Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
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.
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.
63, 73
Cummins, Geraldine. Dr. E. Œ. Somerville: A Biography. Andrew Dakers.
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.
141
Cummins, Geraldine. Dr. E. Œ. Somerville: A Biography. Andrew Dakers.
256
Publishing
Martin Ross
Edith Somerville
and MR
published In the Vine Country, a travel-book about the vineyards of Bordeaux, with F. H. Townsend
's illustrations from Somerville's sketches.
Cummins, Geraldine. Dr. E. Œ. Somerville: A Biography. Andrew Dakers.
250-1
Collis, Maurice. Somerville and Ross: A Biography. Faber and Faber.
93
Publishing
Martin Ross
Edith Somerville
, rising ninety, received the news that Oxford University Press
was reprinting The Real Charlotte (by herself and MR
) in the World's Classics series.
Collis, Maurice. Somerville and Ross: A Biography. Faber and Faber.
275
Publishing
Martin Ross
In MR
's first collaboration with her cousin Edith Somerville
(an article on palmistry published in the Graphic) the writing was by Ross, the illustrations by Somerville.
Collis, Maurice. Somerville and Ross: A Biography. Faber and Faber.
38
Publishing
Martin Ross
MR
and Edith Somerville
first attempted full-scale literary collaboration; that month Oscar Wilde
, editor-elect of The Woman's World, accepted an article by them.
Collis, Maurice. Somerville and Ross: A Biography. Faber and Faber.
44-5, 48
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...
Collis, Maurice. Somerville and Ross: A Biography. Faber and Faber.
158-9
Residence
Katharine Tynan
In the autumn of 1914, KT
's husband
moved from their current home, Clarebeg at Shankill near Dublin, to County Mayo in Western Ireland, where he had been appointed the Resident Magistrate. He held...
Textual Features
Martin Ross
MR
's letters were always remarkable for vividness, forcefulness, and breadth of emotional sympathy. She wrote particularly memorably to Edith Somerville
during the summer of 1888, from her childhood home in the west of Ireland...
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
Martin Ross
Edith Somerville
and MR
worked at their first novel, An Irish Cousin, which began as the Shockerawn,
Collis, Maurice. Somerville and Ross: A Biography. Faber and Faber.
45
a penny thriller or shocker.
Collis, Maurice. Somerville and Ross: A Biography. Faber and Faber.
45, 49
Textual Production
Martin Ross
Edith Somerville
and MR
published another book, A Patrick's Day Hunt: the first edition consisted of 5,000 copies.
Cummins, Geraldine. Dr. E. Œ. Somerville: A Biography. Andrew Dakers.
254
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...
Textual Production
Martin Ross
An Irish Cousin, the first collaborative novel by Edith Somerville
(here calling herself Geilles Herring) and MR
, appeared.
Collis, Maurice. Somerville and Ross: A Biography. Faber and Faber.
71
Cummins, Geraldine. Dr. E. Œ. Somerville: A Biography. Andrew Dakers.
247-8
Timeline
No timeline events available.
Texts
Somerville, Edith. The Big House of Inver. William Heinemann, 1925.
Somerville, Edith, editor. The Mark Twain Birthday Book. Remington and Company, 1885.
Somerville, Edith, and Martin Ross. The Real Charlotte. Ward and Downey, 1894.
Somerville, Edith, and Martin Ross. The Real Charlotte. Chatto and Windus, 1972.
Ross, Martin, and Edith Somerville. The Silver Fox. Lawrence and Bullen, 1897.
Somerville, Edith. The Smile and the Tear. Methuen, 1933.
Somerville, Edith. The States through Irish Eyes. Houghton Mifflin, 1930.
Somerville, Edith. The Story of the Discontented Little Elephant. Longmans, Green, 1912.
Somerville, Edith. The Sweet Cry of Hounds. Methuen, 1936.
Somerville, Edith, and Martin Ross. Through Connemara in a Governess Cart. W. H. Allen, 1892.