Amanda McKittrick Ros

-
AMKR 's characteristic style is one of finely tooled alliteration. She meant this style to be taken seriously, but it has led to her being anthologised frequently in books of bad writing. Active at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century, she produced three novels (one added to and published posthumously) as well as books of poetry, and broadsheet verse with commentary (often scurrilous).

Milestones

8 December 1860

Anna Margaret McKittrick (later AMKR ) was born in Drumaness, near Ballynahinch, County Down.
Ros, Amanda McKittrick. “Introduction”. Thine in Storm and Calm, edited by Frank Ormsby, Blackstaff Press, pp. 1-22.
2

1897

AMKR published her first novel, Irene Iddesleigh, probably written between 1892 and 1896, though she claimed to have finished it at fourteen or fifteen.
Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford.
Ros, Amanda McKittrick. “Introduction”. Thine in Storm and Calm, edited by Frank Ormsby, Blackstaff Press, pp. 1-22.
3

2 February 1939

AMKR died from the after-effects of a fall, in the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast.
Ros, Amanda McKittrick. “Introduction”. Thine in Storm and Calm, edited by Frank Ormsby, Blackstaff Press, pp. 1-22.
4
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

April 1969

AMKR 's third novel, Helen Huddleson, unpublished in her lifetime, appeared posthumously, edited and with a final chapter by Jack Loudan .
British Books in Print. J. Whitaker and Sons.
1970
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.

Biography

AMKR told Jack Loudan , her friend and biographer, that her full name was Amanda Malvina Fitzalan Anna Margaret McLelland McKittrick Ros, possibly in part after the heroine of one of the favourite books of her childhood: Amanda Fitzalan (daughter of Malvina) in Regina Maria Roche 's The Children of the Abbey, 1796. Loudan speculates that AMKR dropped the second s from her married name most likely because she knew that there was a family of ancient lineage called de Ros in County Down.
Ros, Amanda McKittrick. “Introduction”. Thine in Storm and Calm, edited by Frank Ormsby, Blackstaff Press, pp. 1-22.
2
AMKR also claimed that the McKittrick family was descended from King Sitric of Dublin .
Ros, Amanda McKittrick. “Introduction”. Thine in Storm and Calm, edited by Frank Ormsby, Blackstaff Press, pp. 1-22.
2
Loudan, Jack, and T. Stanley Mercer. O Rare Amanda!. Chatto and Windus.
7, 182
Sitric was part of the Danish invasion and settlement of Ireland and revolted against the Irish king in 1002.

Birth and Family

Please click on login button to check your access and/or enter your credentials. Alternatively if you don’t have access, please click on “Subscribe”.

Log inSubscribe