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Naomi Mitchison

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Naomi Mary Margaret Mitchison, Baroness Mitchison CBE (née Haldane; 1 November 1897 – 11 January 1999) was a Scottish author of historical novels, plays, essays, short stories, science fiction, history, nonfiction on politics and ethics, travel writing, poetry, and autobiography. She also was the editor of the 1932 book An Outline for Boys and Girls and Their Parents, a guide to the modern world for children. Her father was John Scott Haldane, who gave her an early exposure to science. In 1985 she was made Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

Quotes

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  • The first thing about science is asking questions; the next—and this includes the bulk of what is called scientific work—is measuring the knowledge and finding new standards of measurement; and the final thing is putting all this knowledge together.
  • ... readers, remember that my account of what was happening in Sparta or Athens or even Egypt, is all based on real history, but the view was moulded by what I—and many another person—was thinking in the Europe of those days, with Mussolini and his fascists in Italy and already the shadow of Hitler in Germany. If I was writing this book now I might treat my characters and my story differently. But I cannot be certain, even of that.

Quotes about Naomi Mitchison

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  • It occurred to the writer, a year ago, in thinking about modern Ireland, to wonder what light the record of Cæsar’s Gallic wars might throw on the causes of the present discontents. Dumnorix, Ambiorix, Vercingetorix—were these leaders of the Gauls like the leaders of the Gael to-day? Did they feel the same blinding passion of nationalism? Were they, too, distracted by feuds and harassed by jealousies? Is the Celtic temper an undeviating possession of the centuries ; and is the character of a stock inherited as surely and as inevitably as the colour of eyes and hair ?
    To find an answer to these questions it would have been necessary to read those later books of the De Bello Gallico, to which (however skilled we may become in the structure of the bridge which Cæsar threw over the Rhine) few, if any, of us ever attain in our schoolboy days. For such reading no opportunity occurred; but the fortunate chance of an old friendship brought another solution. I was privileged to read the manuscript of Mrs. Mitchison’s work, and the answer came, irradiated by an historical imagination, and animated by a living sympathy, as I read.
    • Ernest Barker in the Preface to Mitchison, Naomi (1929). The Conquered. The Travellers' Library. London: Jonathan Cape Ltd.  (reprint of 1927 edition; 1st edition 1923)
  • Mrs. Mitichison brings Cæsar on her stage, and gives one the feeling of that bleak and terrible greatness. The impression which Cæsar has left on history is just the impression he made on his contemporaries. The shadow of a vastness had fallen coldly across them. Mrs. Mitchison knows how to make it fall across us. She has, as it were by miracle, got back into the air and mood of the time she writes about: she creates, and recreates. The splendor and the mystery come easy to her.
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