Mary Morison Webster
Mary Morison Webster Schikkerling (26 January 1894 – 1980) was a Scottish-born literary critic, novelist and poet who moved to South Africa with her family in 1920.
Mary Morison Webster
- Name
- Mary Morison Webster
- Born
- 26 January 1894
- Birthplace
- Edinburgh, Scotland, U.K.
- Died
- 1980
- Occupation
- Poet, writer
- Nationality
- South Africa
- Languages
- English
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Mary Morison Webster vécut du 1er janvier 1894 au 1er janvier 1980 et fut écrivaine et poétesse.
Vie
La naissance de Mary Morison Webster est enregistrée le 1er janvier 1894, et le décès le 1er janvier 1980.
Institutions citées
Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
Non précisé par les sources citées: nationalité
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In this article
Key facts
Key facts
• Name — Mary Morison Webster • Born — 26 January 1894 • Birthplace — Edinburgh, Scotland, U.K. • Died — 1980 • Occupation — Poet, writer • Language — English
Biography
Biography
Webster was born and raised in Edinburgh, the daughter of Robert Smith Webster and Eliza Ronald Webster. For most of her adult life she lived in Johannesburg, where she was married to Roland William Schikkerling in 1920; they divorced before 1930. She was an influential book reviewer for The Rand Daily Mail and Sunday Times for 40 years. She wrote five novels, including one in collaboration with her sister, novelist Elizabeth Charlotte Webster, who died in 1934, and several collections of poetry. Webster died in 1980, in her eighties.
Poetry
Poetry
Webster's poems appeared in magazines, and were chosen for anthologies including The Bookman Treasury of Living Poets (1928), The Penguin Book of African Verse (1968), and The New Century of South African Poetry (2002). • "Rencontre" and "World's End" (1920) • "The Organ Donkey" (1921) • "After Death – Spring 1915" and "Gallipoli" (1922) • To-Morrow (1922) • "Two Songs in Autumn" (1928) • The Silver Flute (1931) • Alien Guest (1933) • Garland in the Wind (1938) • Flowers from Four Gardens (1951) • A Litter of Leaves (1971) • Rain After Drought
Novels
Novels
• Evergreen (1929) • The Schoolhouse (1933) • High Altitude (1949, with Elizabeth Charlotte Webster) • The Slave of the Lamp (1950) • A Village Scandal (1965)
Reception
Webster's first collection, To-Morrow (1922), was briefly reviewed in Poetry: A Magazine of Verse, where the anonymous reviewer found the book "pleasant, easy to read and to enjoy... not tremendous at all, but with many glints of beauty and womanly wisdom." A more recent literary scholar found that "Webster developed a precocious formal and technical competence," but that her focus on personal suffering and despair failed to acknowledge larger structural causes of individual distress. Guy Butler recalled meeting Webster in her later years: "The aging poetess had a somewhat long, sad physiognomy and had dressed her hair with a symbolic wreath of tinsel laurel leaves," he wrote. "The effect was quite startling." Nuruddin Farah's novel Sweet and Sour Milk (1980) begins with a quote from Mary Morison Webster's poetry as an epigram.
Text attribution
Licensing
Text attribution
Part of the biographical narrative on this page reuses licensed material. Its origin, revision and licence are recorded here.
The biographical narrative on this page is based on the Wikipedia article Mary Morison Webster, revision 1371369845 (EN edition), by its contributors. VALÉORINE has edited that text and built its own documentary record around it. The reused material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0, and this page's reuse of it is offered under the same licence. Everything else on this page — the chronology, the holdings, the evidence, the plates and the connections — is VALÉORINE's own record. Sources and licences.
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.Marriage certificate of Roland William Schikkerling and Mary Morison Webster, dated 18 December 1920, via Ancestry.
- 2.Biographies (Pty.) Limited. The South African Woman's Who's who. 413. 1938.
- 3.Gray, Stephen. Remembering Bosman: Herman Charles Bosman Recollected. Penguin Random House South Africa. 2012-10-03. 978-0-14-352711-4.
- 4.Webster, Mary Morison. Letters to the Editor: For the Record. The New York Times. 115. 24 April 1949. 0362-4331.
- 5.Leigh, Carol. A Selection of Johannesburg Authors. Johannesburg Public Library. 29. 1986. 978-0-620-09824-3.
- 6.Smith, Malvern Van Wyk. Grounds of Contest: A Survey of South African English Literature. Jutalit. 43. 1990. 978-0-7021-2437-2.
- 7.Books in Brief. Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 22. 6. 345. September 1923.
- 8.Lockett, Cecily. South African Women's Poetry: A Gynocritical Perspective. Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature. 11. 1. 55. 1992. 0732-7730.
- 9.Butler, Guy. A Local Habitation: An Autobiography, 1945-90. New Africa Books. 170–171. 1991. 978-0-86486-180-1.
- 10.Farah, Nuruddin. Sweet and sour milk. Heinemann Educational Books. 1980. 978-0-435-90226-1.
- 11.Adcock, Arthur St John. The Bookman Treasury of Living Poets. Hodder & Stoughton. 460–461. 1928.
- 12.Cope, Jack. Penguin Book of South African Verse. Penguin. 1968-01-01. 978-0-14-042109-5.
- 13.Johannesburg : Ad Donkers. The new century of South African poetry. 88. 2002. 978-0-86852-224-1.
- 14.Wylie, Dan. Clutching a handful of granulated glass The new century of South African poetry, Michael Chapman (ed.) : review essay. Scrutiny2. 8. 1. 62–69. January 2003.
- 15.Webster, Mary Morison. "Rencontre" and "World's End". The Chapbook: A Miscellany. 15–21. October 1920.
- 16.Webster, Mary Morison. The Organ Donkey. The Living Age. 4028. 740. 17 September 1921.
- 17.Webster, Mary Morison. "After Death -- Spring 1915" and "Gallipoli". The Chapbook: A Miscellany. 26. 21, 22. May 1922.
- 18.Webster, Mary Morison. Two Songs in Autumn. The London Mercury. 18. 106. 358. August 1928.
- 19.Webster, Mary Morison. Alien guest : poems. The Poetry Bookshop. 1933.
References
Citations
References
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Secondary witnessreference work
Secondary witness
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 19 August 2026.
Elsewhere in Books
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