Dame Cicily Isabel Fairfield (later known as Rebecca West) was a famously outspoken writer on political and feminist issues. She was widely admired for the quality of her journalism, fiction, literary criticism and intelligent travel writing.
As a child, her interest in socialism was sparked by the debates that her father, who was a journalist, engaged in with visiting political activists. When he abandoned his family, leaving them in poverty when she was eight, West’s Scottish mother moved to Edinburgh with her three daughters.
Having recovered from the tuberculosis she had contracted when she was 15, West leapt at the chance to leave school and became an actress, choosing ‘Rebecca West’ as her stage name after the rebellious heroine in a play by Henrik Ibsen. She soon became an activist for feminist and socialist causes, campaigning as a suffragette and expressing her strongly held political views through journalism.
Her first book, The Return of the Soldier, was published in 1918. Throughout her life she travelled to report on issues such as South African apartheid and the Nuremberg trials.
Her career brought her both financial security and access to high profile, politically engaged figures such as Charlie Chaplin, H G Wells, with whom she had a son, and President Truman who described her as ‘the world’s best reporter’.
Active and sociable into old age, West continued to be involved with political and feminist debate. Her last novel was published the year before she died.
Read more
'Rebecca West: a writer's beginnings in Hope Park Square' - The University of Edinburgh
Building Stories: A Podcast from Edinburgh City of Literature and Historic Environment Scotland
Commemorative plaques
Celebrating people from all walks of life who have contributed to Scotland’s history.
Find out more
