MEYNELL, Alice Christiana Gertrude (1847-1922)

Identity Statement

Reference code(s)	: GB 0100 KCLCA K/PP121
Held at	: King's College London College Archives   Click here to find out how to view this collection at http://www.kcl.ac.uk/library/archivespec/ ›
Full title	: MEYNELL, Alice Christiana Gertrude (1847-1922)
Date(s)	: 1875-1941
Level of description	: Collection (fonds)
Extent	: 1 file
Name of creator(s)	: MEYNELL | Alice Christiana Gertrude | 1847-1922 | née Thompson | poet and essayist

Context

Administrative/Biographical history:

Alice Christiana Gertrude Meynell was born in Barnes, Surrey in October 1847; Alice and her sister, Elizabeth Thompson, later Elizabeth Southerden Butler, Lady Butler (1846-1933) were educated by their father, Thomas James Thompson ([1809]-1881); Alice took instruction and was received into the Roman Catholic church, St George's, Worcester, 1868.

Meynell's first published work was Preludes, 1875 which received much praise, notably from Alfred Tennyson, Coventry Patmore, Aubrey de Vere, and John Ruskin. Meynell married Wilfrid John Meynell (1852-1948) on 16 April 1877. Once married both worked as journalists, editing the Weekly Register and Merry England, 1883 to 1895; Alice regularly wrote literary criticisms for Spectator, The Tablet, the Saturday Review, The World, and the Scots Observer.

Meynell's first volume of essays, The Rhythm of Life, published in 1893, consisted mainly of work reprinted from periodicals. At this time Meynell also wrote a weekly column in the Pall Mall Gazette, 1893. Whilst working as a journalist and during early motherhood Meynell ceased to write poetry, however later she returned to poetry, being mentioned as a possible candidate for Poet Laureate in 1895. From this time until her death she wrote some of her finest work, including poetry about World War One. Meynell was a supporter of the suffrage movement and women's rights, which was reflected in her later work. Meynell died 27 November 1922.

Content

Scope and content/abstract:

Papers of Alice Christiana Gertrude Meynell, 1875-1878 and 1941, comprising correspondence; namely a letter from the poet Robert Browning (1812-1889) to Meynell thanking her for giving him a copy of her book Preludes and praising the beauty of many of its poems, 1878; a letter from Wilfrid Meynell to Albert Arthur Cock (1883-1953) apologising for being unable to accept an invitation to attend some lectures and making reference to 'hundreds of German planes on their way to London and other large countries', 1941. The letters had previously been enclosed within the book which was gifted by Cock to King's College London and is now kept in the Foyle Special Collections library.

Access & Use

Language/scripts of material:
English

System of arrangement:

The correspondence was originally fastened within a copy of the book Preludes by Meynell and has now been separated.

Conditions governing access:

Open, subject to signature of reader's undertaking form.

Conditions governing reproduction:

Copies, subject to the condition of the original, may be provided for research use only. Requests to publish original material should be submitted to the Director of Archives and Information Management, King's College London.

Finding aids:

No additional finding aids exist.

Archival Information

Archival history:

Immediate source of acquisition:

Transferred from the King's College London library.

Allied Materials

Related material:

Collections relating to Alice Christiana Gertrude Meynell may also be found within Boston College Libraries (NUC MS 60-248), West Sussex Record Office (see Location register of 20th Century English Literary MSS 1988), Cambridge University Fitzwilliam Museum (within the Blunt Papers), British Library, Manuscript Collections (Add MSS 73238 ff.190-202; 73455 A f.60, Add MS 52736 and Add MSS 44458-526 passim ), Senate House Library (MS 810) and University of Texas at Austin, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center Library (NRA 23022).

Publication note:

Description Notes

Archivist's note:
Compiled by Samantha Velumyl.

Rules or conventions:
Compiled in compliance with General International Standard Archival Description, ISAD(G), second edition, 2000; National Council on Archives Rules for the Construction of Personal Place and Corporate Names 1997.

Date(s) of descriptions:
January 2008