The Memoir: 'Did women in Society ever 'speak' to other women''

By Violet Hunt

Isobel Violet Hunt was born on 28th September 1862 in Durham. As a young child her family moved to London and Hunt was brought up amongst the Pre-Raphaelite circle of artists.

As a writer she was comfortable and talented enough to write across several forms including short stories, novels, memoir, and biography. Her novels are excellent examples of New Woman fiction and help illustrate her activities fighting for and promoting better rights for women.

Although she remained unmarried she had lovers as notable as Somerset Maugham, H G Wells and Ford Maddox Ford, the latter whom she lived with for a number of years.

Her collections of supernatural short stories contain much of her best work and despite her considerable talents and literary output her reputation rests both on the literary salons she held at her home in Campden Hill, where the very best of literary society attended, and for her founding of the Women Writers' Suffrage League in 1908 and her participation in the founding of International PEN in 1921.

Violet Hunt died of pneumonia at her home in Campden Hill on 16th January 1942. She was 79 and is buried at Brookwood Cemetery.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Miniature Masterpieces
• Release date: Jan 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9781803547626

Book preview

The Memoir by Violet Hunt

The Author, An Introduction

Isobel Violet Hunt was born on 28th September 1862 in Durham. As a young child her family moved to London and Hunt was brought up amongst the Pre-Raphaelite circle of artists. 

As a writer she was comfortable and talented enough to write across several forms including short stories, novels, memoir, and biography. Her novels are excellent examples of New Woman fiction and help illustrate her activities fighting for and promoting better rights for women.

Although she remained unmarried she had lovers as notable as Somerset Maugham, H G Wells and Ford Maddox Ford, the latter whom she lived with for a number of years.

Her collections of supernatural short stories contain much of her best work and despite her considerable talents and literary output her reputation rests both on the literary salons she held at her home in Campden Hill, where the very best of literary society attended, and for her founding of the Women Writers' Suffrage League in 1908 and her participation in the founding of International PEN in 1921.

Violet Hunt died of pneumonia at her home in Campden Hill on 16th January 1942. She was 79 and is buried at Brookwood Cemetery.

The Memoir

Did women in Society ever speak to other women, when a man dear to them both was concerned?

Had such an outrageous course ever been pursued since the days when Chriemhild spoke to Gudrun in the midst of the Rhine stream?

Little Lady Greenwell pondered this, time after time, day after day, as she sat dressed in her ineffectual Paris best, alone, in crowds, in sunlight gardens, lamp-lit ballrooms, unlit boudoirs arranged for cosy gossiping teas. She never talked gossip, but she listened to it. A great deal of it covertly was about herself, or rather about