Alice Meynell
Alice Meynell was a notable British poet, essayist, and suffragist, born into a wealthy family that facilitated a life of travel across Europe, particularly Italy. Her upbringing, marked by a strong educational foundation from her father and exposure to the arts through her mother, fostered her literary ambitions. In her late teens, Meynell converted to Catholicism, which influenced her writing and provided her with crucial connections in literary circles, including figures like Alfred Tennyson and John Ruskin.
Married to writer Wilfrid Meynell in 1877, the couple created a vibrant literary home in Kensington, hosting many prominent writers of the time. Alice contributed to several journals and published collections of essays and poems, with her "Rhythm of Life" column gaining particular acclaim. Throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Meynell's work expanded to include literary criticism and anthologies, and her popularity led to a lecture tour in the United States and Mexico in 1901.
Despite facing health issues in her later years, Meynell continued to write actively, producing collected works and engaging in correspondence with aspiring writers. She was recognized for her contributions to literature, being mentioned as a potential poet laureate and elected to the Academic Committee of the Royal Society of Literature in 1914. Alice Meynell remains an important figure in the literary history of her time, with a legacy that reflects her dedication to both writing and social causes.
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Subject Terms
Alice Meynell
Writer
- Born: September 22, 1847
- Birthplace: Barnes, Surrey, England
- Died: November 27, 1922
- Place of death: London, United Kingdom
Biography
Alice Meynell was the daughter of Thomas James Thompson, a wealthy widower, and Christiana Weller, a pianist and artist. Because Thompson was financially secure, the family lived a nomadic life, often traveling to Europe, especially Italy, where Alice learned Italian and acquired a life-long interest in Italian culture. Thompson educated Alice and her sister Elizabeth, who was a talented painter, before bringing them to London. Alice became a Catholic in her late teens and got some encouragement for her writing from a priest. It was Aubrey de Vere, however, who helped her meet important literary figures, such as Alfred Tennyson and John Ruskin, who was particularly impressed with three of her poems from Preludes (1875).
After a visit to Tuscany in 1876, the family returned to London, where she met Wilfrid Meynell, a writer and critic. Despite her father’s reservations about Meynell’s financial resources, the couple were married in 1877 and moved to Kensington, where their first two children were born. From the start, the Meynells worked on journals, Wilfrid editing, for the most part, and Alice writing. Wilfrid edited The Weekly Register, a Catholic journal, and Merry England, which Alice contributed to. She also wrote for the Spectator and the Saturday Review, and had two of her poems printed in Sonnets of Three Centuries, an anthology.
The Meynell home at Palace Court was often frequented by literary luminaries. These included Francis Thompson, who was first published in Merry England, and Coventry Patmore, whom Meynell admired and who admired her work in return. The highlight of her writing in the early 1890’s was the popular Rhythm of Life column that she penned; the essays were collected and printed in 1890, the same year her Poems appeared.
Wares of Autolycus, a popular column that Meynell wrote for Pall Mall, was published as The Colour of Life, and Other Essays on Things Seen and Heard in 1896, the same year that Coventry Patmore died. Meynell, however, had many other literary friends and visitors, among them W. B. Yeats, Oscar Wilde, Aubrey Beardsley, and George Meredith. The late 1890’s were busy ones: The Children, another collection of essays, appeared in 1897; and she also wrote a book on Ruskin and edited an anthology.
Meynell’s popularity led to a 1901 lecture tour of the United States and Mexico. When she returned to England, she turned to literary criticism, writing introductions to Blackwell’s editions of established writers. She continued to travel to Italy and moved to Greatham in 1914. Despite devoting a great deal of time to correspondence and the encouragement of aspiring writers, Meynell reviewed for the Dublin Review, translated a European novel, and wrote a book on Mary, Jesus’s mother. So popular was she that she was mentioned as the next poet laureate and was elected in 1914 to the Academic Committee of the Royal Society of Literature. The 1910’s were active years for Meynell, although she was beginning to suffer from ill health. Her collected poems, collected essays, and two books of literary criticism appeared, and she was working on an anthology for children prior to her death.