This biography gets off to a bad start with its title. The writer called Stevie Smith was also a celebrity called Stevie - a spiky sprite who was famous for being unfashionable. This creature thrived on being a spinster, which licensed her to be a bit cuckoo, and on speaking her hard words from a spindly frame decked out like a schoolgirl's - as if it were a feat to think behind a fringe. For Stevie Smith the writer it was comfortable, though not always convenient, to live out of the centre of London: for Stevie the celebrity it was a triumph - an acquaintance is cited here as drawling that her 'ability' to live in Palmers Green while moving in London literary circles was 'the most compelling thing about her'. First-named throughout this book, by biographers who apparently never met her, Stevie Smith and her work are draped in Palmers Greenery. Would a biographer of Hughes call him Ted?

LRB 19 December 1985 | PDF Download