Djuna Barnes

Also known as Lydia Steptoe

American Modernist writer, poet and artist (1892-1982)

OverviewAI-generated

Djuna Barnes (1892–1982) was an American poet, novelist, writer, and playwright. Born in Cornwall-on-Hudson, she died in Greenwich Village. Her notable work includes *Nightwood*. She was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and wrote in English, while also speaking Catalan. Barnes was educated at the Pratt Institute and the Art Students League of New York. She worked in Paris and was the unmarried partner of Thelma Wood. Her archives are held at the University of Maryland.

Synthesized by Vinony from 36 facts across 7 sources: Wikidata, Open Library, MusicBrainz, Last.fm, Crossref, Wikiquote, Vinony graph. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.

Person · Open Library

Born: 1892-06-12
Died: 1982-06-18
Works: 118

Top works

Anthology of Magazine Verse For 1920
Anthology of Magazine Verse For 1920
The book of repulsive women
Radical Shadows
The Horse Story Megapack

via Open Library + Wikidata

Music · MusicBrainz

Type: Person
Gender: Female
Active from: 1892
Active to: 1982

Discography

Portraits2007

via MusicBrainz · CC0

Listeners · Last.fm

Listeners: 598
Total plays: 3,573

Recent publications · Crossref

5 total works indexed

A global reference for human genetic variation
· 2015 · cited 17,787x
Surface plasmon subwavelength optics
· 2003 · cited 10,521x
Spurious but systematic correlations in functional connectivity MRI networks arise from subject motion
· 2012 · cited 7,309x
Chronic inflammation in fat plays a crucial role in the development of obesity-related insulin resistance
· 2003 · cited 6,755x
Observation of a new boson at a mass of 125 GeV with the CMS experiment at the LHC
· 2012 · cited 6,659x

via Crossref · CC0

Quotes

“We are beginning to wonder whether a servant girl hasn’t the best of it after all. She knows how the salad tastes without the dressing, and she knows how life’s lived before it gets to the parlor door.”
“I am not a critic; to me criticism is so often nothing more than the eye garrulously denouncing the shape of the peephole that gives access to hidden treasure.”
“New York is the meeting place of the peoples, the only city where you can hardly find a typical American.”
“After all, it is not where one washes one’s neck that counts but where one moistens one’s throat.”
“Well, isn’t Bohemia a place where everyone is as good as everyone else — and must not a waiter be a little less than a waiter to be a good Bohemian?”
“If Helen of Troy could have been seen eating peppermints out of a paper bag, it is highly probable that her admirers would have been an entirely different class. It is the thing you are found doing while the horde looks on that you shall be loved for — or ignored.”

via Wikiquote · CC BY-SA

Key facts

Born: ( 1892-06-12 ) June 12, 1892, Storm King Mountain, Orange County , New York, NY, U.S.
Died: June 18, 1982 (1982-06-18) (aged 90), New York City, NY, U.S.
Pen name: Lydia Steptoe A Lady of Fashion Gunga Duhl, the Pen Performer
Occupation: Novelist poet journalist artist
Literary movement: Modernism
Notable works: Ladies Almanack (1928), Nightwood (1936)
Relatives: Zadel Barnes (paternal grandmother)

via Wikipedia infobox

Wikidata facts

Instance of: creative work
Family name: Barnes
Gender: female
Citizenship: United States
Place of birth: Cornwall-on-Hudson
Place of death: Greenwich Village
Occupation: painter
Educated at: Art Students League of New York
Languages spoken: English language
Field of work: poetry
Genre: lesbian literature
Movement: modernist literature
Image: Djunabarnes.jpg
Work location: Paris

Show 14 more facts

Commons category: Djuna Barnes
date of death: 1982-06-18
date of birth: 1892-06-12
pseudonym: Lydia Steptoe
unmarried partner: Thelma Wood
member of: American Academy of Arts and Letters
sexual orientation: lesbianism
writing language: English language
relative: Zadel Barnes Gustafson
P8168: M72
place of burial: Greenwich Village
P12674: Wolfgang Stammberger
Commons Creator page: Djuna Barnes
name in native language: Djuna Barnes

Sources (8)

via Wikidata · CC0

~40 min read

Encyclopedic overview

Djuna Barnes (/ˈdʒuːnɑː/ JOO-nah; June 12, 1892 – June 18, 1982) was an American artist, illustrator, journalist, and writer who is perhaps best known for her novel Nightwood (1936), a cult classic of lesbian fiction and an important work of modernist literature.

In 1913, Barnes began her career as a freelance journalist and illustrator for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. By early 1914, Barnes was a highly sought feature reporter, interviewer, and illustrator whose work appeared in the city's leading newspapers and periodicals. Later, Barnes's talent and connections with prominent Greenwich Village bohemians afforded her the opportunity to publish her prose, poems, illustrations, and one-act plays in both avant-garde literary journals and popular magazines, and publish an illustrated volume of poetry, The Book of Repulsive Women (1915).

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Djuna Barnes” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.