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Elizabeth Smart (Canadian author)
Elizabeth Smart (Canadian author)
Elizabeth Smart (Canadian author)
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Elizabeth Smart (December 27, 1913 – March 4, 1986) was a Canadian poet and novelist. Her best-known work is the novel By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept (1945), an extended prose poem inspired by her romance with the poet George Barker.

Key Information

Early life and education

[edit]

Smart was born to a prominent family in Ottawa, Ontario; her father, Russel Smart, was a lawyer, and the family had a summer house on Kingsmere Lake located next door to the future Prime Minister of Canada, William Lyon Mackenzie King.[1] Her sister, Jane became a filmmaker, teacher and sculptor.[2]

Smart attended the Ottawa Normal School in her formative years, but was soon transferred to the Elmwood School, a private prep school for girls located in an affluent Ottawa neighbourhood. She later attended Hatfield Hall in Cobourg, Ontario for secondary school.[3] [page needed]

At the age of 11, Smart was confined to bed for a year due to a misdiagnosed "leaky heart valve".[3] She began writing at an early age, publishing her first poem at the age of 10 and compiling a collection of poetry at 15.[4] In her youth, she often kept regular journals, a habit she would keep up throughout most of her life.[3]

Smart grew up among the social elite of Ottawa through her father's connections as a lawyer.[1] Her mother often hosted parties for prominent politicians and civil servants. As a result, Smart socialized with many members of Ottawa's political class who were or would become important figures in Canadian history, including acquaintances such as Graham Spry, Charles Ritchie, Lester B. Pearson, and William Lyon Mackenzie King.[1][3][5] [page needed]

Elizabeth Smart at her family's summer cottage near Kingsmere, c. 1930

At the age of 18, following graduation from secondary school, Smart traveled to England to study music at the University of London.[3]

In 1937, Smart took a job as secretary to the noted Mrs. Alfred Watt, head of the Associated Country Women of the World, an international organization for rural women, travelling extensively throughout the world accompanying Watt to various conferences. It was during this time that Smart happened across a book of poetry by George Barker, immediately falling in love not only with the poetry, but with the man himself.[4]

After her travels with Mrs. Watt, Smart returned to Ottawa, where she spent six months writing society notes for the women's page of The Ottawa Journal.[4] At parties she would often ask about Barker, saying she wanted to meet and marry him. Soon Smart began a correspondence with the poet.

Relationship with George Barker

[edit]

Eager to launch her writing career, Smart quit the Journal and left Ottawa for good. Traveling on her own, she visited New York, Mexico and California, joining a writers' colony at Big Sur. While there, Smart made contact with Barker through Lawrence Durrell,[6] paying to fly Barker and his wife to the United States from Japan where he was teaching.[7] Soon after meeting, they began a tumultuous affair which was to last for years.

In 1941, after becoming pregnant, Smart returned to Canada, settling in Pender Harbour, British Columbia to have the child she would name Georgina. Barker attempted to visit her in Canada, but Smart's family influenced government officials: he was stopped at the border and turned back because of "moral turpitude". During this time Smart produced her best-known work, By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept (1945).

Smart soon returned to the United States and began work as a file clerk for the British embassy in Washington.[6] Two years later, in 1943, during the height of the war, she sailed to the United Kingdom to join Barker. There she gave birth to their second child, Christopher Barker, and obtained employment at the British Ministry of Defence to support her children.[3]

Just 2000 copies of By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept were published in 1945 by Editions Poetry London, but it did not achieve popularity until its paperback reissue in 1966.

It is a fictional work, largely based on Smart's affair with Barker up until that point. "The power of emotion to transform one's perspective on the world," a recent Open Letters Monthly review of the novel states, "is the theme of this wildly poetic novel. The inspiration for Smart's classic work of prose poetry is just as famous as the book itself.[8]

Smart's mother Louise ("Louie") was not pleased with the book. Again availing influence with government officials, she led a successful campaign to have its publication banned in Canada. Of those copies that made their way into the country from overseas, Louise Smart bought up as many as she could find and had them burned.[4][7] [page needed]

Barker visited Smart often in London where she worked. She became pregnant again, and was fired from the Ministry of Information. Their affair produced two more children (Sebastian, born 1945, and Rose Emma, born 1947). Through it all Barker, who was Catholic, said he would leave his wife for Smart, but this never happened (he was to have fifteen children by several different women). They lived a bohemian lifestyle and associated with many of the 'Soho' artists. Christopher Barker writing in The Guardian about this period noted: "On many occasions through the early Sixties, writers and painters such as David Gascoyne, Paddy Kavanagh, Roberts MacBryde and Colquhoun and Paddy Swift [Swift lived downstairs from Smart and his wife, Agnes, wrote cookbooks with Smart] would gather at Westbourne Terrace in Paddington, our family home at that time. They came for editorial discussions about their poetry magazine, X."[9]

In addition to the unconventional nature of the relationship, the affair was fraught with turmoil. Barker was a heavy drinker and Smart took up the habit, which intensified when the two were together. The couple were involved in numerous fights; during one argument, Smart bit off part of Barker's upper lip. Nonetheless, as evidenced from writings in her journals, Smart's love for Barker continued for the remainder of her life.

Single mother and writer

[edit]

Raising four children on her own, Smart worked for 13 years as an advertising copywriter, becoming the highest-paid copywriter in England. She joined the staff of Queen magazine in 1963, later becoming an editor.[6] During this time her physical involvement with Barker waned and she took several other lovers, male and female.

Meanwhile, By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept had been circulating in London and New York, acquiring a cult following that led to its paperback reissue in 1966 and critical acclaim. In the same year, Smart retired from commercial writing and relocated to a cottage in north Suffolk named "The Dell".

It was at The Dell that Smart produced the bulk of her subsequent literary work, much of which has been published posthumously. Eager to make up for the time away from creative writing forced by the demands of raising her children, Smart wrote voluminously and on a number of subjects, poetry and prose, even her passion for gardening.

In 1977, following a 32-year absence from the book world, Smart published two new works, The Assumption of the Rogues & Rascals and a small collection of poetry, titled A Bonus. Later, In the Meantime (1984), a collection of Smart's unpublished poetry and prose appeared, and her two volumes of journals, Necessary Secrets: The Journals of Elizabeth Smart (1986) were published posthumously.[6]

Smart returned to Canada for a brief stay from 1982 to 1983, becoming writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta. Afterward she spent a year in Toronto on a Canada Council writer's grant before returning to England. In 1986 she died in London of a heart attack. She is buried in St George's churchyard, St Cross South Elmham, Suffolk.

An hour-long documentary, Elizabeth Smart: On the Side of the Angels (1991) by Maya Gallus starred actor Jackie Burroughs as Elizabeth Smart and was narrated by author Michael Ondaatje. The publication of her journals in On The Side of the Angels brought further posthumous critical appreciation[10][11][12]

Influence

[edit]

Morrissey, former lead singer of the British band the Smiths, has talked of his love for Elizabeth Smart. References to By Grand Station Central I Sat Down And Wept are found in a number of Smiths songs, in particular "What She Said", "Reel Around The Fountain" and "Well, I Wonder", and as well, the title of the Smiths compilation album Louder Than Bombs.[13]

Ian Brown used a passage from Elizabeth's poem A Musical Note to name his third solo album The Music of the Spheres.

Canadian playwright Wendy Lill wrote a play entitled Memories of You (1989) about the life of Elizabeth Smart.

