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Naomi Mitchison
‐
Scottish novelist, poet and social activist
Other names
Naomi Margaret (Haldane) Mitchison
Place of birth
Place of death
Carradale, Scotland
About
Naomi Mitchison (née Haldane) was a Scottish novelist and social activist. Born in Edinburgh into a wealthy and well-established family, she was brought up in Oxford, where her physiologist father, John Scott Haldane, was a fellow. In 1916 she married the barrister Gilbert Richard (Dick) Mitchison (later Labour MP and life peer). The couple’s main residence from 1923 to 1939, Rivercourt House on the Mall in Hammersmith in London, became a lively intellectual centre, frequented by a wide circle of artists, writers, politicians and working-class friends. Among her many friends were Aldous Huxley, Wyndham Lewis, W. H. Auden and E. M. Forster.
In 1930 she joined the Labour Party with her husband, and became an active political campaigner throughout the 1930s. In 1932 she took part in a Fabian Society expedition to the Soviet Union, and in 1934 went to Vienna to assist the socialists who were being persecuted by the Austrian government. She also stood unsuccessfully for election as a Labour Party candidate for the Scottish Universities in 1935. In 1939 she moved to Carradale, Scotland and became involved in the Scottish renaissance. In the 1960s she was adopted by the African tribe of Bakgatla, Linchwe as their councillor and ‘mother’ and wrote many books on them.
In 1934 Mitchison was introduced to Jawaharlal Nehru at King’s Norton, Birmingham, and later that year she set up a meeting in London between the Labour politician Stafford Cripps and Nehru. After Indian independence Mitchison visited the subcontinent several times to spend time with her daughter Sonia Lois, who went to Pakistan to be a teacher. Her brother, the famous geneticist J. B. S. Haldane, also migrated to India in 1957. Mitchison visited him in 1958.
Joe Ackerley, Horace Alexander, W. H. Auden, Tom Baxter, Stella Benson, Henry Noel Brailsford, Jonathan Cape, Douglas Cole, Margaret Cole, Stafford Cripps, Krishna R. Dronamraju, E. M. Forster, Hugh Gaitskell, Victor Gollancz, Norman Haire, Graeme Haldane, J. B. S. Haldane, Tom Harrisson, Gerald Heard, Aldous Huxley, Julian Huxley, Storm Jameson, C. E. M. Joad, Andrew Lang, Harold Laski, Doris Lessing, Cecil Day Lewis, Wyndham Lewis, Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis, Bronislaw Malinowski, Gilbert Richard Mitchison, Gilbert Murray, E. M. S. Namboodiripad, Jawaharlal Nehru, John Pilley, Horace Plunkett, Lady Rhondda, Dora Russell, George Bernard Shaw, Stevie Smith, Olaf Stapledon, Khushwant Singh, Osbert Sitwell, Dylan Thomas, Beatrice Webb, Rebecca West, Leonard Woolf.
Labour Party, World Peace Appeal (vice-chair).
The Conquered (London: Cape; New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1923) [novel]
When the Bough Breaks and Other Stories (London: Cape; New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1924) [short stories]
Cloud Cuckoo Land (London: Cape, 1925; New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1926) [novel]
The Laburnum Branch (London: Cape, 1926) [poetry]
Anna Comnena (London: Gerald Howe, 1928)
Black Sparta: Greek Stories (London: Cape; New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1928) [short stories]
Barbarian Stories (London: Cape; New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1929) [short stories]
Nix-Nought-Nothing: Four Plays for Children (London: Cape, 1928; New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1929) [play]
Comments on Birth Control (London: Faber & Faber, 1930)
The Hostages and Other Stories for Boys and Girls, illustrated by Logi Southby (London: Cape, 1930; New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1931) [children’s book]
Boys and Girls and Gods (London: Watts, 1931) [children’s book]
Kate Crackernuts: A Fairy Play (Oxford: Alden Press, 1931) [play]
The Corn King and the Spring Queen (London: Cape; New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1931) [novel]
The Price of Freedom (London: Cape, 1931) [play]
The Powers of Light (London: Cape; New York: Peter Smith, 1932) [novel]
The Delicate Fire: Short Stories and Poems (London: Cape; New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1933) [short stories]
The Home and a Changing Civilization (London: John Lane, 1934)
Vienna Diary (London: Gollancz; New York: Smith & Haas, 1934)
(with Wyndham Lewis) Beyond This Limit (London: Cape, 1935) [novel]
We Have Been Warned (London: Constable, 1935; New York: Vanguard, 1936) [novel]
