- Not as well-known as their female counterparts, the Literary Wives (LW). Alice B. Toklas, Gertrude Stein’s ‘wife’, for example, is nowadays inseparable from Stein’s oeuvre; Stein even titled one of her books ‘The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas’, forever mythologizing her helpmate’s role in the Stein legend. Possibly the reason why the identities of Literary Husbands (LH) tend to be more obscure is because they often refer to their wives in conversations with others not as ‘genius’ (LW’s habitual pet name for their husbands), or even ‘writer’, but more often as ‘stay-at-home-mum’, ‘chronically-unemployed’ or ‘dreamer’, thus unwittingly ensuring their own anonymity.
- Relatively scarce. Historically, many successful female literati got by without one. LH-less women-writers were common not only in the Bronte sisters’ and Jane Austen’s days, but also as recently as during and after the sexual liberation, when such literary giants as Doris Lessing tried for a long time yet found it impossible to obtain a LH that lasted even half as long as your average LW (these usually come with a lifetime guarantee). In recent decades it has become somewhat easier to obtain a LH, yet problematic aspects of this phenomenon still endure. For details, please refer to the remainder of this dictionary entry.
- Mostly not that efficient at performing the traditional role of a literary spouse – being the nurturer and provider of a secure base for their rather neurotic beloveds too preoccupied with their work and themselves to pay attention to the mundane, yet attentive enough to notice when this mundane isn’t that comfortable. Over centuries LW proved to be consistently more skilled at performing such a job that includes juggling multiple responsibilities. H. G. Wells’s wife Jane, for example, excelled at being a devoted mother and also an imaginative housekeeper, gardener and party hostess who elevated domesticity to the level of an art form. Jane even found time to correspond with her husband’s mistresses, whose existence she tolerated as part of her LW role (see section 4 in this entry for more information on that), dispersing them advice on housework. Vladimir Nabokov’s Vera – possibly the most famous LW – was not only responsible for all household duties, but also served as Nabokov’s editor and secretary, and occasionally even taught his classes. The remarkable Lilya Brik superseded most LW, managing to support and inspire two writerly husbands at once. For about fifteen years she simultaneously resided with her first husband, literary critic Osip Brik, and her second husband, the Russian poet Vladimir Mayakovsky, in the same apartment, assisting with their work as well as managing their finances and the household. By comparison, Sergey Efron didn’t manage to provide a secure base for even one wife – the wonderful Russian poetess Marina Tsvetayeva, Mayakovsky’s contemporary. Not only was Efron completely incompetent at domesticity, but for most of their long marriage he failed to make a financial contribution to support Tsvetayeva and their two children. It was Tsvetayeva who, while laboring on her poetry, literary criticism and translations, had to take on any additional odd jobs, and sometimes even resort to petty theft, to keep the family afloat. Efron, though, at least provided his wife with ample attention and affection. Whereas John Middleton Murry, the short story writer Catherine Mansfield’s husband, took his LH duties even more lightly. While he was a careful and keen critic of his wife’s work, in practical matters he was as hopeless as Efron. Worse, in Mansfield’s last years, while she was slowly dying of tuberculosis, Murry didn’t even think it was necessary for them to reside under the same roof. Instead, he left such unpleasant duties as tending to his wife to her childhood friend Ida, to whom Mansfield sometimes referred, only half-jokingly, as her ‘wife’. His conjugal devotion Murry showed by keeping regular correspondence with Mansfield (where he was in the habit of complaining about what her illness did to him) and paying her occasional visits during which he stayed in a separate bedroom. Even Hugo, Anais Nin’s wealthy husband, who loved his wife madly and took pride in her work, didn’t absolve her of managing their elaborate household and entertaining his business colleagues. Later, when in her forties, Nin became a bigamist by marrying one more man, sixteen years her junior, she juggled her writing with the management of two households.
- Unlike their female counterparts, not so tolerant of their wives’ debauchery (e.g. drinking or infidelities). Rather than accepting such behavior as a standard occupational hazard, they often jilt their spouses (which partly explains their scarcity discussed in section two), preferably for younger, less complicated women. Worse, a significant minority of LH hijacks the traditional writerly prerogative to go wild but without having earned it by doing the hard work of wrangling the muse. While Murry did tolerate Catherine Mansfield’s infidelities, he was also fond of conducting his own, shattering the already scantly remains of his wife’s happiness. Whereas Ayn Rand’s kept husband, Frank O’Connor, became an alcoholic (albeit possibly following her affair with a much younger man) and Rand was the one who tended to him until his death. Hanna Arendt provided for her philandering husband Heinrich Blucher for some years after they escaped to the US following the Second World War. Blucher, who was in no hurry to master English and find employment, nevertheless was resourceful at obtaining younger lovers while his wife earned money and wrote her brilliant, if flawed, books.
- Unfortunately, the best LH often come along with sexless marriages, frequently being homosexual. Even when they are straight, like Leonard, Virginia Woolf’s husband, the marriage often teeters on the brink between love and friendship. The exemplary Leonard served as Virginia’s editor, publisher and tireless carer nursing her through her many bouts of mental illness, and also managed their household and garden. Yet Leonard also wasn’t the subject of Virginia’s passion (that was reserved for women) nor recipient of her physical affections, which raises the question of whether Mr Woolf, and other such husbands, even qualifies as LH.
- Possibly obsolete if we trust the American writer Lorrie Moore’s famous suggestion that all writers, regardless of their gender or sexual orientation, need a Vera (as opposed to a Boris or a Steve).
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