19 Papargyriou, Assinder, Holton, Papargyriou, Assinder, Greece in British Women’s Literary Imagination, 1913–2013 offers a compre- hensive overview of British female writing on Greece in the twentieth century and beyond. Contributors cover a vast array of authors: Rose Macaulay, Jane El- len Harrison, Virginia Woolf, Ann Quin, Dorothy Una Ratcliffe, Elizabeth Taylor, Barbara Pym, Olivia Manning, Mary Stewart, Victoria Hislop, Loretta Proctor and Sofka Zinovieff formed special ties with Greece and made it the focus of their literary imagination. Moving from Bloomsbury to Mills & Boon, the book offers insight into the ways romantic literature has shaped readers’ perceptions about Greece. Why have female authors of such diverse backgrounds and lit- erary orientations been attracted by a country burdened by its past and trou- bled by its present? What aspects of the country do they choose to highlight? Are female perceptions of Greece different from male ones? The book exam- ines these and many more exciting questions. Given its focus and diversity, it EDS. is addressed to audiences in English and Greek studies, Classical reception, European modernism, cultural studies and popular fiction, as well as to non- academic English-speaking readers who have an interest in Greece. Literary Imagination, 1913–2013 Eleni Papargyriou teaches at the University of Vienna, having previously lectured at King’s College London (2009–13). She has held research and teaching positions at Ox- Greece in British Women’s ford, Princeton and the University of Ioannina, Greece. She has published the mono- graph Reading Games in the Greek Novel (2011) and co-edited Camera Graeca: Photographs, Narratives, Materialities (2015). She has published articles on inter- textuality and the novel, the cultural implications of (self)translation, visual moder- nity and the rapport between literary text and photographic image. She is on the editorial board for the Journal of Greek Media and Culture. Semele Assinder studied Classics at Oxford before going to Cambridge to work on her doctoral dissertation, Greece in British Women’s Writing, 1866–1915. During her PhD, she worked in Athens while holding an Onassis Foreigner’s Fellowship; upon completion she took up the British School at Athens’ Macmillan Rodewald Studentship. Greece in British David Holton is Emeritus Professor of Modern Greek at the University of Cambridge and a fellow of Selwyn College. He is the author of many books and articles on Mod- ern Greek language and literature from the sixteenth to the twentieth century. He Women’s Literary edited Literature and Society in Renaissance Crete (1991) and co-edited Copyists, Collectors, Redactors and Editors: Manuscripts and Editors of Late Byzantine and Early Modern Greek Literature (2005). He has also edited twenty volumes of the Imagination, journal Kambos: Cambridge Papers in Modern Greek (1993–2013). He was Chair- man of the Society for Modern Greek Studies (2012–2016). 1913–2013 www.peterlang.com EDITED BY PETER LANG Eleni Papargyriou, Semele Assinder, AND David Holton Greece in British Women’s Literary Imagination, 1913–2013 offers a compre- hensive overview of British female writing on Greece in the twentieth century and beyond. Contributors cover a vast array of authors: Rose Macaulay, Jane El- len Harrison, Virginia Woolf, Ann Quin, Dorothy Una Ratcliffe, Elizabeth Taylor, Barbara Pym, Olivia Manning, Mary Stewart, Victoria Hislop, Loretta Proctor and Sofka Zinovieff formed special ties with Greece and made it the focus of their literary imagination. Moving from Bloomsbury to Mills & Boon, the book offers insight into the ways romantic literature has shaped readers’ perceptions about Greece. Why have female authors of such diverse backgrounds and lit- erary orientations been attracted by a country burdened by its past and trou- bled by its present? What aspects of the country do they choose to highlight? Are female perceptions of Greece different from male ones? The book exam- ines these and many more exciting questions. Given its focus and diversity, it is addressed to audiences in English and Greek studies, Classical reception, European modernism, cultural studies and popular fiction, as well as to non- academic English-speaking readers who have an interest in Greece. Eleni Papargyriou teaches at the University of Vienna, having previously lectured at King’s College London (2009–13). She has held research and teaching positions at Ox- ford, Princeton and the University of Ioannina, Greece. She has published the mono- graph Reading Games in the Greek Novel (2011) and co-edited Camera Graeca: Photographs, Narratives, Materialities (2015). She has published articles on inter- textuality and the novel, the cultural implications of (self)translation, visual