Clemence Dane
Clemence Dane CBE | |
---|---|
Born | Winifred Ashton 21 February 1888 Blackheath, England |
Died | 28 March 1965 London, England | (aged 77)
Pen name | Clemence Dane |
Occupation | Novelist, playwright |
Notable works | Regiment of Women (1914) |
Winifred Ashton
Life and career
After completing her education, Dane went to Switzerland to work as a French tutor, but returned home after a year. She studied art in London and Germany. After the
Her first novel, Regiment of Women, written in 1914, was a study of life in a girls' school.[1] In 1919 she wrote Legend, the story of a group of acquaintances who debate the meaning of a dead friend's life and work. Dane's 1921 play, A Bill of Divorcement, tells the story of a daughter who cares for her deranged father and faces the fact that his mental illness may be hereditary. The smash hit play was adapted for the screen three times, using the same title as the play: a silent film in 1922, a 1932 film starring Katharine Hepburn and John Barrymore, and a 1940 film starring Maureen O’Hara and Adolphe Menjou.
Dane began writing screenplays as well as novels. In 1933-1934 she travelled to Hollywood on a contract with RKO and returned again in 1937-8 and in 1947 after the war. In England she worked with Alexander Korda. She co-wrote the screenplay for
Dane, at the age of 30, was one of the women eligible to vote for the first time under the Representation of the People Act 1918. Her opinions on The Women's Side [3] were published in 1926 and she argued that women should do more with their freedom. She compared the modern girl's choices with the popular gambling card game Speculation in Jane Austen's Mansfield Park.[4] She wrote for Time and Tide and was a member of the Six Point Group.[5]
Dane's 1931 novel Broome Stages followed the fortunes of an acting family from the time of Queen Anne to the present. Broome Stages became a surprise bestseller.[1] Dane and Helen de Guerry Simpson, both members of the Detection Club, wrote three detective novels together featuring their creation Sir John Saumarez. The first, Enter Sir John, was filmed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1930 as Murder! and in a German-language version as Mary.[6] Dane contributed to the Club's serials The Scoop and The Floating Admiral. Dane's The Arrogant History of White Ben (1939) is a dystopian novel set in a politically unstable near future.[7]
Dane's last play,
According to Arthur Marshall, she was famous for her indecent, though entirely innocent, remarks. "The physical side of life had passed her by, together with the words, slang and otherwise, that accompany it. Time and again she settled for an unfortunate word or phrase. Inviting Noël Coward to lunch during the war, when food was difficult, she boomed encouragement down the telephone; 'Do come! I've got such a lovely cock.' ('I do wish you'd call it a hen', Noel answered). To use correctly, in a literary sense, the words 'erection', 'tool' and 'spunk' was second nature to her. When wishing to describe herself as being full of life and creative energy, she chose, not really very wisely, the word 'randy'."[10]
In 1955, Dane edited the Novels of Tomorrow series for publisher Michael Joseph. This was a series of science fiction novels featuring such authors as John Wyndham, Robert Sheckley, and Cyril M. Kornbluth.[11]
Dane also wrote a book on the history of Covent Garden (where she lived for a number of years) titled London has a Garden and published in 1964.
She was awarded the
Novels and plays
- Regiment of Women (1917)
- First the Blade: A Comedy of Growth (1918)
- Legend (1919)
- A Bill of Divorcement (1921)
- Will Shakespeare: An Invention in Four Acts (1921)
- Shivering Shocks or The Hiding Place (published in The Graphic Christmas Number, 1922) - a play for boys sometimes misattributed to Agatha Christie
- Naboth's Vineyard: A Piece in Three Acts (1925)
- Granite (1926)
- The Women's Side (1926)
- The Babyons (1927)
- The Dearly Beloved of Benjamin Cobb (1927) - short story[12]
- Mariners (1927)
- Adam’s Opera: The Text of a Play (1928)
- Enter Sir John (1928) (with Helen Simpson)
- Third Person Singular (1928)
- The King Waits (1929)
- Printer's Devil, published in US as Author Unknown (1930) (with Helen Simpson)
- Broome Stages (1931)
- Theater Royale (1931)
- Re-enter Sir John (1932) (with Helen Simpson)
- Julia Newberry's Diary (1933)
- Come of Age: The Text of a Play in Music and Words (1934) (with Richard Addinsell)
- Moonlight is Silver: A Play in Three Acts (1934)
- Wild Decembers: A Play in Three Acts (1932)
- Edmond Rostand's L'aiglon (1934)
- The Amateur Gentleman: From the Novel By Jeffery Farnol (1936)
- The Moon Is Feminine. A novel (1938)
- Hebbel's Herod and Mariamne (1938)
- The Arrogant History of White Ben (1939)
- The Lion and the Unicorn. A Play in Three Acts (1943)
- He Brings Great News. A novel (1946)
- Bonny Prince Charlie (1948) (with Dorothy Middleton)
- The Flower Girls. A novel (1954)
- Eighty in the Shade (1959)
- Marriage Lines (1949)[13]
- The Godson: A Fantasy (1964)
Non fiction
- Claude Houghton: Appreciations (with Hugh Walpole)
- London has a Garden (1964)
- The Welcoming Land (poem)
Notes
- ^ ISBN 9780192142191(p.436).
- ISBN 978-3-030-72476-4(p. 67-68).
- ^ Clemence Dane, The Women's Side. London : Herbert Jenkins Ltd, 1926.
- ISBN 1-5275-5041-9(p. 124-5).
- ^ Weedon, "Women suffrage and Clemence Dane" (p. 123).
- ^ "Alfred Hitchcock Collectors' Guide: Murder! (1930)". Brenton Film.
- ISBN 0-7190-6574-7(p. 97).
- ^ "Winifred Ashton (pseudonym Clemence Dane) timeline". Crossmediaresearch.
- ^ Weedon, The Origins of Transmedia Storytelling in Early Twentieth Century Adaptation.
- ISBN 0-241-11306-7
- ISBN 9780786443932(p. 272).
- ^ Classic English Short Stories, Oxford University Press, 1956
- ^ Vagg, Stephen (29 November 2020). "Forgotten Australian TV plays: Marriage Lines". Filmink.
Further reading
- Women, a Modern Political Dictionary by Cheryl Law ISBN 1-86064-502-X
External links
- Clemence Dane at IMDb
- Clemence Dane at Archives Hub
- Clemence Dane Timeline at Crossmediaresearch
- Clemence Dane at Fantastic Fiction
- Works by Clemence Dane at Project Gutenberg
- Clemence Dane at Golden Age of Detection Wiki
- Works by Clemence Dane at Faded Page (Canada)
- Works by or about Clemence Dane at Internet Archive
- Clemence Dane at Institute for English Studies
- Clemence Dane at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
- Works by Clemence Dane at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
- Clemence Dane at Library of Congress, with 82 library catalogue records