- Grace Rhys
Grace Rhys ("née" Little, 1865 - 1929) was an Irish writer brought up in
Boyle, County Roscommon .Her landowner father lost his money through gambling and, after receiving a good education from governesses, she and her sisters had to move to
London as adults to earn a living.She was both wife and literary companion to
Ernest Percival Rhys whom she met at a garden party given by Yeats. They married in 1891 and sometimes worked side by side in theBritish Museum . Her first novel, "Mary Dominic", was published in 1898. Several of her stories have an Irish setting, including "The Charming of Estercel" (1904) set inElizabethan Ireland, which was illustrated byHoward Pyle inHarper's Magazine .Her other work includes "The Wooing of Sheila" (1901), "The Bride" (1909), and "Five Beads on a String" (1907), a book of essays. She also wrote poetry and books for children, and had a son and two daughters of her own.
The Rhys were known for entertaining writers and critics at their London home on Sunday afternoons. Grace died in
Washington DC while accompanying her husband on an American lecture tour.References
*"Oxford Companion to Edwardian Fiction 1900-14: New Voices in the Age of Uncertainty", ed.Kemp, Mitchell, Trotter (OUP 1997)
*Katharine Chubbuck, "Ernest Percival Rhys" in the "Oxford Dictionary of National Biography" (2004)
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