Allanah Harper (6 November 1904 – 3 November 1992) was an English writer. She is best known for founding the journal ''Echanges'' (Exchanges), and for her 1948

autobiography An autobiography, sometimes informally called an autobio, is a self-written account of one's own life, providing a personal narrative that reflects on the author's experiences, memories, and insights. This genre allows individuals to share thei ...

Biography

Harper came from a successful family and travelled extensively owing to her father's career as an engineering contractor. She moved to France as a young adult, founding the journal ''Echanges,'' which attempted to give British and French writers an audience for each other's work. She introduced writers such as

W. H. Auden Wystan Hugh Auden (; 21 February 1907 – 29 September 1973) was a British-American poet. Auden's poetry is noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in tone, ...

T. S. Eliot Thomas Stearns Eliot (26 September 18884 January 1965) was a poet, essayist and playwright.Bush, Ronald. "T. S. Eliot's Life and Career", in John A Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (eds), ''American National Biography''. New York: Oxford University ...

and

Virginia Woolf Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer and one of the most influential 20th-century modernist authors. She helped to pioneer the use of stream of consciousness narration as a literary device. Vir ...

to the French. She made funds available to

Sybille Bedford Sybille Bedford, OBE (16 March 1911 – 17 February 2006) was a German-born English writer of non-fiction and semi-autobiographical fiction books. She was a recipient of the Golden PEN Award. Early life She was born as Sybille Aleid Elsa vo ...

over a period of 3 years to enable her to write her first book. Harper married Robert Statlender at the start of World War II. The couple moved to America before splitting. Afterwards she moved back to France. She remained there for the rest of her life, though she visited London frequently. She was friends with the poet Brian Howard. Harper later contributed useful anecdotes for Marie-Jaqueline Lancaster's biography of Brian Howard. However, Harper objected to him being called a "failure" and to Lancaster's emphasis on his homosexuality which she considered to be an "illness" and something that should not be drawn attention to. Harper published an autobiography in 1948. Her work has been archived at the Harry Ransom Center in the

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public university, public research university in Austin, Texas, United States. Founded in 1883, it is the flagship institution of the University of Texas System. With 53,082 stud ...

. Harper died three days before her 88th birthday on 3 November 1992.

Work

In 1948 she published a book of memories from her childhood entitled ''All Trivial Fond Records'', named for a quote from Hamlet and in 1976 co-edited an anthology of Dame

Edith Sitwell Dame Edith Louisa Sitwell (7 September 1887 – 9 December 1964) was a British poet and critic and the eldest of the three literary Sitwells. She reacted badly to her eccentric, unloving parents and lived much of her life with her governess ...

's work entitled ''Fire of the Mind''. The ''

Des Moines Register ''The Des Moines Register'' is the daily morning newspaper of Des Moines, Iowa, United States. History Early period The first newspaper in Des Moines was the ''Iowa Star''. In July 1849, Barlow Granger began the paper in an abandoned log cab ...

'' wrote that her

autobiographical An autobiography, sometimes informally called an autobio, is a self-written account of one's own life, providing a personal narrative that reflects on the author's experiences, memories, and insights. This genre allows individuals to share thei ...

, ''All Trivial Fond Records'', "may well be the most charming book of the year." The ''

Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is an American daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Founded in 1847, it was formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper", a slogan from which its once integrated WGN (AM), WGN radio and ...

'' wrote that "Miss Harper's account of her

Edwardian In the United Kingdom, the Edwardian era was a period in the early 20th century that spanned the reign of King Edward VII from 1901 to 1910. It is commonly extended to the start of the First World War in 1914, during the early reign of King Ge ...

childhood and Georgian youth is one of the most delightful we have read in a long time." A ''New York Times'' reviewer,

Michiko Kakutani is an American writer and retired literary critic, best known for reviewing books for ''The New York Times'' from 1983 to 2017. In that role, she won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 1998. Early life and family Kakutani, a Japanese Americ ...

, found fault with her editing on ''Edith Sitwell: Fire of the Mind''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Harper, Allanah 1904 births 1992 deaths English women writers