Renée Haynes
Renée Oriana Haynes | |
|---|---|
| Born | July 23, 1906 |
| Died | October 12, 1992 (aged 86) |
| Alma mater | St Hugh's College, Oxford |
| Occupation(s) | Writer, historian, psychical researcher |
| Employer | British Council |
| Organization | Society for Psychical Research |
| Spouse | Jerrard Tickell (married 1929) |
| Relatives |
|
Renée Haynes (23 July 1906[1] – 12 October 1992)[2] was an English writer, historian, and psychical researcher.[3][4] She was the author of an influential novel about her experience of Oxford University during the 1920s,[5] and later coined the parapsychology term "boggle-threshold", to indicate the point at which tolerance of a claim turns to disbelief.[4][6]
Personal life
[edit]Renée Oriana Haynes was born in London on 23 July 1906, the eldest daughter of lawyer and writer E. S. P. Haynes.[4][2][5] Her mother was the granddaughter of Thomas Henry Huxley.[4] Growing up, her parents' friends included Julian Huxley, Aldous Huxley, C. K. Scott Moncrieff, G. K. Chesterton, and Hilaire Belloc (whose biography Haynes would write in 1953).[2][5]
Haynes was educated at private schools, including an experimental day-school run by Theosophists.[1][5] She then studied law and history at St Hugh’s College, Oxford, graduating in 1927.[1][7] While there, Haynes was editor of the college's magazine, The Fritillary.[5] The Times suggested that her novel written about her time at Oxford, Neapolitan Ice (1928), "was probably the first by a woman undergraduate about other women undergraduates".[2] This claim was inaccurate, but demonstrates the popularity of Haynes' work and its status within the genre.[5] Between 1928 and 1930, she worked for the publisher Geoffrey Bles.[1][4]
Haynes married the Irish writer Jerrard Tickell in 1929, and the couple had three children: Crispin, Patrick, and Tom.[2] She converted to Catholicism in 1942.[2] Jerrard Tickell died in 1966.[2]
Career
[edit]Haynes, who published under her maiden name,[8] followed Neapolitan Ice with Immortal John (1932), The Holy Hunger (1935), and Pan, Caesar and God: Who Spake by the Prophets (1938).[9][1] She worked for the British Council 1941–1967, rising to become director of book reviews.[1][4]
In 1961 she published The Hidden Springs: An Enquiry into Extra-sensory Perception, and in 1976 her second book on extra-sensory perception, The Seeing Eye, The Seeing I, appeared.[2]
In 1970, Haynes published Philosopher King: a book about Pope Benedict XIV.[2]
She joined the Society for Psychical Research 1946, following a conversation with Theodora Bosanquet,[5] becoming a member of its council in 1957, and serving for a time as a vice-president.[1][4] Haynes was editor of the SPR's journal 1970–1981, and later wrote the organisation's history, published as The Society for Psychical Research 1882-1982: A History (1982).[4][2][10] She published widely on psychical subjects, including for the press and in essay collections.[2][11]
Death
[edit]Renée Haynes died on 12 October 1992 at the age of 86.[2] The Times praised her as having had:
an original and wide-ranging mind, a lively way of writing (with phrases which linger in the memory) and a deep sense of humanity and historical continuity.[2]
Bibliography
[edit]- Neapolitan Ice (1928)
- Immortal John (1932)
- The Holy Hunger (1935)
- Pan, Caesar and God (1938)
- Hilaire Belloc (1953)
- The Hidden Springs: An Enquiry into Extra-sensory Perception (1961)
- Philosopher King: The Humanist Pope Benedict XIV (1970)
- The Seeing Eye, The Seeing I: Perception, Sensory and Extrasensory (1976)
- The Society for Psychical Research 1882-1982: A History (1982)
References
[edit]- ^ a b c d e f g "Haynes, Renée (Oriana) (1906-1994) | Encyclopedia.com". www.encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 2025-04-09.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m "Renee Tickell". The Times. 29 October 1992. p. 23.
- ^ Mahoney, Cat (2019-11-07). Women in Neoliberal Postfeminist Television Drama: Representing Gendered Experiences of the Second World War. Springer Nature. ISBN 978-3-030-30449-2.
- ^ a b c d e f g h "Renée Haynes | Psi Encyclopedia". psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk. Retrieved 2025-04-09.
- ^ a b c d e f g Bogen, Anna (2017-11-20). Women's University Narratives, 1890-1945, Part II: Volume I. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-315-44930-2.
- ^ "Boggle-Threshold | Encyclopedia.com". www.encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 2025-04-09.
- ^ Bogen, Anna (2015-10-06). Women's University Fiction, 1880–1945. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-317-31957-3.
- ^ Pilkington, Rosemarie, ed. (1987). Men and Women of Parapsychology: Personal Reflections. Internet Archive. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co. ISBN 978-0-89950-260-1.
- ^ Haynes, Renée (1940-11-01). "Romanticism and the Competitive Society". Theology. 41 (245): 277–283. doi:10.1177/0040571X4004124504. ISSN 0040-571X.
- ^ McCorristine, Shane (2010). Spectres of the self: thinking about ghosts and ghost-seeing in England, 1750-1920. Cambridge New York: Cambridge university press. ISBN 978-0-521-76798-9.
- ^ "The Price of Fame by Renee Haynes - The Unexplained Magazine". www.harrypricewebsite.co.uk. Retrieved 2025-04-09.
External links
[edit]- The Seeing Eye, The Seeing I by Renée Haynes at the Internet Archive
- The Hidden Springs: An Enquiry Into Extra-Sensory Perception by Renée Haynes at the Internet Archive