21 Facts About Theodora Bosanquet

Theodora Bosanquet MBE was a writer, reviewer, editor, secretary, and amanuensis to Henry James.

Theodora Bosanquet worked as Executive Secretary of the International Federation of University Women, as well as being a contributor to, and subsequently director and literary editor of, the political and literary magazine Time and Tide.

Theodora Bosanquet was born on 3 October 1880 at Sandown, Isle of Wight to Gertrude Mary Fox and Frederick Charles Tindal Bosanquet, a curate.

Theodora Bosanquet was educated at Cheltenham Ladies' College, one of England's earliest educational institutions for women, founded in 1853.

Theodora Bosanquet then gained her BSc from University College London, having studied biology, geology, and physics.

In 1907, Bosanquet enrolled at Mary Petherbridge's Secretarial Bureau, learning skills including typing and shorthand.

In October 1907, shortly after her 27th birthday, Theodora Bosanquet began work for Henry James.

Theodora Bosanquet's request had been for someone to transcribe edits and additions to his substantial body of work, James having undertaken a revision of his writings for the twenty-four-volume New York Edition.

Theodora Bosanquet was an admirer of James's work, and had been introduced to his writings as a pre-teenager.

Theodora Bosanquet wrote of the in-laws as viewing her as too "presumptuous", particularly in keeping figures such as Edith Wharton - whose adultery they disapproved of - informed about the novelist's wellbeing.

When James died in 1916, Theodora Bosanquet turned down an invitation to become Wharton's secretary in Paris, choosing instead to work for the final two years of the First World War in the War Trade Intelligence Department and Ministry of Food.

Theodora Bosanquet later developed, at the Woolfs' request, the Little Review article into a memoir, published by the Hogarth Press in 1924 as Henry James at Work, and reprinted, slightly revised, in 1927.

In 1920, Theodora Bosanquet became Secretary to the International Federation of University Women, an organisation formed the year before "to promote international understanding and friendship between university women around the world".

Theodora Bosanquet held this role for fifteen years, until 1935.

Theodora Bosanquet had been a regular reviewer for the magazine since 1927, contributing pieces on art, biography, and modernist literature.

Wedgwood, noted Theodora Bosanquet's "organizing ability, her wide human sympathies, and her sustained idealism and belief in international cooperation", which had "most admirably fitted her' for her position with the International Federation of University Women".

Theodora Bosanquet's writing Wedgwood described as "distinguished by a breadth of knowledge, a fine precision of writing, a balanced judgement and a quiet humour".

Theodora Bosanquet's funeral took place at Chelsea Old Church on 6 June 1961 following which she was cremated.

Theodora Bosanquet's ashes were interred in the grave of her mother and brother at Uplyme, Devon.

Theodora Bosanquet has increasingly been viewed not merely as James's amanuensis, but as his "creative counterpoint" and "closest literary associate".

An entry for Theodora Bosanquet was added to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography in September 2022.