Ella D'Arcy

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EDA was chiefly a short-story writer, known for her acerbic depictions of personal pain caused by the institution of marriage. Unlike other New Woman writers she shows no bias towards her own sex: her victims are as often male as female, her tormentors as often female as male. Her feminism can be seen in her emphasis on the restriction and frustration of women's lives. Her output was small, but includes one short novel and the translation from French of Ariel, a romanticized biography of Percy Bysshe Shelley . This highly uncharacteristic work is her most famous, but her part in it is seldom mentioned.

Milestones

23 August 1857

Constance Eleanor Mary Byrne D'Arcy (who later published as Ella D'Arcy ) was born in the Pimlico area of London, one of nine children of Irish parents.
Clarke, John Stock. Ella D’Arcy.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

December 1890

EDA 's early story The Expiation of David Scott appeared in Temple Bar. It was her earliest identified publication, and might be called a novella rather than a story since it has ten chapters.
Clarke, John Stock. Ella D’Arcy.
Fisher, Benjamin Franklin. “Ella D’Arcy: A Commentary with a Primary and Annotated Secondary Bibliography”. English Literature in Transition, 1880-1920, Vol.
35
, No. 2, pp. 179-11.
188

By 15 February 1924

EDA 's last book was her translation into English of Ariel, the biography of Percy Bysshe Shelley written by André Maurois , published, like her other books, by John Lane .
“The Times Digital Archive 1785-2007”. Thompson Gale: The Times Digital Archive.
43576 (15 February 1924): 17
Clarke, John Stock. Ella D’Arcy.

5 September 1937

EDA died in a London hospital, some time after suffering a stroke.
Clarke, John Stock. Ella D’Arcy.
“The Times Digital Archive 1785-2007”. Thompson Gale: The Times Digital Archive.
47783 (7 September 1937): 1
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

Biography

Birth and Background

23 August 1857

Constance Eleanor Mary Byrne D'Arcy (who later published as Ella D'Arcy ) was born in the Pimlico area of London, one of nine children of Irish parents.
Clarke, John Stock. Ella D’Arcy.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

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