Works

[edit]
  • Smart, Elizabeth. By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept. New York: Vintage Press, 1992, First edition 1945. ISBN 978-0-6797-3804-6.
  • Smart, Elizabeth and Agnes Ryan. Cooking the French Way (%00 Recipes). London: Littlehampton Book Services Ltd., 1966, first edition 1958. ISBN 978-0-6000-3433-9.
  • Smart, Elizabeth. A Bonus. London: Jay Landesman Publishing, 1977. ISBN 978-0-9051-5001-7.
  • Smart, Elizabeth. The Assumption of the Rogues and Rascals. New York: HarperCollins, 1978. ISBN 978-0-586-09040-4.
  • Smart, Elizabeth. Ten Poems. Bath, UK: Bath Place Community Arts Press, 1981.
  • Smart, Elizabeth. Eleven Poems. Bath, UK: Bath Place Community Arts Press, 1982.
  • Smart, Elizabeth. In the Meantime. Ottawa: Deneau, 1984. ISBN 978-0-8887-9105-4.
  • Smart, Elizabeth. Elizabeth's Garden: Elizabeth Smart on the Art of Gardening. Toronto: Coach House Press, 1989. ISBN 978-0-8891-0356-6.
  • Smart, Elizabeth.The Collected Poems of Elizabeth Smart. London: Paladin, 1992. ISBN 978-0-5860-8955-2.

Edited collections

[edit]
  • Smart, Elizabeth, Christina Burridge ed. Autobiographies. Vancouver: William Hoffer, 1987.
  • Smart, Elizabeth, Alice Van Wart, ed. Juvenilia: Early Writings of Elizabeth Smart. Toronto: Coach House Press, 1987. ISBN 978-0-8891-0354-2.
  • Smart, Elizabeth, Alice Van Wart, ed. Necessary Secrets: The Journals of Elizabeth Smart. Toronto: Harper/Collins Canada, 1987. ISBN 978-0-5860-8740-4.
  • Smart, Elizabeth, Alice Van Wart, ed. On the Side of the Angels: The Second Volume of the Journals of Elizabeth Smart. Toronto: Harper/Collins Canada, 1997. ISBN 978-0-5860-8958-3.

References

[edit]
[edit]
Revisions and contributorsEdit on WikipediaRead on Wikipedia

Elizabeth Smart (Canadian author)

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Elizabeth Smart (27 December 1913 – 4 March 1986) was a Canadian and whose prose-poetry work By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept (1945) candidly chronicles her obsessive affair with the married British George Barker, resulting in four children born out of wedlock whom she raised and financially supported as a single mother while Barker pursued other relationships and fathered additional offspring. Born into an affluent family, Smart pursued writing amid personal turmoil, initially publishing her seminal work in where it met limited contemporary success but later achieved cult status for its raw emotional intensity and stylistic innovation blending novel and verse. Her later publications, including collections such as The Assumption of the Rogues and Rascals (1977) and In the Meantime (1984), reflect ongoing themes of passion, regret, and resilience, though they garnered less attention than her debut; Smart sustained her literary career through , , and editorial roles, exemplifying determination in the face of biographical adversity and the era's social constraints on embracing unconventional lives.

Early Life and Education

Family Background and Childhood

Elizabeth Smart was born on December 27, 1913, in , , into an affluent and socially prominent family. Her father, Russell S. Smart, was a at the firm Smart and Biggar, and the household maintained connections with notable figures, including entertaining and at their home. The family owned a cottage on Kingsmere Lake in the Hills, situated next to William Lyon Mackenzie King's property, providing summers of leisure amid natural surroundings. As the third child in a stable upper-class environment, Smart grew up with siblings, including a sister named Jane, in a household that appeared conventional and privileged, with regular appearances in Ottawa's society pages. Her upbringing included attendance at private schools, fostering exposure to structured and cultural refinement typical of elite circles. Family dynamics emphasized social standing, with her mother's influence extending to leveraging connections for personal matters later in life. From an early age, Smart displayed traits of intellectual curiosity and romantic sensibility, evidenced by her publication of a first poem at age 10 and compilation of a personal collection by 15. She was a compulsive reader and diarist, memorizing Shakespearean sonnets and collecting fashion clippings from Vogue, indicating voracious engagement with and amid her charmed childhood. These pursuits highlighted an emerging , particularly toward , within the security of her family's resources.

Education and Formative Influences

Elizabeth Smart received her at Hatfield Hall, a private girls' school in , , where she completed her formal schooling in the late or early . Born into an affluent family in 1913, her upbringing in a prominent provided early access to cultural resources, though specific curricular details from Hatfield Hall remain undocumented in primary accounts. Following graduation, Smart's mother declined permission for university attendance, leading instead to a year abroad in around age 19 (circa 1932), during which she studied piano and briefly attended while fulfilling debutante expectations. This period exposed her to European artistic environments, but she soon abandoned music in favor of writing, a pursuit she had contemplated since childhood, often carrying a to record observations and ideas. Her early literary inclinations were nurtured through self-directed reading and family influences in Ottawa's intellectual circles, fostering an affinity for amid the era's modernist currents, though she produced no published works at this stage. Upon returning to , Smart contributed society news and editorials to the Ottawa Journal, gaining initial professional experience in journalism that honed her prose skills. Extensive travels across and in the further shaped her worldview, emphasizing themes of independence and observation that would inform her later creative output. By the late , she relocated to , transitioning from educational and familial structures toward self-reliant employment, marking the onset of her adult pursuits.

Early Adulthood and Initial Pursuits

Advertising Career in New York

Following a short tenure writing society columns for the Ottawa Journal, Smart departed in the mid-1930s to pursue her literary ambitions independently, arriving in as part of her extensive travels through the and beyond. This move positioned her amid the cultural ferment of the city during the lingering effects of the , where she sustained a measure of financial autonomy, drawing on familial resources from her affluent background while exploring professional opportunities in writing. Her experiences in New York underscored an early commitment to self-reliance, distinct from the personal upheavals that would later define her path. In 1937, while engaging with the literary milieu during her sojourns abroad, Smart encountered the poetry of George Barker, particularly works like "," which struck her with immediate intensity and prompted the purchase of his manuscripts alongside an exchange of letters. This discovery, occurring against the backdrop of her transatlantic restlessness, initiated a correspondence that nourished her creative sensibilities without immediate personal entanglement, fostering skills in evocative expression that echoed Barker's modernist influences. Smart's time in New York thus served as an incubator for the disciplined prose techniques she refined in subsequent professional roles, enabling her to navigate economic precarity through adaptable writing practices that emphasized precision and persuasion.

First Marriage and Divorce

Elizabeth Smart did not enter into a formal during her early adulthood, diverging from the conventional expectations for women of her privileged background in the 1930s and early 1940s. Instead, her romantic pursuits shifted dramatically toward an intense, extramarital affair with the English poet George Barker, whom she encountered through his work while working in advertising in New York and . This relationship, which began around 1940 after she funded Barker's travel from to despite his existing to Jessica Barker, produced no legal union but resulted in four children born out of wedlock between 1942 and 1952. The absence of or subsequent underscored the causal disruptions of Smart's choices, as she faced societal stigma, financial instability, and logistical hardships without the protections of wedlock, relying on jobs and support to raise her amid wartime relocations to and later . Barker's refusal to his Catholic wife further entrenched the unconventional nature of their partnership, prioritizing passion over institutional norms and leading to repeated separations and emotional turmoil for Smart. No children resulted from any prior romantic involvements, and biographical accounts confirm no prior marital commitments. This path marked an abrupt rejection of traditional domesticity, with immediate consequences including unplanned pregnancies and economic precarity during .

Relationship with George Barker

Meeting and Onset of Affair

In 1937, Elizabeth Smart encountered the poetry of George Barker while browsing at Better Books on in , an experience that profoundly affected her and prompted her to initiate contact with the English poet. By 1939, having returned to amid rising tensions before the Second World War, Smart corresponded with Barker—then lecturing at a university in —through the intermediary of writer , purchasing one of his poems for $25 and posing as a collector of manuscripts to fund his travel. Barker, married to Jessica and seeking to avoid conscription, accepted her assistance, which included money earned from menial work and pleading letters to family. Smart arranged for Barker and his wife to travel from to the in 1940, culminating in their first meeting in , where she awaited his arrival by bus; the encounter quickly escalated into a romantic affair despite Barker's marriage and Smart's recent divorce. Within a month, they became lovers, and later that year in , , Smart conceived their first child, Georgina. Upon learning of the pregnancy, Smart returned to , settling in Pender Harbour, , to give birth in 1941. Barker's attempt to visit Smart and the newborn in was thwarted when he was denied entry at the border on grounds of , a charge instigated by Smart's , who opposed the relationship due to its circumstances and Barker's . This intervention reflected broader familial disapproval from Smart's Ottawa-based , leveraging political connections to enforce separation during the early phase of the affair.

Shared Family and Living Arrangements

Elizabeth Smart bore four children with George Barker between 1941 and 1947: Georgina, Christopher, Sebastian, and Rose. The family resided sporadically in the United States, , and during the 1940s and early 1950s, with Smart relocating to in 1943 following Barker's return there. Barker maintained a separate with his wife, Jessica, and their children in , while Smart bore primary responsibility for the day-to-day child-rearing of their offspring amid the couple's irregular cohabitation. Periods of separation marked the arrangement, driven by Barker's extensive travels and extramarital infidelities, details of which Smart documented in her journals.

Realities of the Partnership

George Barker's chronic irresponsibility imposed severe burdens on throughout their relationship, as he prioritized personal indulgences over familial obligations. Barker, who fathered 15 children across four partners in addition to a terminated pregnancy with a fifth, maintained multiple affairs while remaining legally married to his first wife, Jessica, and never divorcing her. His financial neglect was evident in instances such as Smart's need to work as a and beg for funds to finance his travel from to the in the early , despite her own precarious circumstances. Barker frequently abandoned Smart during her pregnancies and the births of their children—Georgina (born circa 1941), Christopher (1943), Sebastian (1945), and Rose (1947)—opting instead for carousing and absences that left her to manage alone. The strains of unwed motherhood in the mid-20th century exacerbated these hardships, as illegitimacy carried significant in the and , leading to Smart's estrangement from her wealthy Canadian family and cutoff from their financial support by 1947. With four young children fathered by Barker, Smart faced acute poverty in Ireland that year, resorting to feeding them boiled nettles amid virtual pennilessness. Emotionally, the relationship's volatility—marked by frequent rows, Barker's violence, and ongoing neglect—contributed to Smart's descent into heavy drinking in the , compounding her health tolls and guilt, particularly after daughter Rose's overdose death in 1982. After approximately 18 years of on-and-off starting in the early , the partnership effectively dissolved, with Smart raising the children largely single-handedly while Barker contributed nothing materially or consistently. She relocated to and took jobs to sustain the family, often leaving the children with caretakers during absences necessitated by work. Though never formally separated, Barker's persistent emotional distance and remarriage underscored the causal instability rooted in his unwillingness to commit, leaving Smart to bear the primary responsibilities amid cycles of reunion and departure.

Literary Output

Primary Works and Publications

Elizabeth Smart's debut major work, the prose-poem novel By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept, was published in 1945 by Editions Poetry . The book faced immediate , where it was banned following its release, with copies imported from abroad reportedly seized or destroyed through family influence and political connections. After a publishing silence of over three decades, Smart released the poetry collection A Bonus in 1977, followed by The Assumption of the Rogues & Rascals in 1978, a work issued by . In the early , she produced chapbooks Ten Poems (1981) and Eleven Poems (1982), both limited editions of original verse. Her final lifetime publication, In the Meantime (1984), compiled poems alongside fragments and an autobiographical sketch.

Writing Style and Recurrent Themes

Smart's prose is distinguished by its lyrical intensity, employing poetic rhythms, vivid imagery, and musical phrasing that transform narrative into an extended prose poem. This style fuses confessional intimacy—drawing from personal diaries and emotional immediacy—with dense allusions to biblical sources, such as the title's reference to , evoking lamentation and exile in the face of passion's trials. Influenced by modernist poets including George Barker, her technique incorporates experimental fragmentation and associative leaps, prioritizing sensory and emotional evocation over linear plotting. Recurrent motifs center on as a transcendent yet tormenting force, where desire engenders both ecstasy and acute , often rendered through ascetic and martyred imagery that underscores physical and spiritual agony. Redemption emerges as a subtle undercurrent, framed not through conventional but via the alchemical purification of passion itself, transforming personal turmoil into artistic affirmation. These elements, rooted in autobiographical experience, yield a voice of raw vulnerability, though critics have divided on whether the heightened borders on excess or achieves unflinching authenticity.

