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5 - Violet Dickinson

Itinerant Craftswoman

from Withdrawers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 April 2023

Jeremy Burchardt
Affiliation:
University of Reading
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Summary

Ostensibly the most privileged of the diarists considered in this book, Violet Dickinson had one of the most difficult lives. She had a fraught, distant relationship with her mother, her often-absent art dealer father played an ambivalent role in her life, and for many years the family had no permanent home. As a young woman, underneath the superficial, nouveau-riche assurance, Dickinson was deeply uncertain of her direction in life. She fled her high-society milieu for the safety of an East Kent smallholding, in company with her younger brother Cedric. Rural self-sufficiency and craftwork appears to have provided a measure of stability, fulfilment and peace of mind for Dickinson. However, her successive moves to smallholdings in Sussex and then Somerset were indicative of continuing emotional tensions (some linked to her closet lesbianism), and her efforts to construct a new ‘family’ about her in these secluded rural settings were only partially successful.

Type
Chapter
Information
Lifescapes
The Experience of Landscape in Britain, 1870–1960
, pp. 183 - 242
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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  • Violet Dickinson
  • Jeremy Burchardt, University of Reading
  • Book: Lifescapes
  • Online publication: 20 April 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009199858.007
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  • Violet Dickinson
  • Jeremy Burchardt, University of Reading
  • Book: Lifescapes
  • Online publication: 20 April 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009199858.007
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Violet Dickinson
  • Jeremy Burchardt, University of Reading
  • Book: Lifescapes
  • Online publication: 20 April 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009199858.007
Available formats
×