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The Journals of Mary Butts

Mary Butts, Nathalie Blondel (Editor)

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British modernist writer Mary Butts (1890-1937), now recognized as one of the most important and original authors of the inter-war years, led an unconventional life. She encountered many of the most famous figures in early twentieth-century literature, music, and art and came to know some of them intimately. These luminaries figure prominently in journals in which Butts chronicled the development of her craft between 1916 and her untimely death in 1937. This volume is the first substantial edition of her journals. Introduced and annotated by Nathalie Blondel, the leading authority on Butts's life and works, the book reveals the workings of a complex and distinctive mind while offering insights into her fascinating era.

GenresNonfictionLiteratureJournalDiaryMemoirWritingAutobiography

448 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 2002

About the author

Mary Butts

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Mary Francis Butts was a modernist writer whose work found recognition in important literary magazines of the time, as well as from some of her fellow modernists, T. S. Eliot, Hilda Dolittle, and Bryher. After her death, her works fell into obscurity until they began to be republished in the 1980s.

Butts was a student of the occultist Aleister Crowley, and as one of several students who worked with him on his Magick (Book 4) in 1912, she was given co-author credit. She was married to poet, publisher, and pacifist John Rodker from 1918 to 1927; their daughter, Camilla, was born in 1920.

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