X-Nico

3 unusual facts about Nancy Spender


Philip Spender

He is the son of the painter Nancy Spender and the explorer Michael Spender, a nephew of the poet Stephen Spender, and a trustee of the Stephen Spender Memorial Trust,

The Earth Compels

The Earth Compels is dedicated "To NANCY" (Nancy Coldstream, later Nancy Spender, with whom Louis MacNeice had an affair during 1937-38), and has an epigraph from a Greek tragedy MacNeice was then translating, Euripides' Hippolytus.

In early 1937 MacNeice began an affair with Nancy Coldstream (later Nancy Spender), and Nancy provided the inspiration for 'Leaving Barra' (as well as for two sections of MacNeice's next volume of poetry, Autumn Journal).



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