"Yvonne Kapp (née Mayer) was born in London on April 17th 1903, to a German Jewish family from the Rhineland, her father being engaged in the vanilla trade. She was briefly at King's College London but in 1922, at the age of 19, she married the considerably older (by thirteen years) artist and and musician Edmond (known as Peter) X Kapp, who personally knew, drew and painted most of the literati of the day. (The "X", seemingly, signified nothing more than an attempt to distinguish himself from his father, who had the same name.)
The Kapps led a bohemian life, travelling around Europe and earning their living through art and writing, staying extensively on the Italian Riviera, on Capri, and in English country cottages. Whilst engaged in this literary milieu, she encountered many famous people, including Quentin Bell, Rebecca West, Paul Robeson, John Heartfield, Melanie Klein and Herbert Morrison, to name only a few. Some, such as D H Lawrence, sat for a portrait by Edmond. She also edited "Pastiche: A Music-Room Book", which conained 28 illustrations by Edmond X Kapp.
She found heself bringing up her daughter effectively as a young single mother, as Edmond Kapp periodically disappeared, arising from psychological disturbances from his experiences in the First World War; Yvonne Kapp turned to journalism and writing to support herself and her child. In the late 1920s she was employed as the literary editor of Vogue in France and, under the pseudonym of Yvonne Cloud, she wrote four novels, all outspoken social Comedies. (...)
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"In addition to a number of works of non-fiction, she published four novels under the name of Yvonne Cloud. If her choice of name is significant, it is that the silver lining she offered became more tarnished with each publication. The novels all had a satirical streak, but outrage swells in successive books. By The Houses In Between (1938) Kapp was ostensibly a "political" writer.
Her first novel, Nobody Asked You, was self-published in 1932 after its contents had caused the projected publisher consternation. One reviewer observed: "she shows remorselessly, as life does, that to have no purpose, no standards, no altruism, no idealism, is to be damned to a hell below ordinary pain". Kapp lacked none of these qualities in the varied career that was to follow her literary apprenticeship.
In 1936 she visited the Soviet Union. The sights she saw there, and a long conversation on the voyage home with Harry Pollitt, secretary of the Communist Party of Great Britain, led her to joining the Communist Party. From this time on, her life was to be politically active. (...)"
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"Born Yvonne Mayer, 1903; educated at King's College London; married the artist, Edmond Kapp, 1922; joined Communist Party of Great Britain, 1936, following a visit to the Soviet Union; worked with Basque and Jewish refugees, 1937-1938; Assistant to Director, British Committee to Refugees from Czechoslovakia, dismissed from her post by the Home Office, 1940, and wrote pamphlet British Policy and the Refugees, 1941; Research Officer, Amalgamated Engineering Union, 1941-1946; worked for Medical Research Council, undertaking field work in the East End of London, 1947-1953; editor and translator, Lawrence and Wishart (publishers), 1953-1957; died 1999. Publications: four novels under the pseudonym Yvonne Cloud, including Nobody Asked You, 1932 and The Houses in Between, 1938; Eleanor Marx, (2 vols 1972, 1976"
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"Beside The Seaside: Six Variations. Six writers comment on the seaside towns which they were allocated to write about. An interesting aspect of social history. Yvonne Cloud wrote the introduction and also the chapter on Margate. Kate O'Brien covered Southend, Antonia White covered Brighton, Malcolm Muggeridge Bournemouth, James Laver Blackpool and V.S. Pritchett Scarborough."
Bibliography, as Yvonne Cloud:
