Edith Somerville

-
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
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...
Textual Features B. M. Croker
Some chapter titles (Clancy's Colt, Foxy Joe Tells Tales) suggest a work by Somerville and Ross , and so does the opening description of Ballingoole, which used to enjoy the best and...
Textual Production Maureen Duffy
One Goodnight, the first of MD 's two radio plays about the Irish writers Edith Somerville and Martin Ross , aired on the BBC .
“The Knitting Circle”. London South Bank University: Lesbian and Gay Staff Association.
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
Reception Augusta Gregory
Bernard Shaw saw Lady Gregory as a born playwright . . . . doomed from the cradle to write for the stage, to break through every social obstacle to get to the stage, to refuse...
Textual Production Elizabeth Jane Howard
She was invited to do a script for an Irish film by Jonathan Cavendish about Edith Somerville and Martin Ross , but when she looked into their lives she thought they lacked the dramatic structure...
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...
Textual Production Molly Keane
MK wrote a foreword for Gifford Lewis 's selection from the letters of Somerville and Ross , published in 1989.
Solo: Search Oxford University Libraries Online. 18 July 2011, http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?vid=OXVU1&fromLogin=true&reset_config=true.
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
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
Textual Production Martin Ross
Edith Somerville and MR published the book for which they were and are most famous: Some Experiences of an Irish R. M., illustrated by Somerville herself.
Cummins, Geraldine. Dr. E. Œ. Somerville: A Biography. Andrew Dakers, 1952.
253-4
Collis, Maurice. Somerville and Ross: A Biography. Faber and Faber, 1968.
126
Wealth and Poverty Martin Ross
MR made her will: she left all her worldly possessions (including her literary copyrights) to Edith Somerville .
Collis connects this action with her ill health; but it seems more likely to have stemmed from...
Textual Production Martin Ross
Edith Somerville and MR published a sequel to their most successful book: Further Experiences of an Irish R. M.
Collis, Maurice. Somerville and Ross: A Biography. Faber and Faber, 1968.
146
Cummins, Geraldine. Dr. E. Œ. Somerville: A Biography. Andrew Dakers, 1952.
257

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.