Her brother Roger was considered more intelligent and
academic minded. Still, she was keen to
have a university education, which was still very rare for girls of any
class. However when she started to study
history at Cambridge, she found it more difficult than she had anticipated.
She was romantic minded and loved history for its thrilling
stories. When she found herself expected
to study dull aspects of constitutional history, it was a struggle for
her. She was not able to put aside
personal likes and dislikes, and achieve an impartial viewpoint.
She persuaded her father to let her change from history, to
studying French. Frederick Bourne was
concerned about his finances and he wanted his children all to be able to earn
a living. Although he was comfortably
off, he worried particularly about the care of Roger, who would need a trust
fund to maintain him in a good and well run mental hospital. Winifred talked about getting a job as a
teacher... However, when her college career was over, she stayed home and did
not look for a paid job.
The job she really cared about was writing, and she was
determined if possible to achieve a career was a writer.
She was never interested in writing novels, saying that she
could not think of plots. So she concentrated on poetry and plays, and spent a
few years, going on with her reading of literature, and starting to write…learning
her trade.
She wrote a play about Fanny Burney, who was a contemporary
of Jane Austen- and a novelist. She
loved Austen and the Brontes….
No comments:
Post a Comment