Posthumous Releases

In 1987, Autobiographies, a collection of edited selections from Smart's unpublished autobiographical writings, was released under the editorship of Christina Burridge through Tanks (William Hoffer) in . This volume draws from fragments spanning her life, offering fragmented narratives of personal experiences, creative frustrations, and reflections on relationships, though the editorial process involved curation that some critics noted prioritized thematic coherence over chronological fidelity. Posthumous editions of Smart's journals provided raw, unvarnished access to her inner world, including candid accounts of emotional turmoil, travels, and artistic ambitions. Necessary Secrets: The Journals of , selected and introduced by Alice Van Wart, covers entries primarily from 1933 to 1940 and was published in 1986 shortly after her death, capturing her early adulthood, infatuations, and exploratory writings in , New York, and . A second volume, On the Side of the Angels: The Second Volume of the Journals of , edited by Van Wart and released in 1994 by , documents later periods through the 1970s, detailing the strains of her partnership with George Barker, child-rearing challenges, financial precarity, and persistent literary aspirations amid personal disillusionments. These collections reveal Smart's unedited vulnerabilities, such as recurrent self-doubt and erotic yearnings, contrasting the stylized passion of her published prose. Earlier manuscripts, including the unfinished lesbian-themed novel Dig a Grave and Let Us Bury Our Mother—rooted in Smart's 1930s experiences in —were incorporated into pre-death publications like In the Meantime (1984), but posthumous scholarly interest prompted references and analyses in subsequent biographical works, highlighting its surreal, introspective style without standalone release. During the and , renewed editions of Smart's core texts, such as expanded printings of By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept, emerged from publishers like , often prefaced with contextual essays drawing on the newly available journals to reframe her thematic obsessions with desire and . These reissues, while not introducing new primary material, facilitated broader accessibility and critical reevaluation based on the fuller archival picture.

Later Life and Challenges

Professional Roles and Financial Hardships

Following the dissolution of her primary living arrangement with George Barker in the late , Elizabeth returned to professional employment primarily in , taking up roles in copywriting and magazine editing to support herself and her four children. She worked as a fashion and copywriter, crafting promotional content for items such as carpets, tiaras, and radios, which at one point earned her a reputation as one of England's highest-paid commercial writers. Additionally, she served as literary editor for Queen magazine from 1964 until 1965, when internal conflicts prompted her departure, and contributed editing work to , House and Garden, and British 's "Shop Hound" column. These positions, while providing some financial relief, were insufficient to fully mitigate the economic pressures of raising four children conceived out of wedlock as a single mother, particularly after her estrangement from resources and periods of acute , such as in around 1947 when she resorted to feeding her children boiled nettles. Smart supplemented her income with odd jobs and freelance writing, determined to avoid public assistance despite the , often working late nights and relying on stimulants like amphetamines to meet deadlines while managing childcare. Her background in an affluent offered no ongoing support, compelling her to navigate these hardships through persistent amid the causal fallout of her earlier personal choices prioritizing artistic and romantic pursuits over conventional stability. In her later years, Smart's professional efforts were further complicated by declining health, including a cancer diagnosis that contributed to her on March 4, 1986, in , exacerbating the ongoing financial precarity from decades of intermittent employment and familial responsibilities. A brief stint as writer-in-residence at the in 1982 provided temporary stability but did not resolve the cumulative economic strains accumulated from her post-Barker life.

Final Years and Death

In the early 1980s, Smart experienced a measure of late professional recognition, receiving a Senior Arts Grant from the Canada Council for the Arts, which enabled her to spend time in Toronto and serve as writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta during 1982–1983. This period aligned with renewed interest in her work, as By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept saw republication in the late 1960s and 1970s, fostering a cult following among readers. Following this Canadian interlude, she returned to England, settling at her country home, The Dell, in Suffolk, where she devoted her remaining time to writing unpublished manuscripts and gardening. Smart suffered a heart attack at her home on March 4, 1986, and died shortly thereafter at age 72. She was buried in St. George's Churchyard, Saint Cross, South Elmham, . No details or contributing medical factors beyond the acute cardiac event have been publicly documented in primary records. Her son Sebastian Barker, one of the four children she had with poet George Barker, served as her literary following her death, overseeing the management of her papers, now held in Canadian archives, and facilitating access for researchers. This role ensured continuity in handling her unpublished materials, though family members have occasionally noted in biographical accounts the challenges of reconciling her artistic obsessions with domestic realities, without altering the factual record of her output.