moder- nity and the rapport between literary text and photographic image. She is on the editorial board for the Journal of Greek Media and Culture. Semele Assinder studied Classics at Oxford before going to Cambridge to work on her doctoral dissertation, Greece in British Women’s Writing, 1866–1915. During her PhD, she worked in Athens while holding an Onassis Foreigner’s Fellowship; upon completion she took up the British School at Athens’ Macmillan Rodewald Studentship. David Holton is Emeritus Professor of Modern Greek at the University of Cambridge and a fellow of Selwyn College. He is the author of many books and articles on Mod- ern Greek language and literature from the sixteenth to the twentieth century. He edited Literature and Society in Renaissance Crete (1991) and co-edited Copyists, Collectors, Redactors and Editors: Manuscripts and Editors of Late Byzantine and Early Modern Greek Literature (2005). He has also edited twenty volumes of the journal Kambos: Cambridge Papers in Modern Greek (1993–2013). He was Chair- man of the Society for Modern Greek Studies (2012–2016). www.peterlang.com Greece in British Women’s Literary Imagination, 1913–2013 LANG Classical Studies Daniel H. Garrison General Editor Vol. 19 This book is a volume in a Peter Lang monograph series. Every volume is peer reviewed and meets the highest quality standards for content and production. PETER LANG New York Bern Frankfurt Berlin Brussels Vienna Oxford Warsaw Greece in British Women’s Literary Imagination, 1913–2013 Edited by Eleni Papargyriou, Semele Assinder, and David Holton PETER LANG New York Bern Frankfurt Berlin Brussels Vienna Oxford Warsaw Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Papargyriou, Eleni, editor. | Assinder, Semele, editor. | Holton, David, editor. Title: Greece in British women’s literary imagination, 1913–2013 / edited by Eleni Papargyriou, Semele Assinder, and David Holton. Description: New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2017. Includes bibliographical references and index. Series: Lang classical studies; vol. 19 | ISSN 0891-4087 Identifiers: LCCN 2017023216 | ISBN 978-1-4331-3193-6 (hardcover: alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-4539-1674-2 (ebook pdf) | ISBN 978-1-4331-4048-8 (epub) ISBN 978-1-4331-4049-5 (mobi) Subjects: LCSH: English literature—Women authors—History and criticism. Greece—In literature. Classification: LCC PR116 .G74 2017 | DDC 810.9/9287—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017023216 DOI 10.3726/978-1-4539-1674-2 Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek. Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the “Deutsche Nationalbibliografie”; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de/. © 2017 Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., New York 29 Broadway, 18th floor, New York, NY 10006 www.peterlang.com All rights reserved. Reprint or reproduction, even partially, in all forms such as microfilm, xerography, microfiche, microcard, and offset strictly prohibited. To Nan Taplin Contents Introduction: British Women Writing Greece 1 SEMELE AssINDER AND ELENI PapaRGYRIOU 1. Beginnings and Endings in Rose Macaulay’s The Empty Berth 13 SEMELE AssINDER 2. Monuments and Maidens: The Allegory of Greek Form 27 VassILIKI KOLOCOTRONI 3. “In a Different Light”: Imagining Greece in Elizabeth Taylor and Barbara Pym 47 ROWENA FOWLER AND ROSE LITTLE 4. Olivia Manning and the Longed-for City 67 DEIRDRE DavID 5. A Place “We All Dream About”: Greece in Mills & Boon Romances 81 LAURA VIvaNCO 6. Mary Stewart’s Greek Novels: Hellenism, Orientalism and the Cultural Politics of Pulp Presentation 99 JAMES GIffORD 7. Fire and Futility: Contemporary Women Novelists and WWI in Greece 119 DavID WILLS 8. Victoria Hislop’s The Island (2005): The Reception and Impact of a Publishing Phenomenon in Greece 137 KELI DasKALA viii CONTENTS 9. “Perfidious Albion”: Axis Occupation and Civil War in Sofka Zinovieff’s The House on Paradise Street 147 ELENI PapaRGYRIOU Contributors 163 Index 167 Introduction: British Women Writing Greece SEMELE AssINDER AND ELENI PapaRGYRIOU While the Greek connections of British male authors, from Byron to the Durrells and from Patrick Leigh Fermor to Louis de Bernières, have been extensively documented and studied, the country’s presence in women’s literary imagination remains underinvestigated. With the exception of travel writing, which has long been associated with women writers (Kolocotroni and Mitsi 2008; Mahn 2012), the connection between British female authors of fiction and Greece has not yet been examined systematically (Bassnett 2002). Yet, the twentieth century alone produced an impressive number of British female authors who wrote about Greece. They range from highly esteemed representatives