Theodora Bosanquet

Theodora Bosanquet MBE (3 October 1880 – 1 June 1961) was a writer, reviewer, editor, secretary, and amanuensis to Henry James. She worked as Executive Secretary of the International Federation of University Women, as well as being a contributor to, and subsequently director and literary editor of, the political and literary magazine Time and Tide. Her memoir, Henry James at Work (1924) is viewed today as 'a pioneer work of critical biography'. Early life Theodora Bosanquet was born on 3 October 1880 at Sandown, Isle of Wight to Gertrude Mary Fox (1854–1900) and Frederick Charles Tindal Bosanquet (1847–1928), a curate. Her family called her 'Dora'. She was educated at Cheltenham Ladies' College, one of England's earliest educational institutions for women, founded in 1853. She then gained her BSc from University College London, having studied biology, geology, and physics. In 1907, Bosanquet enrolled at Mary Petherbridge's Secretarial Bureau, learning skills including typing and shorthand. Henry James (1907-1916) and wartime In October 1907, shortly after her 27th birthday, Bosanquet began work for Henry James. His request had been for someone to transcribe edits and additions to his substantial body of work, James having undertaken a revision of his writings for the twenty-four-volume New York Edition. Bosanquet was an admirer of James' work, and had been introduced to his writings as a pre-teenager. She became a loyal amanuensis or, as James once referred to her, his 'Remington priestess', remaining with him until his death in 1916. A week after she had started in the role, James wrote to his brother William to describe:a new excellent amanuensis... a young boyish Miss Bosanquet, who is worth all the other (females) that I have had put together... There is no comparison!As James' health ailed during the last months of his life, Bosanquet remained loyal, including keeping the novelist's friends updated on his health. With the arrival of William James' wife and daughter, however, she and others were kept away from James. Bosanquet wrote of the in-laws as viewing her as too 'presumptuous', particularly in keeping figures such as Edith Wharton - whose adultery they disapproved of - informed about the novelist's wellbeing.