Assessment and Legacy

Contemporary Reception and Bans

Upon its 1945 publication in the by Editions Poetry London, By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept received a muted initial reception, with critics divided between admiration for its passionate lyricism and criticism of its emotional excess and unconventional prose-poetry form. Some reviewers, such as , praised its raw intensity, while others dismissed it as overwrought or lacking narrative discipline, contributing to limited sales and niche appeal among literary circles. In , the book faced immediate suppression, banned from importation and sale starting in 1945 until at least the , primarily due to its explicit depictions of an adulterous , deemed obscene by authorities. Elizabeth Smart's mother, Edith Smart, leveraged her personal connections to —who had been a family friend and suitor—to influence customs officials to seize and destroy imported copies, reflecting familial embarrassment over the autobiographical elements glorifying the with poet George Barker. No formal occurred, but the ban effectively stifled domestic distribution and discussion for decades. Reception in the United States mirrored the UK's, with favorable but marginal notice in outlets, yet no broad commercial breakthrough; the work's experimental style and scandalous undertones confined it to small presses and limited readership, underscoring its initial obscurity beyond elite literary audiences. Early sales data remain sparse, but the combination of bans and mixed critiques ensured negligible financial success for Smart at the time.

Critical Evaluations and Influence

Critics have lauded By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept for its poetic intensity and lyrical evocation of emotional turmoil, attributes that elevate its narrative beyond mere into a visionary prose-poem hybrid. This raw emotional depth, drawn from Smart's documented affair with poet George Barker, has been credited with prefiguring modes in women's , influencing subsequent writers through its unflinching portrayal of passion's ecstasy and devastation. Comparisons to arise in analyses of their shared use of diary-like forms to explore erotic and psychological , where Smart's work mirrors Nin's in blending personal revelation with performative , though Smart's remains more tightly focused on romantic . However, evaluations highlight structural limitations, including a fragmented that prioritizes lyrical effusion over coherent plotting, resulting in a form critics describe as a "novel-journal" prone to self-indulgence. This , while innovative, often yields passages of rhetorical excess that undermine dramatic tension, as the text's biblical allusions and mythic overlays can overshadow psychological realism. Following the 1982 reprint, feminist scholarship emphasized the text's subversive inscription of feminine —an ecstatic surrender to desire—positioning it as a precursor to adultery narratives challenging patriarchal norms. Yet counter-critiques have scrutinized its masochistic undertones, where the protagonist's idealization of suffering love risks reinforcing submissive tropes rather than critiquing them, a tension unresolved in Smart's unapologetic embrace of emotional extremity. These debates underscore Smart's niche influence: resonant for its affective power in confessional traditions but limited by formal inconsistencies that confine her to cult rather than canonical status.

