Edith Somerville

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Standard Name: Somerville, Edith
Birth Name: Edith Anne Œnone Somerville
Pseudonym: Geilles Herring
Pseudonym: Viva Graham
Pseudonym: E. Œ. Somerville
Pseudonym: Somerville and Ross
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.
Black-and-white photo portrait of Edith Somerville, 1916. Shown in profile, she is seated, wears a brimmed hat and suit.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Cultural formation Martin Ross
Violet belonged to the wealthy Anglo-Irish Protestant ascendancy.
Cronin, John. Somerville and Ross. Bucknell University Press, 1972.
15
Her family, of Norman origin, had been one of the largest landowners in the west of Ireland during the eighteenth century, and still held about six...
Family and Intimate relationships Ethel Smyth
ES met Edith Somerville , with whom she conducted an emotionally-charged correspondence for several years.
Collis, Louise. Impetuous Heart: The Story of Ethel Smyth. William Kimber, 1984.
152, 156-8, 161
Family and Intimate relationships Martin Ross
Violet Martin (later MR ) met her second cousin Edith Somerville for the first time, while staying in the village of Castletownshend, in Cork.
Collis, Maurice. Somerville and Ross: A Biography. Faber and Faber, 1968.
39, 25-8
Cronin, John. Somerville and Ross. Bucknell University Press, 1972.
14
Friends, Associates Katherine Cecil Thurston
Through these social engagements, KCT came into contact with several significant figures of the day. At a dinner given by Colonel George Harvey , for instance, she probably met Mr and Mrs Winston Churchill ...
Friends, Associates Augusta Gregory
One of AG 's friends at this time was Katherine Martin of Ross, whose elder sister, Violet Martin (known as Martin Ross) , later became part of a famous writing duo with her cousin Edith Somerville
Intertextuality and Influence Elizabeth Bowen
The authors whom EB wrote of for the British Council in English Novelists are (as the commission required) canonical and mostly male. She was deeply influenced by Virginia Woolf , and wrote after Woolf's death...
Intertextuality and Influence Martin Ross
Before ever meeting her cousin Edith Somerville , Violet Ross had written articles (perhaps in emulation of her eldest brother ) and probably poetry, but none of this survives.
Collis, Maurice. Somerville and Ross: A Biography. Faber and Faber, 1968.
24
Intertextuality and Influence Molly Keane
The stories, told through the eyes of an Englishman dazzled by Ireland, concern a family in a big-house: an aristocratic father, domineering and hiding his love; a brother and sister whose lives are wrapped...
Intertextuality and Influence Mary Russell Mitford
Our Village is often said to have inaugurated its genre of small-scale, local-colour sketch writing, but (apart from Washington Irving 's Geoffrey Crayon's Sketch Book, 1819) it owes an obvious debt to the work...
Intertextuality and Influence Kate O'Brien
Lorna Reynolds notes a parallel between the KOB of this novel, on the one hand, and Somerville and Ross , on the other. Like her very different predecessors in the west-of-Ireland novel, O'Brien describes landscape...
Material Conditions of Writing Martin Ross
MR and Edith Somerville , staying at Etaples in France, began work on the stories which became Some Experiences of an Irish R. M.
Collis, Maurice. Somerville and Ross: A Biography. Faber and Faber, 1968.
123
Occupation Constance Smedley
Since the Langham Place Group had provided a social space for women in 1860, several organizations had already challenged the flourishing institution of men's clubs. The Lyceum Club came on the scene at a time...
Author summary Martin Ross
It is widely suspected that MR may have been the dominant partner, the chief creative spirit, in the partnership of Somerville and Ross which occupied the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (though the opposite...
Publishing Martin Ross
The novel Naboth's Vineyard appeared from Spencer Blackett , expanded and re-written by MR and Edith Somerville at the request of a friend, from a short story they had published in The Lady's Pictorial.
Collis, Maurice. Somerville and Ross: A Biography. Faber and Faber, 1968.
63, 73
Cummins, Geraldine. Dr. E. Œ. Somerville: A Biography. Andrew Dakers, 1952.
248-9
Publishing Martin Ross
Edith Somerville and MR published another collection of their magazine stories, Some Irish Yesterdays, with Somerville 's illustrations.
Collis, Maurice. Somerville and Ross: A Biography. Faber and Faber, 1968.
141
Cummins, Geraldine. Dr. E. Œ. Somerville: A Biography. Andrew Dakers, 1952.
256

Timeline

1911: The Munster Women's Franchise League was...

National or international item

1911

The Munster Women's Franchise League was founded in Cork by writers Edith Somerville and Violet Martin , who published together as Somerville and Ross.
Moody, Theodore William et al., editors. A New History of Ireland. Clarendon, 1976–2025, 10 vols.
8: 383
Owens, Rosemary Cullen. Smashing Times: A History of the Irish Women’s Suffrage Movement 1889-1922. Attic, 1984.
24-5, 43
Ó’Céirín, Kit, and Cyril Ó’Céirín, editors. Women of Ireland: A Biographic Dictionary. Tír Eolas, 1996.
206

Texts

Somerville, Edith. "Happy Days!" Essays of Sorts. Longmans, Green, 1946.
Ross, Martin, and Edith Somerville. A Patrick’s Day Hunt. Archibald Constable, 1902.
Somerville, Edith, and Martin Ross. All on the Irish Shore. Longmans, Green, 1903.
Somerville, Edith. An Enthusiast. Longmans, Green, 1921.
Somerville, Edith. An Incorruptible Irishman. Ivor Nicholson and Watson, 1932.
Somerville, Edith, and Martin Ross. An Irish Cousin. Richard Bentley and Son, 1889, 2 vols.
Ross, Martin, and Edith Somerville. Beggars on Horseback. William Blackwood and Sons, 1895.
Somerville, Edith, and Martin Ross. Dan Russel the Fox. Methuen, 1911.
Somerville, Edith. French Leave. William Heinemann, 1928.
Somerville, Edith, and Martin Ross. Further Experiences of an Irish R. M. Longmans, Green, 1908.
Somerville, Edith, and Martin Ross. In Mr Knox’s Country. Longmans, Green, 1915.
Somerville, Edith, and Martin Ross. In the Vine Country. W. H. Allen, 1893.
O’Donovan, John et al. “Introduction”. Some Experiences of an Irish R. M., Folio Society, 1984, p. vii - xvii.
Somerville, Edith. Irish Memories. Longmans, Green, 1917.
Somerville, Edith. Little Red Riding Hood in Kerry. Privately printed for the author, 1934.
Somerville, Edith. Maria, and Some Other Dogs. Methuen, 1949.
Somerville, Edith. Mount Music. Longmans, Green, 1919.
Somerville, Edith, and Martin Ross. Naboth’s Vineyard. Spencer Blackett, 1891.
Somerville, Edith. Notes of the Horn: Hunting Verse, Old and New. Peter Davies, 1934.
Somerville, Edith. Notions in Garrison. Methuen, 1941.
Somerville, Edith. Records of the Somerville Family of Castlehave and Drishane from 1174, to 1940. Guy and Company, 1940.
Somerville, Edith. Sarah’s Youth. Longmans, Green, 1938.
Somerville, Edith. Slipper’s A B C of Fox Hunting. Longmans, Green, 1903.
Somerville, Edith, and Martin Ross. Some Experiences of an Irish R. M. Longmans, Green, 1899.
Somerville, Edith, and Martin Ross. Some Irish Yesterdays. Longmans, Green, 1906.