Skip to Content

Violet Hunt Letters

 Collection — Box: VMF 9, Folder: 7
Identifier: MS-VMF-vmf083

Correspondence from Violet Hunt

Dates

  • Creation: 1916

Creator

Conditions Governing Access

Open

Conditions Governing Use

Users of the collection must read and agree to abide by the rules and procedures set forth in the Materials Use Policies.

Providing access to materials does not constitute permission to publish or otherwise authorize use. All publication not covered by fair use or other exceptions is restricted to those who have permission of the copyright holder, which may or may not be Washington University.

If you wish to publish or license Special Collections materials, please contact Special Collections to inquire about copyright status at (314) 935-5495 or spec@wumail.wustl.edu. (Publish means quotation in whole or in part in seminar or term papers, theses or dissertations, journal articles, monographs, books, digital forms, photographs, images, dramatic presentations, transcriptions, or any other form prepared for a limited or general public.)

Extent

2.00 items

1 folders

Biographical Information

Isobel Violet Hunt (September 28, 1862 –January 16, 1942) was a British author and literary hostess. Her father was the artist Alfred William Hunt, her mother the novelist and translator Margaret Raine Hunt. Hunt was born in Durham and the family moved to London in 1865. Hunt's writings ranged over a number of literary forms, including short stories, novels, memoir, and biography. An active feminist, her novels The Maiden's Progress and A Hard Woman were works of the New Woman genre, while her short story collection Tales of the Uneasy is an example of supernatural fiction. Her novel White Rose of Weary Leaf is regarded as her best work, while biography of Elizabeth Siddall is considered unreliable. She was also active in writers organizations, founding the Women Writers' Suffrage League in 1908 and participating in the founding of International PEN in 1921.

Despite her considerable literary output, Violet Hunt's reputation rests more with the literary salons she held at her home, South Lodge, in Campden Hill. Among her guests were Rebecca West, Ezra Pound, Joseph Conrad, Wyndham Lewis, D. H. Lawrence, and Henry James. She helped Ford Madox Ford establish The English Review in 1908. Many of these people were subsequently characterized in her novels, most notably Their Lives and Their Hearts.

Though never married, Violet Hunt carried on a number of relationships, mostly with older men. Among her lovers were Somerset Maugham and H. G. Wells, though her most notable affair was with the married Ford Madox Ford, who lived with her from about 1910 to 1918 at her home South Lodge (a period including his brief 1911 imprisonment). She was fictionalized by Ford in two novels: as the scheming Florence Dowell in The Good Soldier and as the shrewish Sylvia Tietjens in Ford's tetralogy Parade's End. She was also the inspiration for the character Rose Waterfield in W. Somerset Maugham's novel The Moon and Sixpence and Nora Nesbit in Of Human Bondage. Violet Hunt died of pneumonia in her home in 1942.

Method of Acquisition

Accession number 1313 (Correspondence to E.S.P. Haynes) Purchased from Covent Garden Bookshop, October 26, 1971

Accession number 1353 (Correspondence to Miss Veloin). Purchased from Bertram Rota Ltd Booksellers, October 1972

Related Materials

See also Ford Madox Ford Papers

Processing Information

Processed October 1972 by Holly Hall

Title
Violet Hunt Letters
Description rules
dacs
Language of description
eng

Revision Statements

  • 2021 March 17: Resource record updated in ArchiveSpace by Sarah Schnuriger.

Collecting Area Details

Part of the Manuscripts Collecting Area

Contact:
Joel Minor
Olin Library, 1 Brookings Drive
MSC 1061-141-B
St. Louis MO 63130 US
(314) 935-5495