Regina Miriam Bloch

Regina Miriam Bloch (b. Sondershausen, Thuringia, November 1888; d. London, 1 March 1938)

Regina Miriam Bloch was the youngest of three children of Jacob Bloch, a schoolmaster in Birmingham, and Henrietta Davis, a schoolmistress, who were married in Birmingham in the summer of 1875. Henrietta Davis had been born in Thuringia, where Regina was also born, though Henrietta's two previous children, a daughter and a son, were both born in Warwickshire. 

Regina was educated in Germany and in London. She started appearing in print around 1906, and she published frequently in periodicals for the next few decades, including The Academy, The Idler,  The Spectator, The Saturday Review, The Contemporary Review, The Fortnightly Review, Nash's Magazine, The Celtic Monthly, and B'Nai B'rith Magazine. She contributed to a number of anthologies, from New Songs (1907), edited by Fred G. Bowles, and The Book of the Poets' Club (1909), which includes early poetry by Ezra Pound, to The Real Jew (1925), edited by H. Newman; and some of her poetry appeared in small editions, like The Vision of the King: A Coronation Souvenir (1911).

dust-wrapper, 1917

She contributed book reviews (mostly of non-fiction) to The Occult Review from around 1914 through 1926. For a time she was the Honorary President of the Jewish Society for Psychical Research.

Her most significant books were The Confessions of Inayat Khan (1915), a study of the Indian philosopher and musician, and two volumes of short stories, most of which are mystical and decadent, and some but not all are eastern. The first collection, The Swine-Gods and Other Visions (London: John Richmond, 1917), is a slim volume containing seven stories, the most substantial of which is the title story. All appear in print for the first time save for the third tale, "The New Creation," an exemplary vision that previously appeared in The Occult Review (January 1915). There is also a Foreword by Israel Zangwill (1864-1926), a friend of Bloch's. The dust-wrapper is gorgeously designed by W. Gordon Mein (1866-1939), and the illustration on the binding derives from Mein's dust-wrapper art. It gives the feel that the book may resemble something by William Hope Hodgson, but that is not the case. The Swine-Gods was reprinted; marked as "Second impression" without a date given.

binding, 1917

Bloch's second collection is much more substantial, The Book of Strange Loves (London: John Richmond, 1918). It contains twelve main items, nine of which are stories, the other three being dramatic episodes ("not to be regarded as plays" Bloch states in her Author's Note). They are mostly romantic tales, but they range from oriental and medieval to a Breton tale, "The Leper of Vannes; An Early French Romance," to an Arthurian one, "The Garden of Meliograunce: An Early Welsh Romance." Others tell of "Samson and Delilah" and of an ancient Amazon. The Scotsman noted that "all have the same imaginative richness and unforced exaltation of feeling, and some have neat snatches of lyrical poetry in them, both graceful in itself and  in harmony with the emotional effect of the prose" (22 July 1918). The Book of Strange Loves was reprinted in 1919. 

Bloch achieved some short-lived notoriety beginning in October 1918  when an editor of the Egoist erroneously implied that Rebecca West and Regina Miriam Bloch were the same person. This mistake proliferated in the U.S. magazine Current Opinion, in September 1921, where is stated that "Rebecca West's real name is Regina Miriam Bloch, which she rejected, according to her own confession, because it 'suggested a lovely blond in a white muslin frock with a blue sash,'--and she 'recognized her limitations'!" Eventually the mistake was corrected.

For much of the last decade of her life Bloch was devoted to the Children's Museum in London, which she conceived in 1929 and founded soon after. It was designed to be a national and international centre, "to educate and inspire the children of all Races." According to the prospectus, lectures and exhibits were planned, a Children's Orchestra and Chorus, a Children's Theatre, Dance and Concert Hall, a Children's Cinema, Folk-lore and Fairy Tale room, etc. She had a large list of supporters from society and the arts. 

Regina Miriam Bloch died in Hammersmith, London, at the age of 49.