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

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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