ABSTRACT
In May 1918, in an issue of The Music Student devoted to the theme of ‘Women’s Work in Music’, Annie T. Weston argued that ‘few people realise how much literary work women are doing to further the cause of music.’1 In her short article, Weston dealt prominently with Newmarch under a number of headings: as a historian and biographer; as a translator; and as an editor. As Paula GilleĴ observes: ‘Despite prevailing prejudices against their intellectual and creative powers, women contributed in important ways to the rich musical life of England during the late-Victorian period and the early-twentieth century.’2 In many ways, Newmarch was typical of that generation of English women who began to claim for themselves an increasingly prominent place in the musical life of the country around the turn of the century. This process was, however, far from straightforward (note GilleĴ’s reference to ‘prevailing prejudices against their intellectual and creative powers’), and Newmarch’s writings aĴest to the various ways in which gender shaped the nature of her participation in the cultural sphere (whether in her own eyes, or in those of others). Furthermore, it was Newmarch’s interest in Russia that was to prove crucial in shaping her work as a woman writer.
