Djuna Barnes

Lore & Background

Barnes was born in a log cabin on Storm King Mountain, near Cornwall-on-Hudson, New York. Her paternal grandmother Zadel Barnes was a writer, journalist, and Women's Suffrage activist. Her father, Wald Barnes, was an unsuccessful composer, musician, and painter who advocated polygamy; he married Barnes's mother Elizabeth in 1889, and his mistress Frances Clark moved in with them in 1897. The family had nine children, and Barnes spent much of her childhood helping care for siblings. She received early education at home, mostly from her father and grandmother, and claimed to have had no formal schooling; some evidence suggests she was enrolled in public school after age ten, though attendance was inconsistent. It is possible that at age 16 she was raped, either by a neighbor with her father's knowledge or by her father, but these are unconfirmed rumors. She reluctantly married Fanny Clark's brother Percy Faulkner shortly before her 18th birthday; the match was promoted by her family, but she stayed with him no more than two months.

In 1912, Barnes's family split up due to financial ruin. She moved to New York City with her mother and three brothers, studied art at the Pratt Institute and the Art Student's League, but left to support herself as a reporter at the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. Her work appeared in many New York newspapers, including the New York Press, The World, and McCall's. She wrote interviews, features, theatre reviews, and news stories, often illustrating them. In 1914, she submitted to force-feeding to experience the technique used on hunger-striking suffragists. She moved to Greenwich Village in 1915, entering a Bohemian community that included Edmund Wilson, Berenice Abbott, and Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven. In 1921, a commission with McCall's took her to Paris, where she lived for ten years, publishing A Book (1923), Ladies Almanack (1928), and Ryder (1928). During the 1930s, she spent time in England, Paris, New York, and North Africa, writing and publishing Nightwood. She returned to New York in October 1939 and published her last major work, the verse play The Antiphon, in 1958. She died in her apartment at Patchin Place, Greenwich Village, in June 1982.

Reader's Guide

Djuna Barnes's significance lies in her contributions to modernist literature and her role as a pioneering female journalist and artist. Her novel Nightwood (1936) is recognized as a cult classic of lesbian fiction and a key modernist text, noted for its dense, poetic prose and exploration of marginalized identities. Barnes's journalism, particularly her immersive and subjective reporting—such as undergoing force-feeding to understand suffragist experiences—challenged conventional boundaries of women's roles and reportage. Her work in avant-garde literary journals and popular magazines, along with her illustrated poetry collection The Book of Repulsive Women (1915), established her as a bold voice in early 20th-century American and expatriate literary circles. Her legacy endures through Nightwood's continued critical acclaim and her influence on later LGBTQ+ and modernist writers. The unconfirmed rumors of childhood trauma and her complex family dynamics add layers to her biographical narrative, though she never completed her autobiography.

Did You Know?

• Barnes began her career in 1913 as a freelance journalist and illustrator for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle.
• She lived in Paris for ten years starting in 1921, after a commission with McCall's.

Early Life and Family Turmoil

Barnes was born in 1892 in a log cabin on Storm King Mountain near Cornwall-on-Hudson, New York. Her household was unconventional: her father Wald, an unsuccessful composer and painter, was a polygamist who married her mother Elizabeth in 1889 and brought his mistress Fanny Clark into the home in 1897. The family grew to nine children across both women, with Wald making little effort to support them. Her paternal grandmother Zadel, a suffrage activist and salon hostess, shouldered much of the financial burden, writing begging letters to sustain the household. As the second-oldest child, Barnes spent her youth caring for siblings and half-siblings. Her education came from home—writing, art, and music from her father and grandmother—while math and spelling went neglected. She claimed no formal schooling, though some evidence suggests inconsistent public school attendance after age ten. Rumors of a sexual assault around age sixteen, possibly involving her father or a neighbor, were never confirmed by Barnes, who never finished her autobiography. Shortly before turning eighteen, she entered a brief, reluctant marriage to Fanny Clark's fifty-two-year-old brother Percy Faulkner, a match pushed by nearly her entire family, which lasted no more than two months.

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle and New York Journalism

In 1912, financial ruin forced the Barnes family to split, and Elizabeth moved to New York with Djuna and three brothers. The city gave Barnes her first chance to study art formally—six months at the Pratt Institute and a year at the Art Student's League—but the obligation to support her family quickly pulled her into the workforce. She landed a position at the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, arriving with the declaration, "I can draw and write, and you'd be a fool not to hire me," words later inscribed inside the Brooklyn Museum. By early 1914 she was a highly sought feature reporter, interviewer, and illustrator whose work appeared in nearly every New York newspaper, including the New York Press, The World, and McCall's. Her journalism was strikingly subjective and experiential. In one piece she admitted missing part of a conversation with James Joyce because her attention had wandered. Interviewing playwright Donald Ogden Stewart, she shouted at him for "rolling over and finding yourself famous" before adding she wouldn't mind dying. For a 1914 New York World article, she submitted to force-feeding—a technique then used on hunger-striking suffragists—and wrote passionately about the violation of bodily autonomy she witnessed. She even conducted a "conversation" with Dinah, a female gorilla at the Bronx Zoo, for New York World Magazine.

Paris and the Prolific 1920s

A lucrative commission with McCall's in 1921 sent Barnes to Paris, where she would live for the next decade. This period proved extraordinarily fertile. She published A Book in 1923, a collection weaving together poetry, plays, and short stories, which was later reissued with three additional stories under the title A Night Among the Horses in 1929. That same year saw the publication of Ryder, a novel that would later carry oblique references to the sexual trauma of her youth. In between, she contributed to the avant-garde collective volume Ladies Almanack in 1928. Her connections with prominent Greenwich Village bohemians had already opened doors to both experimental literary journals and popular magazines, allowing her prose, poems, illustrations, and one-act plays to reach diverse audiences. The Book of Repulsive Women, an illustrated poetry volume published in 1915, had already announced her distinctive voice. In Paris, Barnes moved through a world where artistic experimentation and commercial viability coexisted, and she produced work spanning multiple genres with ease, establishing herself as a versatile and restless creative force in the international literary scene.

Nightwood, Later Years, and Legacy

The restless 1930s, during which Barnes moved between England, Paris, New York, and North Africa, produced her most enduring work: Nightwood, published in 1936. The novel became a cult classic of lesbian fiction and a landmark of modernist literature, securing her place in the literary canon. In October 1939, after nearly two decades living mostly in Europe, she returned to New York. Her final major work, the verse play The Antiphon, appeared in 1958—a furious, sexually explicit indictment that more directly confronted the trauma of her youth, though her long-dead grandmother Zadel was left out of its accusations. Barnes died in June 1982 in her apartment at Patchin Place in Greenwich Village, the same neighborhood whose bohemian circles had launched her career decades earlier. She never completed her autobiography, leaving the full story of her early life permanently unfinished. Yet through Nightwood, The Antiphon, and the body of experimental work that preceded them, Barnes left a mark on twentieth-century literature that continues to resonate, bridging the avant-garde and the personal in ways that remain distinctive.