The award-winning author Victoria Glendinning was commissioned by Rebecca West herself to write a 'short' biography:she has achieved an exceptionally vivid and moving portrait of this remarkable woman. The story of Rebecca West,who lived from 1892 until 1983,is the story of a twentieth century women.As a teenager,she marched with the suffragettes; she had an affair with H G Wells and became an unmarried mother.A radical socialist in her youth and a passionate opponent of Communism in her later years,she won fame as a novelist,critic,travelk-writer and journalist.But her personal life was often as stormy and complex as her public life. In this sympathetic but clear-eyed biography,Victoria Glendinning tells a disturbing story that will evoke admiratrion and pity for an extraordinary woman.