Bryher, pseudonym of Annie Winifred Ellerman Biography

British novelist and philanthropist; born in Kent, she grew up in London. She was patron of many Modernist writers, including Dorothy Richardson, Djuna Barnes, Edith Sitwell, and Hilda Doolittle (H.D) with whom she had a close relationship from 1918. In 1921, Bryher, a lesbian, entered a marriage of convenience with Robert McAlmon and funded his Contact Editions. Two autobiographical novels, Development (1920) and Two Selves (1923), explore her artistic development and sexual identity. In 1927 she divorced McAlmon and married Kenneth Macpherson, with whom she founded Close Up (1927–33), the ‘first journal of film criticism as art’; contributors included H.D., Gertrude Stein, and Dorothy Richardson. She is best known for her historical novels, which include The Fourteenth of October (1952), The Players' Boy (1953), and The Coin of Carthage (1963). Other books include Amy Lowell: A Critical Appreciation (1918), Film Problems of Soviet Russia (1929), and Beowulf (1956), as well as memoirs, two volumes of poetry, and travel writings.