Ménie Muriel Dowie

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Ménie Muriel Dowie , largely forgotten travel and adventure writer, essayist and new woman novelist, stormed into the literary scene of the 1890s with her enormously popular first book, A Girl in the Karpathians, which describes her solitary journey through easternEurope. By then she was a published poet, essayist, and writer of short stories, and had earned accolades for her speeches. During the last decade of the nineteenth century and the first few years of the twentieth, she wrote across a variety of genres, becoming both a columnist and editor, and continuing to publish short stories, most notably in The Yellow Book, before her abrupt departure from the literary scene in 1903. Her characteristic tone is ironic, satirical, and often playfully ambiguous.

Milestones

15 July 1866

Mary Muriel Dowie (who was known all her life by her familiar name, Ménie) was born at 7 Dingle Hill, Toxteth Park, Liverpool, the fourth of five children.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

7 December 1889

MMD 's first known publication under her own name appeared in Chambers's Journal: a three-stanza poem entitled, from its form, Rondel.
C19: The Nineteenth Century Index. http://c19index.chadwyck.com/home.do.
Chambers, William, and Robert Chambers, editors. Chambers’ Edinburgh Journal. William Orr.
6.310 (7 December 1899): 784

7 May 1891

MMD 's bright and lively travel account entitled A Girl in the Karpathians appeared to critical and popular acclaim.
“19th Century British Library Newspapers”. Gale: 19th Century British Library Newspapers.
Pall Mall Gazette 8152 (7 May 1891): 3

20 February 1895

MMD 's New Woman novel Gallia appeared in print. It became (according to her Times obituary) one of her best known works.
“19th Century British Library Newspapers”. Gale: 19th Century British Library Newspapers.
Aberdeen Weekly Journal 12497 (18 Feb 1895): 2
“The Times Digital Archive 1785-2007”. Thompson Gale: The Times Digital Archive.
50106 (2 April 1945): 6
British Library Catalogue. http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?dscnt=0&tab=local_tab&dstmp=1489778087340&vid=BLVU1&mode=Basic&fromLo.

July 1903

MMD 's last known publication, a short poem entitled The Thrall Song, appeared in the Pall Mall Magazine.
Dowie, Ménie Muriel. “The Thrall Song”. Pall Mall Magazine, Vol.
30
, No. 123, p. 393.
30.123 (July 1903): 393
British Periodicals. ProQuest, http://britishperiodicals.chadwyck.com/home.do.

25 March 1945

MMD died at Tucson, Arizona, about four years after she had emigrated, and nearly two years after the death of her son.
Dowie, Ménie Muriel. Gallia. Editor Small, Helen, J. M. Dent.
xxxv
“The Times Digital Archive 1785-2007”. Thompson Gale: The Times Digital Archive.
50106 (2 April 1945): 6

Biography

Birth and Family

15 July 1866

Mary Muriel Dowie (who was known all her life by her familiar name, Ménie) was born at 7 Dingle Hill, Toxteth Park, Liverpool, the fourth of five children.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.