Naomi Mitchison

Naomi Mitchison Naomi Mary Margaret Mitchison, Baroness Mitchison Commander of the Order of the British Empire CBE (née Haldane; 1 November 1897 – 11 January 1999) was a Scottish author of historical novels, plays, essays, short stories, science fiction, history, nonfiction on politics and ethics, travel writing, poetry, and autobiography. She also was the editor of the 1932 book An Outline for Boys and Girls and Their Parents, a guide to the modern world for children. Her father was John Scott Haldane, who gave her an early exposure to science. In 1985 she was made Commander of the Order of the British Empire. Quotes ... Obviously my chief authority is Xenophon's Hellenica#Xenophon's Hellenica Hellenica; if I can induce anyone to read this (the Loeb translation is very vivid on the whole) and get as much pleasure out of it as I did, then I shall be — as the good books say — amply rewarded. For actual history I have gone to Cavaignac or Adolf Holm Holm. ... Alfred Eckhard Zimmern Zimmern's The Greek Commonwealth is a good book to begin on. Cloud Cuckoo Land London Jonathan Cape Ltd 1926 https://books.google.com/books?id=wptAAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA5 5 (1st printing 1925) The first thing about science is asking questions; the next—and this includes the bulk of what is called scientific work—is measuring the knowledge and finding new standards of measurement; and the final thing is putting all this knowledge together. An Outline for Boys & Girls and Their Parents Educational Series London Victor Gollancz Ltd 1932 0848250265 Editor's Preface https://books.google.com/books?id=iDCeaFqdmqQC&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=meas- 6 text at archive.org Do not let us delude ourselves; the old forces still have the power; they are not any longer dressed up as kings and barons with gold on their necks and swords in their hands; they are dressed respectably, and their gold is in banks, and they pay other people to do the killing. And because, deep down, they have no faith in the future, and instead of loving mankind they despise and distrust it, they are becoming more vile and brutal. Vienna Diary Victor Gollancz 1934 The wound is healed, the secret told, the riddle becomes plain, the reconciliation is made between man and what surrounds him. Each happening depends on the other. But if it was for all time, the flowers might go on blooming but the spirit would wither. It would be sad beyond all telling if the finding of the Grail were to happen once for all. Because then it could not happen again for anyone. To The Chapel Perilous Allen & Unwin 1955 My father was writing one paper after another in conjunction with various people, Arthur Boycott Boycott, Guybon Chesney Castell Damant Damant, Butterfield, James Lorrain Smith Lorrain-Smith, John Gillies Priestley Gillies Priestley and others, but especially Claude Gordon Douglas C. G. Douglas ... All Change Here: Girlhood and Marriage Bodley Head 1975 0370104854 64 https://books.google.com/books?id=IChbAAAAMAAJ&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=butterfield (E. E. Butterfield, M.D., did research with Ralph G. Stillman, M.D., who was president of the AABB in 1949.) ... readers, remember that my account of what was happening in Sparta or Athens or even Egypt, is all based on real history, but the view was moulded by what I—and many another person—was thinking in the Europe of those days, with Mussolini and his fascists in Italy and already the shadow of Hitler in Germany. If I was writing this book now I might treat my characters and my story differently. But I cannot be certain, even of that. The Corn King & the Spring Queen 978-1-46830-529-6 Introduction 1990 Woodstock, New York The Overlook Press https://books.google.com/books?id=fAmUDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT10 (1st edition, 1931) Quotes about Naomi Mitchison It occurred to the writer, a year ago, in thinking about modern Ireland, to wonder what light the record of Cæsar’s Gallic wars might throw on the causes of the present discontents. Dumnorix, Ambiorix, Vercingetorix—were these leaders of the Gauls like the leaders of the Gael to-day? Did they feel the same blinding passion of nationalism? Were they, too, distracted by feuds and harassed by jealousies? Is the Celtic temper an undeviating possession of the centuries ; and is the character of a stock inherited as surely and as inevitably as the colour of eyes and hair ?To find an answer to these questions it would have been necessary to read those later books of the Commentarii de Bello Gallico De Bello Gallico, to which (however skilled we may become in the structure of the bridge which Cæsar threw over the Rhine) few, if any, of us ever attain in our schoolboy days. For such reading no opportunity occurred; but the fortunate chance of an old friendship brought another solution. I was privileged to read the manuscript of Mrs. Mitchison’s work, and the answer came, irradiated by an historical imagination, and animated by a living sympathy, as I read. Ernest Barker in the Preface to Mitchison, Naomi The Conquered 1929 London Jonathan Cape Ltd The Travellers' Library https://archive.org/details/conquered0000naom (reprint of 1927 edition; 1st edition 1923) Mrs. Mitichison brings Julius Caesar Cæsar on her stage, and gives one the feeling of that bleak and terrible greatness. The impression which Cæsar has left on history is just the impression he made on his contemporaries. The shadow of a vastness had fallen coldly across them. Mrs. Mitchison knows how to make it fall across us. She has, as it were by miracle, got back into the air and mood of the time she writes about: she creates, and recreates. The splendor and the mystery come easy to her. Gerald Gould, The English Novel of To-day John Castle 1924 0836956974 https://books.google.com/books?id=O1kyvwEACAAJ&pg=PA157 157 By all means read Naomi Mitchison's The Corn King and the Spring Queen. It's an enormous volume not much shorter than Anthony Adverse, and deals in the most vivid and convincing detail with a barbarian girl (who incidentally works casual magic now and then), all her family and friends, a Spartan girl et al., and their experiences in Rome, Sparta, Alexandria and the barbarian hinterlands. The thing is as good, almost, as a real tour of the places she tells about. You have the feeling of actually having lived in Sparta and Alexandria...It's well worth reading just for the experience. C. L. Moore, Letter to H. P. Lovecraft, 27 May 1935. Quoted in H.P. Lovecraft: Letters to C. L. Moore and Others, edited by S. T. Joshi and David E. Schultz. Hippocampus Press, 2017 ( p.41). External links Category:1897 births Category:1999 deaths Category:Historical novelists Category:Novelists from Scotland Category:Non-fiction authors from Scotland Category:Journalists from Scotland Category:People from Edinburgh Category:Playwrights from Scotland Category:Socialist feminists Category:Socialists Category:Women authors from Scotland Category:Science fiction authors from the United Kingdom Category:Short story writers from Scotland Category:Cultural critics Category:Historians from Scotland Category:Autobiographers from Scotland Category:Essayists from Scotland Category:Memoirists from Scotland Category:Travel writers Category:Political authors from Scotland Category:University of Oxford alumni Category:Centenarians