Bryher
Entry updated 12 May 2025. Tagged: Author.
(1894-1983) UK philanthropist and author, born Annie Winifred Ellerman; she had begun to use Bryher as a pseudonym before the publication of her first book, Region of Lutany (1914 chap) – which was poetry – and eventually took the name by deed poll; she normally wrote simply as Bryher. Her philanthropic activities extended through much of the twentieth century, and included financial support for figures as wide-ranging as Sigmund Freud preparing in 1938 to go into exile, James Joyce and Edith Sitwell. From Beowulf (1948) on, she concentrated mostly on the historical novels for which she is best remembered.
Of sf interest is Visa for Avalon (1965), set mostly in a verdant enclave (see Zone) at the heart of an unnamed Near Future (clearly England) about to be industrialized by a punitive Dystopian national government. The cast, almost miraculously, manages to catch the last flight to Avalon, an Island where the phenomenal world – the tale, richly Imagist after the manner of her early work, is saturated with the sights and smells of the land (ie Cornwall) about to be destroyed – may still freely reward the senses. In the last sentence, after the cast experiences moments of death-like Transcendence, the plane lands safely in Avalon (see Slingshot Ending). [JC]
Winifred Bryher
born Margate, Kent: 2 September 1894
died Vaud, Switzerland: 28 January 1983
works
- Visa for Avalon (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World/Helen and Kurt Wolff, 1965) [hb/Harris Lewine]
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