Edwin and Willa Muir

Abstract This is the story of a literary marriage forged in the political and cultural turmoil of the first half of the twentieth century. Edwin Muir met Willa Anderson at a party in Glasgow in 1918 and their adventurous journey together took them to Europe in the 1920s, where they met many of the writers, artists, dancers, dramatists, and thinkers of the day. Committed to a life in letters, they moved between Britain and the Continent as they struggled to make a living in the years between and after two World Wars. Willa was to reflect on ‘how European we were’ and indeed their translations of modern German literature introduced the works of Hermann Broch and Franz Kafka, among many others, for the first time to English-speaking audiences around the world. Dr Margery McCulloch’s study draws on personal travel and a wealth of new sources from private correspondence, publishers’ archives, the recollections of friends, and the diaries, unpublished journals, and autobiographical memoirs of Edwin and Willa themselves. This is the fullest account of the couple’s life and times together in Europe, Britain, and North America during a long and loving marriage. It was not without difficulties, as Willa sought to find proper acknowledgement of her translation skills, and space for her own creativity as a novelist in the shadow of her own ill health and Edwin’s growing status as a major modern poet.