West, Rebecca: - Rebecca West was a British author, journalist, literary critic, and travel writer. West, a novelist who worked in a variety of genres, reviewed books for The Times, the New York Herald Tribune, The Sunday Telegraph, and The New Republic, as well as serving as a Bookman correspondent. Rebecca West was born Cicily Isabel Fairfield in London, England, in 1892, and grew up in an environment rich in intellectual stimulation, political debate, vibrant conversation, books, and music. Her Scottish mother, Isabella, was a talented pianist who did not pursue a musical career after marrying Charles Fairfield. He never returned to them, dying poor and alone in a boarding house in Liverpool in 1906, when Cicily was 14. The rest of the family went to Edinburgh, Scotland, where Cicily attended George Watson's Ladies College. She had to leave school in 1907 because of illness.She elected not to return after recuperating from the sickness, later describing her time at Watson's as "prison".