George Paston
George Paston is the pseudonym of Emily Morse Symonds, an English author known for her contributions to feminist literature in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Born into a family of clergymen, she spent her formative years in London after her father's death and began her career at the prestigious publishing firm John Murray. Paston's first book, a study of the firm, was published in 1892, and she continued to write under her pseudonym, fiercely guarding her privacy throughout her life.
Her novels often explore feminist themes, addressing issues such as marriage and the double standards faced by women in Victorian society. Notable works include "A Modern Amazon" (1894), which critiques the position of middle-class women in the workforce, and "A Writer of Books" (1898), which highlights the struggles women face in the publishing industry. Beyond novels, Paston also wrote plays that tackled feminist topics, such as "The Pharisee's Wife" (1904), and produced biographical works on artists and other notable figures. Despite a decline in popularity after World War I, recent interest in her work has led to renewed recognition of her contributions to literature, with some of her writings being reprinted. She passed away in 1936 in London.
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George Paston
Writer
- Born: Unknown
- Died: 1936
Biography
George Paston is the pseudonym for Emily Morse Symonds. She was born of a well-known family of clergymen and professionals, her father, Rev. Henry Symonds, being a precentor of Norwich Cathedral in Norfolk, England. Her mother was Emily Hannah Evans. Her cousin, John Addington Symonds, also became a well-known writer and critic. After her father’s demise, she and her mother moved to London, where Emily was to live the rest of her life. She obtained a job in the famous publishing firm of John Murray. Her first book, indeed, was a study of the firm, At John Murray’s: Records of a Literary Circle (1892). It was published pseudonymously, as were all her books. In fact, Symonds was fiercely protective of her private life.
She is often classified as part of the “New Woman” movement of the 1880’s and 1890’s. Certainly, most of her fiction has feminist themes, for example her first novel, A Modern Amazon (1894). This is an examination of marriage but it also looks at the position of middle-class women in paid employment. Her next novel, A Study in Prejudice, published the following year, has a similar feminist theme: the double sexual standards of late Victorian society.
Her next novel had a more interesting idea as plot. In The Career of Candida (1896) the heroine is brought up as a boy and comes to London to teach gymnastics and fencing, activities usually forbidden to girls at the time. She marries a weak man and separates from him. The ending is inconclusive, however: He is disabled and she returns dutifully to him. A Writer of Books (1898) is a strong examination of women in publishing. It is interesting in its story of survival for its heroine, Cosima Chudleigh, at the hands of chauvinist editors, predatory colleagues, and the demands of hack writing. It is sometimes compared to Ella Hepworth Dixon’s Story of a Modern Woman (1894), but Paston’s novel finishes more optimistically. Her heroine escapes a bad marriage and goes on to write her best novel to date. It also touches on the love life of a women in terms of its episodic nature. Symonds herself never married.
Alongside such controversial novels, she also wrote more conventional romantic ones, as A Bread and Butter Miss (1895) and A Fair Deceiver (1898), though these still feature spirited women. One of the leading novelists of the day, Arnold Bennett, claimed that she was the most advanced and intellectually bold woman he knew. After the turn of the century, however, her writing changed direction, towards drama on one hand, biography on the other. In 1903, she wrote a biography of the painter George Romney in a series titled Little Books on Art. In another series, Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century, she wrote on another painter, Benjamin Haydon (1905). Further memoirs of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and the poet Alexander Pope followed in 1907 and 1909 respectively, in a parallel series titled Little Memoirs of the Eighteenth Century.
In terms of drama, her play The Pharisee’s Wife (1904) deliberately set out to give the actresses better roles than the actors. It was performed at the Duke of York’s Theatre in London and dealt with the suffrage and other feminist issues, as did Feed the Brute (1909) and Nobody’s Daughter (1910). The latter play was very popular, running to 185 performances, and then being adapted as a short story, appearing in the London Magazine in 1911. Later plays such as Double or Quits (1919) and Clothes and the Woman (1922) were more lighthearted. She also wrote plays for radio when that medium was in its infancy. She produced a good deal of literary journalism. However, she suffered a great decline in popularity after World War I, when many of the suffrage questions had been dealt with. Her final book, To Lord Byron, a collection of letters to Byron from his female admirers, was unfinished at the time of her death in 1936, and was subsequently finished by Peter Quennel in 1939. She died of heart failure in Kensington, London. With the return of interest in earlier feminist writers, some of her work is being reprinted.