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[Commlist] CFP From treading boards to the Book Society: Clemence Dane and her circle in 1920s-1950s

Mon Jun 20 16:08:47 GMT 2022




Call for Papers Conference

*From treading boards to the Book Society:  Clemence Dane and her circle in 1920s-1950s*

October 6^th -7^th 2022

At the Institute of English Studies, University of London

Thursday 6 October: 13.00-18.00 (followed by reception)

Friday 7 October: 9.30-18.00

Clemence Dane’s circle congregated in her flat in Covent Garden from the 1920s to the 1950s and bridged the worlds of theatre, publishing, and film. The group included her theatrical friends Noel Coward, Richard Addinsell, Val Gielgud, Basil Dean, Diana Wynyard, Sybil Thorndike, Gladys Calthrop and her literary friends Hugh Walpole, Helen Simpson, G.B. Stern, Sylvia Lynd, and many more.  Dane (pseud of Winifred Ashton) started off as an actor and then became a playwright, novelist and scriptwriter. In her memoir /London has a Garden/, she recalled the publishers, agents, authors and directors who lived and worked in the streets close to the flower market. Her Covent Garden flat hosted many after-theatre parties and was an alternative to the Bloomsbury gatherings, yet Dane read and admired Virginia Woolf and was part of the emerging feminism of /Tide and Time/. She went to Hollywood and wrote film scripts in the 1930s and later worked with the director Alexanda Korda. A powerful figure of her day she never had a biography, and is now only heard of caricatured in reminiscences of her contemporaries. This conference seeks to reposition Dane and her circle and assess the significance of her career.

We seek papers in book and literary history, theatre, film and media history to explore Dane’s network, her friendships and support of writers and playwrights and her work for The Book Society. We welcome papers on her adaptations for radio and the stage, and on her writing in Hollywood and later in Britain for film. Dane published consistently (but not exclusively) with Heinemann and the firm published many of her friends and acquaintances including Helen Simpson, G.B. Stern, J.B. Priestley, J.M. Barrie etc. She was close to, and wrote about, Hugh Walpole. The conference aims to bring together such research and seeks papers which show a connection with Clemence Dane on:

·Her plays and the theatre of the period

·Music and song lyrics and their publication and performance

·The work of the Book Society or Prize committees

·Adaptation for radio and television or film

·Collaborative writing and author’s networks

·The writing, publication and readership of her novels and short stories

·The profession of authorship and the periodical press

Please send abstracts of 300 words and a short 50 word biog with affiliation to (alexis.weedon /at/ beds.ac.uk) <mailto:(alexis.weedon /at/ beds.ac.uk)>  by 31 July 2022.

The conference is a collaboration between University of Bedfordshire and Bloomsbury CHAPTER, Dept of Information Studies, UCL


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