46 Facts About Djuna Barnes

Djuna Barnes was an American artist, illustrator, journalist, and writer who is perhaps best known for her novel Nightwood, a cult classic of lesbian fiction and an important work of modernist literature.

In 1913, Barnes began her career as a freelance journalist and illustrator for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle.

In October 1939, after nearly two decades living mostly in Europe, Djuna Barnes returned to New York.

Djuna Barnes published her last major work, the verse play The Antiphon, in 1958, and she died in her apartment at Patchin Place, Greenwich Village in June 1982.

Djuna Barnes was born in a log cabin on Storm King Mountain, near Cornwall-on-Hudson, New York.

Djuna Barnes's paternal grandmother Zadel Barnes was a writer, journalist, and Women's Suffrage activist who had once hosted an influential literary salon.

Djuna Barnes received her early education at home, mostly from her father and grandmother, who taught her writing, art, and music but neglected subjects such as math and spelling.

Djuna Barnes claimed to have had no formal schooling at all; some evidence suggests that she was enrolled in public school for a time after age ten, though her attendance was inconsistent.

Djuna Barnes published short fiction in the New York Morning Telegraphs Sunday supplement and in the pulp magazine All-Story Cavalier Weekly.

Djuna Barnes suggested that Catt's conservatism was an obstacle to the suffrage movement when Catt tried to ostracize fellow suffragists Alice Paul and Lucy Burns, who sought the vote for women through media attention directed at their strikes and non-violent protesting.

Djuna Barnes immersed herself in risky situations in order to access experiences that a previous generation of homebound women had been denied.

In 1915 Djuna Barnes moved out of her family's flat to an apartment in Greenwich Village, where she entered a thriving Bohemian community of artists and writers.

Djuna Barnes came into contact with Guido Bruno, an entrepreneur and promoter who published magazines and chapbooks from his garret on Washington Square.

Twenty years later Djuna Barnes used Bruno as one of the models for Felix Volkbein in Nightwood, caricaturing his pretensions to nobility and his habit of bowing down before anyone titled or important.

Djuna Barnes was a member of the Provincetown Players, an amateur theatrical collective whose emphasis on artistic rather than commercial success meshed well with her own values.

Three one-act plays by Djuna Barnes were produced there in 1919 and 1920; a fourth, The Dove, premiered at Smith College in 1925, and a series of short closet dramas were published in magazines, some under Djuna Barnes's pseudonym Lydia Steptoe.

Djuna Barnes was unusual among Villagers in having been raised with a philosophy of free love, espoused both by her grandmother and her father.

Hanfstaengl had once given a piano concert at the White House and was a friend of then-New York State Senator Franklin Delano Roosevelt, but he became increasingly angered by anti-German sentiment in the United States during World War I In 1916, he told Barnes he wanted a German wife; the painful breakup became the basis of a deleted scene in Nightwood.

Djuna Barnes later returned to Germany and became a close associate of Adolf Hitler.

Djuna Barnes had a passionate romantic relationship with Mary Pyne, a reporter for the New York Press and fellow member of the Provincetown Players.

Djuna Barnes first traveled there in 1921 on an assignment for McCall's.

Djuna Barnes interviewed her fellow expatriate writers and artists for US periodicals and soon became a well-known figure on the local scene; her black cloak and her acerbic wit are remembered in many memoirs of the time.

Djuna Barnes was part of the inner circle of the influential salon hostess Natalie Barney, who became a lifelong friend and patron, as well as the central figure in Barnes's satiric chronicle of Paris lesbian life, Ladies Almanack.

Wood was a Kansas native who had come to Paris to become a sculptor, but at Djuna Barnes's suggestion took up silverpoint instead, producing drawings of animals and plants that one critic compared to Henri Rousseau.

Djuna Barnes arrived in Paris with a letter of introduction to James Joyce, whom she interviewed for Vanity Fair and who became a friend.

Still, the advance allowed Djuna Barnes to buy a new apartment on Rue Saint-Romain, where she lived with Thelma Wood starting in September 1927.

Djuna Barnes later gave the name Titus to the abusive father in The Antiphon.

Djuna Barnes broke up with Wood over her involvement with heiress Henriette McCrea Metcalf, who would be scathingly portrayed in Nightwood as Jenny Petherbridge.

Much of Nightwood was written during the summers of 1932 and 1933, while Djuna Barnes was staying at Hayford Hall, a country manor in Devon rented by the art patron Peggy Guggenheim.

Djuna Barnes had published little journalism in the 1930s and was largely dependent on Peggy Guggenheim's financial support.

In 1943, Djuna Barnes was included in Peggy Guggenheim's show Exhibition by 31 Women at the Art of This Century gallery in New York.

In 1950, realizing that alcoholism had made it impossible for her to function as an artist, Djuna Barnes stopped drinking in order to begin work on her verse play The Antiphon.

Djuna Barnes wrote eight hours per day despite a growing list of health problems, including arthritis so severe that she had difficulty even sitting at her typewriter or turning on her desk lamp.

Djuna Barnes wrote to Barnes several times, inviting her to participate in a journal on women's writing, but received no reply.

Djuna Barnes remained contemptuous of Nin and would cross the street to avoid her.

Barnes was angry that Nin had named a character Djuna, and when the feminist bookstore Djuna Books opened in Greenwich Village, Barnes called to demand that the name be changed.

Djuna Barnes had a lifelong affection for poet Marianne Moore since she and Moore were young in the 1920s.

Djuna Barnes was elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1961 and was awarded a senior fellowship by the National Endowment for the Arts in 1981.

Djuna Barnes was the last surviving member of the first generation of English-language modernists when she died in her home in New York on June 18,1982, six days after her 90th birthday.

Djuna Barnes came to regard The Book of Repulsive Women as an embarrassment; she called the title "idiotic", left it out of her curriculum vitae, and even burned copies.

The obscure language, inside jokes, and ambiguity of Ladies Almanack have kept critics arguing about whether it is an affectionate satire or a bitter attack, but Djuna Barnes loved the book and reread it throughout her life.

Djuna Barnes's motive is never explicitly stated, but he seems to want to provoke a confrontation among the members of his family and force them to confront the truth about their past.

Djuna Barnes's sister Miranda is a stage actress, now "out of patron and of money"; her materialistic brothers, Elisha and Dudley, see her as a threat to their financial well-being.

Djuna Barnes's last book, Creatures in an Alphabet, is a collection of short rhyming poems.

Unsuccessful in finding a publisher for the Baroness's poetry, Djuna Barnes abandoned the project.

Djuna Barnes has been cited as an influence by writers as diverse as Truman Capote, William Goyen, Karen Blixen, John Hawkes, Bertha Harris, Dylan Thomas, David Foster Wallace, and Anais Nin.