Naomi Mitchison
Lady Naomi Margaret Mitchison (nee Haldane; 1 November 1897 – 11 January 1999) was a British novelist and poet.
| Contents |
Biography
Naomi Haldane was born in Edinburgh in 1897, the daughter of the physiologist John Haldane (1860 – 1936) and his wife Louisa. Her elder brother was the biologist J.B.S. Haldane (1892 – 1964). Naomi was educated at the Dragon School, Oxford and began a science degree at the university in that city, but gave this up to become a nurse.
In 1916 Naomi married the barrister and later Labour politician Dick Mitchison (1894–1970) and they lived from 1937 at Carradale House at Carradale in Kintyre. They had six children; four sons; Geoffrey (1918-1927) Denis (born 1919) later a professor of bacteriology, Murdoch (born 1922), and Avrion (born 1928), both professors of zoology. Their daughters were Sonja and Valentine.
Mitchison was a prolific writer, completing more than 90 books in her lifetime, across a multitude of styles and genres. These include historical novels such as her first novel The Conquered (1923), Cloud Cuckoo Land (1925) and The Corn King and the Spring Queen (1931), The Bull Calves (1947) and The Young Alexander the Great (1960); fantasy such as Graeme and the Dragon (1954); science fiction such as Memoirs of a Spacewoman (1962) and Solution Three (1975); non-fiction such as African Heroes (1968), together with children's novels, poetry, travel and a three-volume autobiography. Undoubtedly her most controversial work, We Have Been Warned was published in 1935 and explored sexual behaviour, including rape and abortion. The book was rejected by various publishers and subject to censorship. Mitchison was a Life Fellow of the Eugenics Society.
Mitchison was also a vocal campaigner for women's rights, advocating birth control, and was also active in local government in Scotland (1947 – 1976). She acted a spokeswoman for the island communities of Scotland and became an advisor to the Bakgatla tribe of Botswana. She was also a good friend of the writer J.R.R. Tolkien and she was one of the proof readers of The Lord of the Rings
In 1964, Dick Mitchison was created a life peer on retirement for his political work, with Naomi thus becoming Lady Mitchison. Continuing to write into her eighties, she died at Carradale at the age of 101.
Bibliography
Biographies of Mitchison
- Naomi Mitchison: A Biography by Jill Benton (London: Pandora, 1990)
Autobiography
Mitchison's autobiography is in three parts.
- All Change Here: Girlhood and Marriage (1975)
- As It Was: An Autobiography 1897-1918 (1975)
- You May Well Ask: A Memoir, 1920-1940 (1979)