Companion
Compton-Burnett spent much of her life as a companion to Margaret Jourdain (1876–1951), a leading authority and writer on the decorative arts and the history of furniture, who shared the author's Kensington flat from 1919. For the first ten years, Compton-Burnett seems to have remained unobtrusively in the background, always severely dressed in black. When Pastors and Masters appeared in 1925, Jourdain claimed to have been unaware that her friend was writing a novel. Evidence that theirs may have been a lesbian relationship is sparse.
Compton-Burnett was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 1967.
Ivy Compton-Burnett held no religious beliefs. She died at her Kensington home on 27 August 1969 and was cremated at Putney Vale Crematorium.
Read more about this topic: Ivy Compton-Burnett
Famous quotes containing the word companion:
“He that outlives a wife whom he has long loved, sees himself disjoined from the only mind that has the same hopes, and fears, and interest; from the only companion with whom he has shared much good and evil; and with whom he could set his mind at liberty, to retrace the past or anticipate the future. The continuity of being is lacerated; the settled course of sentiment and action is stopped; and life stands suspended and motionless.”
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)
“Even with one companion ecstasy is almost banished.”
—Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889)
“One who was my companion in my two previous excursions to these woods, tells me that ... he found himself dining one day on moose-meat, mud turtle, trout, and beaver, and he thought that there were few places in the world where these dishes could easily be brought together on one table.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)