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Trix: The Other Kipling

  • Barbara Fisher (author)
Metadata
TitleTrix
SubtitleThe Other Kipling
ContributorBarbara Fisher (author)
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0377
Landing pagehttps://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/OBP.0377
Licensehttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
CopyrightBarbara Fisher
PublisherOpen Book Publishers
Publication placeCambridge, UK
Published on2024-09-04
ISBN978-1-80511-152-8 (Paperback)
978-1-80511-153-5 (Hardback)
978-1-80511-154-2 (PDF)
978-1-80511-157-3 (HTML)
978-1-80511-155-9 (EPUB)
Short abstractThis volume represents the first biography of Alice MacDonald Kipling Fleming (1868-1948), known as Trix. Rarely portrayed with sympathy or accuracy in biographies of her famous brother Rudyard, Trix was a talented writer and a memorable character in her own right whose fascinating life was unknown until now. In telling Trix’s story, Barbara Fisher rescues her from the misrepresentations, trivializations, and outright neglect of Rudyard’s many biographers.
Long abstractThis volume represents the first biography of Alice MacDonald Kipling Fleming (1868-1948), known as Trix. Rarely portrayed with sympathy or accuracy in biographies of her famous brother Rudyard, Trix was a talented writer and a memorable character in her own right whose fascinating life was unknown until now. In telling Trix’s story, Barbara Fisher rescues her from the misrepresentations, trivializations, and outright neglect of Rudyard’s many biographers. This book provides the first account of Trix’s life, beginning with the horrible childhood she shared with Rudyard as a Raj orphan in England. The biography follows adolescent Trix as she returned to India, where her brother encouraged her to write poems and stories, which were regularly mistaken for his. Her marriage to a stiff Scottish officer is chronicled from its hopeful beginnings through its childless, cheerless middle to its calm and compromised end. Trix’s bouts of mental illness are described in sympathetic detail. Turning her attention to Trix’s oeuvre Barbara Fisher locates and attributes all of her short fiction, poetry, and journalism, giving special attention to Trix’s two ambitious but flawed novels. She also puts into historical context Trix’s long and productive participation as a medium for the Society for Psychical Research. Most importantly, Trix: The Other Kipling gives a voice, a mind, and a heart to a misunderstood, misrepresented, but indomitable woman – an accomplishment which will be of great interest to readers interested in Victorian women authors, in the cultural interchanges between England and colonial India, in serious psychical research, in the early treatment of mental illness, and more generally, in the everyday life and struggles of intellectual women of the 19th and early 20th century.
Print length260 pages (x+250)
LanguageEnglish (Original)
Dimensions156 x 19 x 234 mm | 6.14" x 0.75" x 9.21" (Paperback)
156 x 23 x 234 mm | 6.14" x 0.91" x 9.21" (Hardback)
Weight500g | 17.64oz (Paperback)
673g | 23.74oz (Hardback)
Media29 illustrations
OCLC Number1454830435
LCCN2023513477
THEMA
  • DSG
  • DNC
  • DSA
BIC
  • BGL
  • DSBH
  • VFV
BISAC
  • BIO007000
  • BIO026000
  • LIT006000
LCC
  • PR4849.K5
Keywords
  • Alice MacDonald Kipling Fleming
  • Trix
  • Rudyard Kipling
  • Victorian women authors
  • mental illness
  • colonial India
Contents

Introduction

(pp. 1–8)
  • Barbara Fisher

1. The House of Desolation

(pp. 9–32)
  • Barbara Fisher

2. MacDonalds and Kiplings

(pp. 33–42)
  • Barbara Fisher

3. Rescue

(pp. 43–56)
  • Barbara Fisher

4. The Family Square

(pp. 57–92)
  • Barbara Fisher

5. The Heart of a Maid

(pp. 93–102)
  • Barbara Fisher

6. Wife of Jack

(pp. 103–120)
  • Barbara Fisher

7. A Pinchbeck Goddess

(pp. 121–144)
  • Barbara Fisher

8. Breakdown

(pp. 145–166)
  • Barbara Fisher

9. Psychic Research

(pp. 167–196)
  • Barbara Fisher

10. Relapse and Exile

(pp. 197–212)
  • Barbara Fisher

11. Recovery and Return

(pp. 213–232)
  • Barbara Fisher
Locations
PaperbackLanding pageFull text URLPublisher Website
HardbackLanding pageFull text URLPublisher Website
PDFLanding pageFull text URLPublisher Website
Landing pageFull text URLOAPEN
Landing pageDOAB
Landing pageEBSCO HOST
Landing pageFull text URL
Landing pageFull text URL
Landing pageFull text URLINTERNET ARCHIVE
HTMLLanding pageFull text URLPublisher Website
EPUBLanding pageFull text URLPublisher Website
Contributors

Barbara Fisher

(author)

Barbara Fisher graduated from Bennington College with a B.A. and received her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in English Literature from Columbia University. For many years, she taught 18th and 19th Century English Literature, mostly at Eugene Lang College, the undergraduate college of the New School University in New York City. She has also been a book reviewer for major U.S. newspapers including the The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Boston Globe, for which she wrote a book column every other Sunday for fifteen years. This is her first book as an independent scholar. She is currently working on a biography of mid-20th Century cultural and literary critic Lionel Trilling.

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