Epilogue

Abstract

In England, the Orwell centenary was celebrated in 2003 with conferences, exhibits, television specials, newspaper articles, and much correspondence to editors about the meaning of Orwell’s life and writings (especially “the list” ) for twenty-first-century politics. Most significantly, 2003 also saw the publication of new books on Orwell including rival biographies by Gordon Bowker and D. J. Taylor. The year before, 2002, marked the centenary of Stevie Smith’s birth, and there were significant though less-frequent and less-publicized efforts made to celebrate her contributions to English literary culture. In 2005, Mulk Raj Anand’s centenary will undoubtedly be observed with proper pomp and honor, at least in India, where he may still be alive to join in the festivities. It is almost equally certain that 2004 will come and go without anyone else remarking upon the centenary of Inez Holden. She remains an unknown figure, even among scholars of 1930s and 1940s literature, her cultural legacy still measured most easily through footnotes in the biographies of more famous and successful writers rather than through critical or popular appreciations of her own literary efforts or their meaning for English cultural history. This epilogue is devoted to her, the most fascinating if least famous of the radical eccentrics, because so few people have had any opportunity to read her novels and stories and because we still have much to learn from her writings about English intermodernism.