- Winifred Holtby
Winifred Holtby (June 23 ,1898 -September 29 ,1935 ) was an English novelist and journalist.Born to a prosperous farming family in the village of
Rudston ,Yorkshire . Holtby was educated at home by a governess and then at Queen Margaret's School in Scarborough. Although she passed the entrance exam forSomerville College, Oxford in 1917;World War I changed her plans. In early 1918, she joined the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC), but soon after she arrived in France, the war came to an end.In 1919, she returned to Somerville and met
Vera Brittain , later to be the author of "Testament of Youth " (1933) and the mother of politician Baroness Shirley Williams of Crosby (b 1930). Holtby and Brittain maintained a lifelong friendship. After graduation from Oxford, in 1921 they moved toLondon hoping to establish themselves as writers. Holtby's early novels - "Anderby Wold" (1923), "The Crowded Street" (1924) and "The Land of Green Ginger" (1927) - met with moderate success.Holtby was also a prolific journalist and, over the next decade and a half, she wrote for more than 20 newspapers and magazines, including the feminist journal "Time and Tide" and the "
Manchester Guardian " newspaper.She wrote a regular weekly column for the trade union magazine "The Schoolmistress". Her books during this period included a critical study of
Virginia Woolf and a volume of short stories, "Truth is Not Sober".Like Brittain, Holtby was an ardent pacifist and lectured extensively for the
League of Nations Union . Holtby gradually became more critical of the Britishclass system and by the late 1920s she was active in theIndependent Labour Party .In 1931, Holtby began to suffer from
high blood pressure , recurrent headaches and bouts of lassitude. Eventually she was diagnosed as suffering fromsclerosis of the kidneys. Her doctor gave her only two years to live.Aware of her impending death, Holtby put all her remaining energy into what became her most important book, "South Riding". Winifred Holtby died on
29 September ,1935 , aged 37. She never married."South Riding" was published the following year and received high praise from the critics. The book won the
James Tait Black Memorial Prize for 1936.Vera Brittain subsequently wrote about her friendship with Holtby in her book "Testament of Friendship" (1940).Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize
In 1967, the
Royal Society of Literature instituted theWinifred Holtby Memorial Prize for the best regional novel of the year. It was replaced in 2003 by theOndaatje Prize .*
List of Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize award winners External links
* [http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/holtby.htm Holtby biography in the Books and Writers website]
* [http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=5056 Holtby biography in the Literary Encyclopedia website]
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