Cicely Isabel Fairfield (1892-1983), known by her pen name Rebecca West, or Dame Rebecca West, DBE was an English author, journalist, literary critic and travel writer. A prolific, protean author who wrote in many genres, West was committed to feminist and liberal principles and was one of the foremost public intellectuals of the twentieth century. Her novel "The Return of the Soldier" is a noted modernist World War I novel. Other works include the "Aubrey trilogy" of autobiographical novels, "The Fountain Overflows," "This Real Night," and "Cousin Rosamund." Time called her "indisputably the world's number one woman writer" in 1947.