Edith Somerville

-
ES , who published from 1885, is known from the Somerville and Ross partnership which produced at least one important novel and a collection of classic comic stories (set in the west of Ireland and centred on fox-hunting), as well as other endearing Irish sketches and travel writings. She continued to write in these genres, mostly story and memoir, after Ross's death (which she saw as interrupting but not ending their collaboration). The later works (the last appeared in 1949) are suffused with nostalgia, and very largely dominated by the need to make money, to keep going an estate which was no longer financially viable. The massive archive of ES 's diary and letters is still almost unexamined.
  • BirthName: Edith Anne Œnone Somerville
  • Pseudonyms: Geilles Herring
    Collis, Maurice. Somerville and Ross: A Biography. Faber and Faber, 1968.
    64
    ; Viva Graham
    These two pseudonyms were used, once only, on the first and second editions of Somerville and Ross's first book.
    Cummins, Geraldine. Dr. E. Œ. Somerville: A Biography. Andrew Dakers, 1952.
    247-8
    ; E. Œ. Somerville; Somerville and Ross

Milestones

2 May 1858

ES was born on the island of Corfu, off the coast of Greece.
Lewis, Gifford. Somerville and Ross: The World of the Irish R. M. Viking, 1985.
7
Cronin, John. Somerville and Ross. Bucknell University Press, 1972.
13

1873

ES began at fifteen to keep the diary which she continued to the year before her death, by which time it totalled 76 volumes.
Collis, Maurice. Somerville and Ross: A Biography. Faber and Faber, 1968.
13-14

8 October 1949

ES died at her home, Tally-Ho, at Castletownshend in County Cork.
Cronin, John. Somerville and Ross. Bucknell University Press, 1972.
99

By December 1949

In the year of ES 's death there appeared, as a final collaboration with Martin Ross and with her own illustrations, Maria, and Some Other Dogs.
TLS Centenary Archive Centenary Archive [1902-2012]. http://www.gale.com/c/the-times-literary-supplement-historical-archive.
2496 (2 December 1949): 797
Collis, Maurice. Somerville and Ross: A Biography. Faber and Faber, 1968.
39
Cummins, Geraldine. Dr. E. Œ. Somerville: A Biography. Andrew Dakers, 1952.
271

Biography

Birth and Family

2 May 1858

ES was born on the island of Corfu, off the coast of Greece.
Lewis, Gifford. Somerville and Ross: The World of the Irish R. M. Viking, 1985.
7
Cronin, John. Somerville and Ross. Bucknell University Press, 1972.
13