The Fourth Pig: Stories and Verses (London: Constable, 1936) [short stories]
An End and a Beginning and Other Plays (London: Constable, 1937) [play]
(with Richard Crossman) Socrates (London: Hogarth Press, 1937; Harrisburg, PA: Stackpole, 1938)
The Moral Basis of Politics (London: Constable, 1938; Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1971)
As It Was in the Beginning (London: Cape, 1939) [play]
The Alban Goes Out (Harrow: Raven Press, 1939) [poetry]
The Blood of the Martyrs (London: Constable, 1939; New York: McGraw-Hill, 1948) [novel]
The Kingdom of Heaven (London: Heinemann, 1939)
(ed. with Robert Britton and George Kilgour) Re-Educating Scotland (Glasgow: Scoop Books, 1944)
The Bull Calves (London: Cape, 1947) [novel]
(with Denis Macintosh) Men and Herring: A Documentary (Edinburgh: Serif, 1949)
The Big House (London: Faber & Faber, 1950) [short stories]
Spindrift: A Play in Three Acts (London: Samuel French, 1951) [play]
Lobsters on the Agenda (London: Gollancz, 1952) [novel]
Travel Light (London: Faber & Faber, 1952) [novel]
Graeme and the Dragon, illustrated by Pauline Baynes (London: Faber & Faber, 1954) [children’s book]
The Swan's Road, illustrated by Leonard Huskinson (London: Naldrett Press, 1954) [children’s book]
To the Chapel Perilous (London: Allen & Unwin, 1955) [novel]
The Land the Ravens Found, illustrated by Brian Allderidge (London: Collins, 1955) [children’s book]
Little Boxes, illustrated by Louise Annand (London: Faber & Faber, 1956) [children’s book]
Behold Your King (London: Muller, 1957) [novel]
The Far Harbour, illustrated by Martin Thomas (London: Collins, 1957) [children’s book]
Five Men and a Swan: Short Stories and Poems (London: Allen & Unwin, 1958) [short stories]
Other People's Worlds (London: Secker & Warburg, 1958) [children’s book]
Judy and Lakshmi, illustrated by Avinash Chandra (London: Collins, 1959) [children’s book]
(with G. W. L. Patterson) A Fishing Village on the Clyde (London: Oxford University Press, 1960)
The Rib of the Green Umbrella, illustrated by Edward Ardizzone (London: Collins, 1960) [children’s book]
The Young Alexander the Great, illustrated by Betty Middleton-Sandford (London: Parrish, 1960; New York: Roy, 1961) [children’s book]
Karensgaard: The Story of a Danish Farm (London: Collins, 1961) [children’s book]
Presenting Other People’s Children (London: Paul Hamlyn, 1961)
Memoirs of a Spacewoman (London: Gollancz, 1962) [novel]
The Young Alfred the Great, illustrated by Shirley Farrow (London: Parrish, 1962; New York: Roy, 1963) [children’s book]
(ed.) What the Human Race Is Up To (London: Victor Gollancz, 1962)
The Fairy Who Couldn't Tell a Lie, illustrated by Jane Paton (London: Collins, 1963) [children’s book]
Alexander the Great, illustrated by Rosemary Grimble (London: Longmans, Green, 1964) [children’s book]
Henny and Crispies (Wellington, New Zealand: Department of Education, 1964) [children’s book]
When We Become Men (London: Collins, 1965) [novel]
Ketse and the Chief, illustrated by Christine Bloomer (London: Nelson, 1965; New York: Nelson & Nashville, 1967) [children’s book]
A Mochudi Family, illustrated by Stephen John (Wellington, New Zealand: Department of Education, 1965) [children’s book]
Friends and Enemies, illustrated by Caroline Sassoon (London: Collins, 1966; New York: Day, 1968) [children’s book]
Return to the Fairy Hill (London: Heineman; New York: Day, 1966)
Highland Holiday, photographs by John K. Wilkie (Wellington, New Zealand: Department of Education, 1967) [children’s book]
The Big Surprise (London: Kaye & Ward, 1967) [children’s book]
African Heroes, illustrated by William Stobbs (London: Bodley Head, 1968; New York: Farrar, Straus, 1969) [children’s book]
Don't Look Back, illustrated by Laszlo Acs (London: Kaye & Ward, 1969) [children’s book]
The Family at Ditlabeng, illustrated by Joanna Stubbs (London: Collins, 1969; New York: Farrar, Straus, 1970) [children’s book]
Sun and Moon, illustrated by Barry Wilkinson (London: Bodley Head, 1970; Nashville: Nelson, 1973) [children’s book]
The Africans: A History (London: Blond, 1970)
Cleopatra's People (London: Heinemann, 1972) [novel]
A Life for Africa: The Story of Bram Fischer (London: Merlin Press; Boston, MA: Carrier Pigeon, 1973)
The Danish Teapot, illustrated by Patricia Frost (London: Kaye & Ward, 1973) [children’s book]
Small Talk: Memories of an Edwardian Childhood (London: Bodley Head, 1973)
Sunrise Tomorrow (London: Collins; New York: Farrar, Straus, 1973)
Oil for the Highlands? (London: Fabian Society, 1974)
All Change Here: Girlhood and Marriage (London: Bodley Head, 1975)
Sittlichkeit (London: Birkbeck College, 1975) [children’s book]
Solution Three (London: Dobson; New York: Warner, 1975) [novel]
Snake!, illustrated by Polly Loxton (London: Collins, 1976) [children’s book]
The Little Sister, with works by Ian Kirby and Keetla Masogo, illustrated by Angela Marrow (Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1976) [children’s book]
(with Megan Biesele) The Wild Dogs, illustrated by Loxton (Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1977) [children’s book]
The Brave Nurse and Other Stories, illustrated by Loxton (Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1977) [children’s book]
The Cleansing of the Knife and Other Poems (Edinburgh: Canongate, 1978) [poetry]
(with Dick Mitchison) The Two Magicians, illustrated by Danuta Laskowska (London: Dobson, 1978) [children’s book]
You May Well Ask: A Memoir 1920–1940 (London: Gollancz, 1979)
Images of Africa (Edinburgh: Canongate, 1980) [short stories]
The Vegetable War, illustrated by Loxton (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1980) [children’s book]
Mucking Around: Five Continents Over Fifty Years (London: Gollancz, 1981)
What Do You Think Yourself? Scottish Short Stories (Edinburgh: Harris, 1982) [short stories]
Not by Bread Alone (London: Boyars, 1983) [novel]
Among You, Taking Notes: The Wartime Diary of Naomi Mitchison 1939–1945, ed. by Dorothy Sheridan (London: Gollancz, 1985)
Naomi Mitchison, Saltire Self-Portrait (Edinburgh: Saltire Society, 1986)
Early in Orcadia (Glasgow: Drew, 1987) [short stories]
A Girl Must Live: Stories and Poems (Glasgow: Drew, 1990) [short stories]
The Oath-takers (Narin: Balnain, 1991) [novel]
Sea-Green Ribbons (Narin: Balnain, 1991) [novel]
Benton, Jill, Naomi Mitchison: A Biography (London: Pandora Press, 1990)
Calder, Jennu, The Nine Lives of Naomi Mitchison (London: Virago, 1997)
Joannou, Maroula, ‘Naomi Mitchison at One Hundred’, Women: A Cultural Review 9.3 (Autumn 1998), pp. 292–304
Leavis, Q. D., ‘Lady Novelists and the Lower Orders’, Scrutiny 4.2 (September 1935), pp. 112–32
Montefiore, Jan, Men and Women Writers of the 1930s (London and New York: Routledge, 1996)
Lady Naomi Mitchison, Botswana papers, diaries and writings, Borthwick Institute of Historical Research, York University
Correspondence and literary papers, Buffalo State College, Buffalo, State University of New York
Naomi Mitchison Papers 1909–1979, Archive Collections, Columbia University Library, New York
Correspondence and literary papers, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center Library, University of Texas, Austin
Letters to the Manchester Guardian (1949–54), John Rylands Library, University of Manchester
Letters from E. M. Forster to Naomi Mitchison and Mitchison’s Memoir, Papers of Edward Morgan Forster, King’s College Archive Centre, Cambridge
1914–45: Correspondence, Imperial War Museum Department of Documents, London
Letters to Olaf Stapledon (1936–50), Special Collections and Archives, Liverpool University
Correspondence, diaries, literary manuscripts, family papers, Manuscript Collections, National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh
Correspondence with Julian Huxley, Julian Huxley Papers 1899–1980, Fondren Library, Rice University, Houston, Texas, US
Papers relating to Botswana (1964–74), School of Oriental and African Studies, London
Correspondence and papers relating to visit to Australia, University of Melbourne, Australia
Correspondence with Bodley Head, University of Reading Library, Reading
In the laboratory there were visitors from other countries. Once it was Ho Chi Minh, and Professor Mahalanobis insisted on marshalling us in lines to be shaken hands with. This displeased my brother; he and a Russian colleague – could it have been Oparin? – and Helen and I all went for a walk through the grounds instead of standing in line and met Ho Chi Minh with less formality later…
India and all its memories: one especially remains. I had walked round the garden of the Prime Minister’s house with Jawaharlal Nehru. We had I suppose talked politics, though simply being with him was always great happiness in itself. Then we went to see his pandas. He bent over stroking them; I tried to do the same but they didn’t like me. ‘Wait’, he said, and spoke to them. Then it was all right; I was properly introduced and allowed to touch. One of them had recently had a night out, ‘and had’, he said, I thought approvingly, ‘bitten a policeman’.
Naomi Mitchison, Mucking Around: Five Continents Over Fifty Years (London: Gollancz, 1981), pp. 89–90, 101
Image credit
© Remaking Britain: South Asian Connections and Networks, 1930s – present
