Nancy Cunard: Heiress, Muse, Political Idealist

by Lois Gordon

Book Overview

Lois Gordon's absorbing biography tells the story of a writer, activist, and cultural icon who embodied the dazzling energy and tumultuous spirit of her age, and whom William Carlos Williams once called "one of the major phenomena of history."

Nancy Cunard (1896-1965) led a life that surpasses Hollywood fantasy. The only child of an English baronet (and heir to the Cunard shipping fortune) and an American beauty, Cunard abandoned the world...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0231139381
• ISBN13: 9780231139380
• Release Date: April 2007
• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Length: 504 Pages
• Weight: 1.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.5" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

A Remembered Life

If Lois Gordon was writing about a fictional character she could not have told a story of a more exciting person than Nancy Cunard. However, Nancy Cunard was indeed an individual who lived in the early part of last century whose exploits, altruism, and literary talent were extraordinary by any standards. She was a legendary beauty, with a great mind, who was extremely devoted to the disadvantaged people of the world and their struggles. This is an unusual and remarkable combination of qualities that is brilliantly depicted throughout this wonderful book. Simply, I could not put the book down once I had started reading. I can highly recommend it.

Brilliant job, takes your breath away

This is a brilliant, sensitive, thoroughly researched biography which is a model example of how such things should be done. The author writes of the First World War experiences in London as if she had personally lived through them. Her understanding of the complex and bizarre Nancy Cunard, of her weird mother, of her strange friends, of her insane promiscuity, of her serial preying upon the creative elite by means of 'genital consumption', of her impossible psychlogy, of the whole phantasmagoria which Nancy Cunard represented, are really a triumph of empathy and insight, as well as of organisation of material. Lois Gordon's ability to master large volumes of action and hysteria without flinching qualify her for a top military command.

A lively, fascinating read from the first chapter...

I just finished Lois Gordon's deeply moving tale of an unbelievably heroic, remarkable woman about whom I knew very little. I now feel I know the soul of Nancy Cunard, thanks to the author's wonderfully engaging, well-documented presentation. The book's fluent style and breadth of information are impressive. I agree with the majority here who have praised this fascinating biography. Buy this book, settle into your favorite chair, and prepare to meet the caring, complex, flawed, passionate woman that was Nancy Cunard.

More than just ships

This was a terrific read about an amazing woman. Although I knew of the Cunard Line, I did not know Nancy Cunard's name before seeing the New York Times book review. It is now a name that I will not forget. Nancy Cunard was certainly an extraordinary woman--beautiful, charismatic, altruistic, modest, creative, and in some ways tragic. She loved people (and how many men!) and fought for social justice with equal abandon. Indifferent when she was disinherited by her family because she had a black lover, she raged against racial and class discrimination. She literally took the clothes off her back to give to the poor. She was also unbelievably heroic, rescuing refugees from certain death during wartime. The book is also fascinating in the way it weaves together wonderful reminders of the eras in which she lived and details about the people she knew. The book has amazingly pithy analyses of works like "The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock," as well little-known (at least I didn't know) details about its author. T.S. Eliot not only struggled with problems of class and religion; he was also wretchedly self-conscious about his manliness and the proud author of porno poetry. (This is a detail the author leaves in a note, and although most people won't read the notes--and it's not necessary to--I found them fascinating). But most of all, this is one of those books you can't put down. It is a fascinating and beautifully written story.

Nancy Cunard Knew Everyone

Nancy Cunard knew a virtual who's who of the artistic world of the first half of the 20th century before getting embroiled in the Spanish Civil War and World War II. It is a fascinating story of the rich little girl who had everything and who would spend all she had to help the needy in wartime. A hellish haze of alcoholism and mental illness would eventually kill her in 1965. Ms Gordon has written a moderately long account (nearly 450 pages with notes and index) of her advocacy of the defendless and her love affairs with the famous. It is an interesting story for any reader who is familiar with both James Joyce and Langston Hughes, with both the Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression.