Gamel Woolsey (born Elizabeth Gammell Woolsey; May 28, 1897 – January 18, 1968) was an American poet, novelist and translator.
Early life and education
Woolsey was born on the Breeze Hill plantation in
Aiken, South Carolina as Elizabeth Gammell Woolsey. In later years, she took her middle name which she shortened to Gamel, a
Norse word meaning "old". Her father was
planter William Walton Woolsey (1842–1909). Woolsey was a descendant of George (Joris) Woolsey, one of the early settlers of
New Amsterdam
New Amsterdam (, ) was a 17th-century Dutch Empire, Dutch settlement established at the southern tip of Manhattan Island that served as the seat of the colonial government in New Netherland. The initial trading ''Factory (trading post), fac ...
, and
Thomas Cornell.
The Woolsey branch of the
New England Dwight family
The Dwight family of New England had many members who were military leaders, educators, jurists, authors, businessmen and clergy.
Around 1634, John Dwight came with his wife Hannah (1604-1656), daughter Hannah (1625-1714), and sons Timothy (1629 ...
had influence in the law, the church and education.
Gamel's aunt,
Sarah Chauncey Woolsey
Sarah Chauncey Woolsey (January 29, 1835 – April 9, 1905) was an American children's author who wrote under the pen name Susan Coolidge.
Background
Woolsey was born on January 29, 1835, into the wealthy, influential New England Dwight fam ...
– better known by her pen name, Susan Coolidge – wrote the popular ''
Katy'' series and other children's fiction. Gamel's half-brother
John M. Woolsey was the judge who ruled that James Joyce's ''Ulysses'' was not obscene.
After the death of her father the family moved to Charleston, South Carolina, where Gamel went to day school.
:"FORSAN ET HaEC OLIM MEMINiSSE IUVABIT"
:("Perhaps one day it will be a pleasure to remember even this...")
:Why should you feel remorse, regret,
:For what was beautiful to me,
:As uncommanded as the sea?
:The winds blew and the waters sang
:All summer: now that summer's done
:I can remember still the sun
:That lay upon the mountain grass,
:And all the beauty that there was -
:Only remember what was fair,
:And what was wild and innocent;
:The rest is blown upon the air.
Literary career
Despite weak health following an attack of tuberculosis in 1915, Woolsey moved to New York City in 1921, hoping to be an actress or a writer. Her first known published poem appeared in the ''
New York Evening Post
The ''New York Post'' (''NY Post'') is an American conservative
daily tabloid newspaper published in New York City. The ''Post'' also operates three online sites: NYPost.com; PageSix.com, a gossip site; and Decider.com, an entertainm ...
'' in 1922. The following year, she met and married
Rex Hunter, a writer and journalist from New Zealand. They separated after four years.
In 1927, while living in
Patchin Place, Greenwich Village, she met the British writer
John Cowper Powys
John Cowper Powys ( ; 8 October 187217 June 1963) was an English novelist, philosopher, lecturer, critic and poet born in Shirley, Derbyshire, where his father was vicar of the parish church in 1871–1879. Powys appeared with a volume of verse ...
, and through him, his brother
Llewelyn
Llywelyn, Llewelyn or Llewellyn is a name of Welsh language origins. See Llywelyn (name) for the name's etymology, history and other details.
As a surname Arts
* Carmen Llywelyn, American actress and photographer
* Chris Llewellyn (poet), America ...
and Llewelyn's wife
Alyse Gregory. Llewelyn and Woolsey had a passionate and painful love affair, but Woolsey and Alyse became friends for life.
She left New York for England in 1928, settling in
Dorset
Dorset ( ; Archaism, archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by Somerset to the north-west, Wiltshire to the north and the north-east, Hampshire to the east, t ...
to be near Llewelyn, where she came to know the whole Powys family and their circle. She parted from Llewelyn in 1930. In 1933, she began an enduring friendship with the philosopher
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, and public intellectual. He had influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, and various areas of analytic ...
. Shortly thereafter, she met the writer
Gerald Brenan
Edward FitzGerald "Gerald" Brenan, CBE, Military Cross, MC (7 April 1894 – 19 January 1987) was a British writer and hispanist who spent much of his life in Spain.
Brenan is probably best known for ''The Spanish Labyrinth'', a historical wo ...
. They moved to Churriana, a village near Málaga, just before the
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil War () was a military conflict fought from 1936 to 1939 between the Republican faction (Spanish Civil War), Republicans and the Nationalist faction (Spanish Civil War), Nationalists. Republicans were loyal to the Left-wing p ...
broke out, staying in Spain until the city was occupied by Italian forces sent by Mussolini to support the fascist rebels. They befriended the 72-year-old zoologist
Sir Peter Chalmers Mitchell
Sir Peter Chalmers Mitchell (23 November 1864 – 2 July 1945) was a Scottish zoologist who was Secretary of the Zoological Society of London from 1903 to 1935. During this time, he directed the policy of the Zoological Gardens of London and c ...
, and like Sir Peter, they provided safe haven to a right-wing sympathiser (in their case a member of the aristocratic Larios family) despite objecting to his political views. This interlude is documented in Sir Peter's memoir ''My House in Málaga'', and in Woolsey's memoir ''Death’s Other Kingdom''. The couple returned to England, and for many years afterward, they lived in
Aldbourne
Aldbourne ( ) is a village and civil parish about north-east of Marlborough, Wiltshire, England. It is in a valley on the south slope of the Lambourn Downs – part of the North Wessex Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. From here an u ...
in Wiltshire. They returned to Spain in 1953.
Neither of Woolsey's novels were published in her lifetime. In 1931 ''Middle Earth'', a collection of 36 poems was published, and in 1939, she published ''Death's Other Kingdom'', an account of her experiences during the first few months of the Spanish Civil War. She translated two books from Spanish to English: ''Spanish Fairy Stories'' (1944), and ''The Spendthrifts'' (1951), a translation of ''La de Bringas'' by Galdos which sold 70,000 copies. Her science fiction short story "The Star of Double Darkness" was published in ''The Saturday Evening Post'' in 1955. It can be read on page 145 of the Powys journal (volume viii).
She died in Spain in 1968 of cancer was is buried in the
English Cemetery, Malaga.
''One Way of Love'', accepted by Gollancz in 1931, but suppressed because it was considered too sexually explicit, was published by
Virago Press
Virago is a British publisher of women's writing and books on feminist topics. Started and run by women in the 1970s and bolstered by the success of the Women's Liberation Movement (WLM), Virago has been credited as one of several British femin ...
in 1987. ''Death's Other Kingdom'' was re-released as ''Malaga Burning'' in 1998 by Pythia Press,
and is now available on e-readers and in paperback under its original title. ''Patterns on the Sand'', which recalls Woolsey's South Carolina childhood, was published by The Sundial Press in 2012. Various volumes of poetry, including her ''Collected Poems'', have been published posthumously.
A fuller record of Woolsey's life is contained in the e-reader version of ''Death's Other Kingdom''. Gerald Brenan's account of their life together is published in his ''Personal Record''.
:"WHEN I AM DEAD AND LAID AT LAST TO REST"
:When I am dead and laid at last to rest,
:Let them not bury me in holy ground -
:To lie the shipwrecked sailor cast ashore -
:But give the corpse to fire, to flood, to air,
:The elements that may the flesh transform
:To soar with birds, to float where fishes are,
:To rise in smoke, shine in a leaping flame -
:To be in freedom lost in nothingness,
:Not garnered in the grave, hoarded by death.
:What is remembrance that we crave for it?
:Let me be nothing then, not face nor name;
:As on the seagull wings where bright seas pour,
:As air that quickens at the opened door:
:When I am dead let me be nothing more.
In popular culture
* Sandra Wahlbeck portrays Woolsey in the 2003
Goya Award
The Goya Awards () are Spain's main national annual film awards. They are presented by the Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences of Spain.
The first ceremony was held in 1987, a year after the founding of the Academy of Cinematographic Ar ...
winning Spanish film ''
Al sur de Granada'', written and directed by
Fernando Colomo
Fernando Colomo Gómez (born 2 February 1946) is a Spanish film producer, screenwriter and film director. He has also acted in small roles in his own and other's films. He is regarded as the father of the so-called '' comedia madrileña''.
Fi ...
and based on the 1957 autobiographical book ''
South from Granada
''South from Granada: Seven Years in an Andalusian Village'' is an autobiographical book by Gerald Brenan, first published in 1957.
Brenan, a fringe member of the Bloomsbury Group, settled in Spain in 1920, and lived there on and off for the r ...
'' by
Gerald Brenan
Edward FitzGerald "Gerald" Brenan, CBE, Military Cross, MC (7 April 1894 – 19 January 1987) was a British writer and hispanist who spent much of his life in Spain.
Brenan is probably best known for ''The Spanish Labyrinth'', a historical wo ...
.
References
External links
Eland BooksSpecialists in travel literature and publishers of Death's Other Kingdom
{{DEFAULTSORT:Woolsey, Gamel
1890s births
1968 deaths
20th-century American novelists
American women novelists
American women poets
American expatriates in Spain
Deaths from cancer in Spain
Burials in the Province of Málaga
People from Aiken, South Carolina
Novelists from South Carolina
20th-century American poets
20th-century American women writers
Woolsey family
Burials at the English Cemetery, Málaga