred A. Knopf. p.&#; ISBN&#;.
- ^Haycock, David Boyd (). A Crisis of Brilliance: Five Young British Artists and the Great War. London: Old Street Publishing.
- ^Curtis, Vanessa ().
Virginia Woolf's Women. Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, p. ISBN&#;
- ^Thomasson, Anna (). A Curious Friendship: The Story of a Bluestocking and a Bright Young Thing. London: Macmillan. ISBN&#;. OCLC&#;
- ^Miranda Seymour, Ottoline Morrell: Life on the Grand Scale, p.
- ^"MORRELL, LADY OTTOLINE (–)". English Heritage. Retrieved 12 September
- ^Morrell, Ottoline (). Gathorn-Hardy, Robert (ed.). Ottoline: The early memoirs of Lady Ottoline Morrell. London: Faber and Faber.
- ^Morrell, Ottoline (). Gathorne-Hardy, Robert (ed.).
Ottoline at Garsington: Memoirs of Lady Ottoline Morrell . New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN&#;.
- ^Amos, William (). The originals: Who's really who in fiction. London: Sphere. pp.&#;–
- ^Amos, William (). The originals: Who's really who in fiction.
London: Sphere. p.&#;
- ^Kennedy, Maev (10 October ). "The real Lady Chatterley: society hostess loved and parodied by Bloomsbury group", The Guardian.Biography of abraham lincoln books In the Morrells rented a second home, Peppard Cottage. Ottoline also received advice from the art collector, Edward Marsh and the writer, Gilbert Cannan. The couple settled at 39 Grosvenor Road. Virginia was especially impressed with Ottoline and confessed to Violet Dickinson that their relationship was like "sitting under a huge lily, absorbing pollen like a seduced bee.
Retrieved December 30,
- ^Bartłomiej Biegajło, Totalitarian (In)Experience in Literary Works and Their Translations, Cambridge Scholars Publishing , p
- ^Alpers, Antony (). The life of Katherine Mansfield. London: Jonathan Cape. p.&#; ISBN&#;.
- ^Pawsey, Jan.
"Lady Morrell and her bohemians amok in Garsington Manor". Retrieved 8 July
Further reading
- Darroch, Sandra Jobson (). Ottoline: The life of Lady Ottoline Morrell. Coward, McCann & Geoghegan. ISBN&#;.
- Darroch, Sandra Jobson ().
Garsington revisited&#;: The legend of Lady Ottoline Morrell brought up-to-date. Herts: John Libbey.
< - Fraser, Inga () "Body, Room, Photograph: negotiating identity in the self-portraits of Lady Ottoline Morrell", Biography and the Modern Interior, edited by Anne Massey and Penny Sparke, pp.
69–85
- Seymour, Miranda (). Ottoline Morrell: Life on the Grand Scale. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux. ISBN&#;.