- Title Pages
- Title Pages
- Title Pages
- Illustrations
- To Iris Barry (1895–1969)
- Credits
- Previews
- 1 Early Years
- 2 “We Enjoyed the War”
- 3 “Dear Miss Barry”
- 4 The Other Bloomsbury
- 5 Life with Lewis
- 6 Children
- 7 Alan Porter
- 8 The Spectator
- 9 Splashing into Film Society
- 10 Cinema Paragons, Hollywood, and Lady Mary
- 11 Let’s Go to the Pictures
- 12 Victory and Defeat
- 13 America
- 14 The Askew Salon
- 15 Museum Men
- 16 Remarriage
- 17 Settling In
- 18 Cracking Hollywood
- 19 Art High and Low
- 20 On to Europe
- 21 Going Public
- 22 The Slow Martyrdom of Alfred Barr
- 23 Meanwhile, Back at the Library
- 24 New Work, Old Acquaintances
- 25 “The Master” and his Minions
- 26 Temora Farm
- 27 The Museum Enlists
- 28 Mr. Rockefeller’s Office
- 29 L’Affair Buñuel
- 30 The Other Library
- 31 Divorce
- 32 Postwar Blues
- 33 Abbott’s Fall
- 34 Hospital
- 35 Departure
- 36 La Bonne Font
- 37 Things Past
- 38 The Austin House
- 39 Readjustments
- 40 New York and London
- 41 Final Breaks
- 42 The End
- Sequel
- Sources
- Index
Early Years
Early Years
- Chapter:
- (p.11) 1 Early Years
- Source:
- Lady in the Dark
- Author(s):
Robert Sitton
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
This chapter sketches Iris Barry's early years. Iris was born Iris Sylvia Symes in Washwood Heath, a farming outpost of Birmingham, England, on March 25, 1895. Her parents were divorced two years before she was born and Iris owed whatever stability she knew as a child to her maternal grandparents, Anne Barry Wharton and Henry Symes, the source of her surname. At eleven Iris was sent to the Institut de St. Anges, an Ursuline Convent in Verviers, Belgium, where she was one of thirty boarders. She chaffed at convent life and eventually left by mutual agreement with the head nun, who found illicit books belonging to another girl under Iris's pillow. Iris refused to snitch on her friend, and that was the end of her formal education. Back at home with her grandparents she began to write poetry. Iris's first published poem, entitled “Double”, appeared in the July 1916 issue of Poetry magazine.
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- Title Pages
- Title Pages
- Title Pages
- Illustrations
- To Iris Barry (1895–1969)
- Credits
- Previews
- 1 Early Years
- 2 “We Enjoyed the War”
- 3 “Dear Miss Barry”
- 4 The Other Bloomsbury
- 5 Life with Lewis
- 6 Children
- 7 Alan Porter
- 8 The Spectator
- 9 Splashing into Film Society
- 10 Cinema Paragons, Hollywood, and Lady Mary
- 11 Let’s Go to the Pictures
- 12 Victory and Defeat
- 13 America
- 14 The Askew Salon
- 15 Museum Men
- 16 Remarriage
- 17 Settling In
- 18 Cracking Hollywood
- 19 Art High and Low
- 20 On to Europe
- 21 Going Public
- 22 The Slow Martyrdom of Alfred Barr
- 23 Meanwhile, Back at the Library
- 24 New Work, Old Acquaintances
- 25 “The Master” and his Minions
- 26 Temora Farm
- 27 The Museum Enlists
- 28 Mr. Rockefeller’s Office
- 29 L’Affair Buñuel
- 30 The Other Library
- 31 Divorce
- 32 Postwar Blues
- 33 Abbott’s Fall
- 34 Hospital
- 35 Departure
- 36 La Bonne Font
- 37 Things Past
- 38 The Austin House
- 39 Readjustments
- 40 New York and London
- 41 Final Breaks
- 42 The End
- Sequel
- Sources
- Index
