Florence Farr

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FF has received less attention for her own writing than for the role she played in men's: Shaw and Yeats created dramatic roles for her; Pound wrote poetry about her; and she put into practice Yeats's theories about reading poetry aloud. Her own writings in print include two novels, several theosophical and occult writings, a masque and two plays, some journalism, and a feminist treatise. These few published works provide insight into the turn-of-the-century theosophy, feminism, and the New Woman.
  • BirthName: Florence Beatrice Farr
    FF was probably named after her father's friend and colleague Florence Nightingale .

  • Self-constructed: Mary Lester; S. S. D. D.
    The initials refer to her motto when she was a member of the Golden Dawn society, Sapientia Sapienti Dona Data [Wisdom is given as a gift to the wise].
  • Married: Emery
Black and white photo of Florence Farr standing with her left hand on her waist, looking off to the left. Her dress has a wide, long skirt, and large lacy ruffles at collar and cuffs. She seems to be standing in front of a curtain.

Milestones

7 July 1860

FF was born near London, at Bickley in Kent.
Johnson, Josephine. Florence Farr: Bernard Shaw’s new woman. Colin Smythe, 1975.
8

By early May 1910

FF published a feminist treatise, Modern Woman: Her Intentions, summoning woman to awake from her long sleep and come into her kingdom, and proclaiming that [t]his is to be the Woman's Century.
Farr, Florence. Modern Woman: Her Intentions. Frank Palmer, 1910.
7
TLS Centenary Archive Centenary Archive [1902-2012]. http://www.gale.com/c/the-times-literary-supplement-historical-archive.
434 (5 May 1910): 167

By July 1912

Late in her career FF published a second novel, The Solemnization of Jacklin: Some Adventures on the Search for Reality, whose heroine gives birth to a mystical child derived from the writing of Yeats .
Johnson, Josephine. Florence Farr: Bernard Shaw’s new woman. Colin Smythe, 1975.
177
D’Arch Smith, Timothy, and Florence Farr. “Introduction”. Egyptian Magic, Aquarian Press, 1982, p. ix - xvii.
xvi
Litz, A. Walton. “Florence Farr: A ’Transitional’ Woman”. High and Low Moderns: Literature and Culture, 1889-1939, edited by Maria DiBattista and Lucy McDiarmid, Oxford University Press, 1996, pp. 85-106.
86

29 April 1917

FF died in Ceylon of breast cancer which had spread to her lungs.
Johnson, Josephine. Florence Farr: Bernard Shaw’s new woman. Colin Smythe, 1975.
210-11

Biography

Birth

7 July 1860

FF was born near London, at Bickley in Kent.
Johnson, Josephine. Florence Farr: Bernard Shaw’s new woman. Colin Smythe, 1975.
8

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