Debates Over Personal Choices and Artistic Idealization

Critics have debated whether Elizabeth Smart's pursuit of an adulterous relationship with poet exemplified heroic artistic passion or served as a of personal dysfunction, with her literary idealization of forbidden contrasting sharply against the documented hardships of and familial instability. In By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept (1945), Smart portrayed the affair as a transcendent, biblical ordeal of sacred desire, drawing from her real-life abandonment of a stable for Barker, a married English she met in 1940 after years of epistolary . However, Barker's Christopher Barker described the partnership as "tortured and tempestuous," marked by cycles of intense quarrels, separations, and reconciliations, during which Smart bore four children out of wedlock while Barker fathered 15 across four partners and engaged in multiple infidelities. This romantic framing in her prose has been critiqued for glossing over Barker's irresponsibility, including emotional withdrawal, occasional toward partners, and refusal to provide financial support, leaving Smart to raise children amid chronic destitution after her family's inheritance dwindled. Smart's unpublished and posthumously edited journals, such as those in Necessary Secrets: The Journals of Elizabeth Smart (1986), offer a more grounded counterpoint to her artistic elevation of Barker as a "Christ-like figure," revealing early obsessions tempered by pragmatic concerns over , isolation, and maternal duties that her novel elides. Real-life consequences underscored the debate's cautionary dimension: Smart's choices contributed to child-rearing challenges, including periods of neglecting her to pursue Barker, and long-term poverty that forced her into secretarial work despite her literary talent, culminating in the tragic death of daughter from drug-related causes in 1983. Perspectives emphasizing family disruption highlight how such adulterous pursuits risked child welfare and economic ruin, with Barker's self-indulgent exemplifying patriarchal exploitation rather than mutual . In contrast, admirers of Smart's bohemian defiance frame her endurance as inspirational against conventional stability, though empirical outcomes—marked by relational chaos and material want—challenge narratives of unalloyed liberation, revealing instead the causal toll of prioritizing passion over prudence.

References

  1. http://data2.archives.ca/pdf/pdf001/p000002494.pdf
  2. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/aug/20/poetry.features
  3. https://www.cbc.ca/books/by-grand-central-station-i-sat-down-and-wept-1.3969295
  4. https://abcbookworld.com/writer/smart-elizabeth/
  5. https://thewalrus.ca/elizabeth-smart-died-in-1986-her-work-still-haunts-me/
  6. https://www.onthisday.com/people/elizabeth-smart
  7. https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/elizabeth-smart
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  9. https://recherche-collection-search.bac-lac.gc.ca/fra/accueil/notice?app=fonandcol&IdNumber=3721525
  10. https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/elizabeth-smart
  11. https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2013/mar/06/by-grand-central-station-radio-documentary
  12. https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v13/n04/julian-symons/urgent
  13. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-5801073/Growing-daughter-bohemian-poet-Author-Raffaella-Barker-later-realised-one-15.html
  14. https://bookmebookblog.wordpress.com/tag/elizabeth-smart-and-george-barker-affair/
  15. https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v28/n18/andrew-o-hagan/nasty-lucky-genes
  16. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/authors/elizabeth-smart-and-george-barker-love-affair-literary-classic/
  17. https://diariesofnote.com/2023/06/17/who-is-there-for-me/
  18. https://www.rookebooks.com/1978-the-assumption-of-the-rogues-rascals
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  20. https://www.jstor.org/stable/44030385
  21. https://cws.journals.yorku.ca/index.php/cws/article/download/13528/12585/13567
  22. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2005-dec-14-et-book14-story.html
  23. https://gorse.ie/i-am-love/
  24. https://books.google.com/books/about/Autobiographies.html?id=0FyYbOTl034C
  25. https://www.abebooks.com/Autobiographies-Smart-Elizabeth-Burridge-Christina-Editor/32209310367/bd
  26. https://www.amazon.com/Necessary-secrets-journals-Elizabeth-Smart/dp/0888791224
  27. https://books.google.com/books/about/On_the_Side_of_the_Angels.html?id=Tl1bAAAAMAAJ
  28. https://archive.org/details/onsideofangelsse0000smar
  29. https://atticbooks.ca/products/150710
  30. https://mypoeticside.com/poets/elizabeth-smart-poems
  31. https://www.poetsgraves.co.uk/smart.htm
  32. https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/79/article/265249
  33. https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/found-the-secrets-of-the-little-prince-still-alive-5349790.html
  34. https://ojs.lib.uwo.ca/index.php/esc/article/download/9901/8001
  35. https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/novel-in-english
  36. https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704462704575590283489177108
  37. https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/scl/article/view/8145/9202
  38. https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/scl/article/view/23043/26735
  39. https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt81cd0
  40. https://abcbookworld.com/article/article-13255/
  41. https://www.erudit.org/en/journals/scl/2014-v39-n2-scl39_2/scl39_2art03/
  42. https://www.thetimes.com/culture/books/article/by-grand-central-station-sat-down-wept-elizabeth-smart-review-vfxlxppdd
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