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
Textual Production
Martin Ross
MR
and Edith Somerville
published another hunting novel: Dan Russel the Fox: An Episode in the Life of Miss Rowan.
Cummins, Geraldine. Dr. E. Œ. Somerville: A Biography. Andrew Dakers.
258
Textual Production
Martin Ross
Edith Somerville
and MR
published their third book, Through Connemara in a Governess Cart, with illustrations by W. W. Russell
based on sketches by Somerville.
A governess cart is almost tub-shaped, with high sides...
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
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
names
Martin Ross
Somerville and Ross was a joint pseudonym often used to refer to the writings of MR
and her second cousin Edith Somerville
.
Textual Production
Martin Ross
Edith Somerville
and MR
published their third travel book, Beggars on Horseback: A Riding Tour in North Wales.
The title comes from the nursery rhyme which begins: If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.
Cummins, Geraldine. Dr. E. Œ. Somerville: A Biography. Andrew Dakers.
252-3
Cultural formation
Martin Ross
Violet belonged to the wealthy Anglo-Irish Protestant ascendancy.
Cronin, John. Somerville and Ross. Bucknell University Press.
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...
Textual Production
Martin Ross
Richard Bentley
commissioned MR
and Edith Somerville
for a three-volume novel, which becameThe Real Charlotte.
Cronin, John. Somerville and Ross. Bucknell University Press.
38
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.
24
Textual Production
Martin Ross
Edith Somerville
and MR
finished writing their novel The Real Charlotte, which first brought them public success.
Collis, Maurice. Somerville and Ross: A Biography. Faber and Faber.
98
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 Production
Martin Ross
Edith Somerville
and MR
published, with Ward and Downey
, their most popular novel, The Real Charlotte.
Collis, Maurice. Somerville and Ross: A Biography. Faber and Faber.
98, 103
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
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.
123
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.
