Nancy Cunard

Nancy Cunard: Perfect Stranger—an unapologetic rereading of a much-maligned, misunderstood woman of significant accomplishments.

In the wake of inadequate histories of radical writing and activism, Nancy Cunard: Perfect Stranger rejects stereotypes of Cunard as spoiled heiress and “sexually dangerous New Woman,” offering instead a bold, unapologetic, evidence-based portrait of a woman and her significant contributions to 21st century considerations of gender, race, and class. 

Nancy Cunard: Perfect Stranger reshapes our understanding of a woman, whose role in key historical, political, and cultural moments of the 20th century was either dismissed and attacked, or undervalued. Here, Jane Marcus, who was one of the most insightful critics of modernism and a pioneering feminist scholar, is unafraid and unapologetic in addressing and contesting Nancy Cunard’s reputation and reception as a spoiled heiress and “sexually dangerous New Woman.” Instead, with her characteristic provocative and energetic writing style, Marcusinsists we reconsider issues of gender, race, and class in relation to the accusations, stereotypes, and scandal, which have dominated, and continue to dominate, our perception of Cunard in the public record. In the wake of inadequate histories of radical writing and activism, Nancy Cunard: Perfect Stranger brings its subject into the 21st century, offering a bold and innovative portrait of a woman we all thought we knew.