Emily Lawless
Emily Lawless | |
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![]() Photographic portrait, date unknown | |
Born | Lyons Demesne | 17 June 1845
Died | 19 October 1913 Gomshall, Surrey | (aged 68)
Occupation | Writer |
The Hon.Emily Lawless(17 June 1845 – 19 October 1913) was anIrish novelist,historian,entomologist,gardener, and poet fromCounty Kildare.Her innovative approach to narrative and the psychological richness of her fiction have been identified as examples of early modernism.
Biography
[edit]She was born atLyons HousebelowLyons Hill,Ardclough,County Kildare.She spent part of her childhood with theKirwans ofCastle Hackett,County Galway,her mother's family, and drew on West of Ireland themes for many of her works. Her grandfather wasValentine Lawless,a member of theUnited Irishmenand son of a convert from Catholicism to theChurch of Ireland.Her father was Edward Lawless, 3rdBaron Cloncurry(d. 1869),[1]thus giving her thetitleof "The Honourable".[2]The death of her father when she was a girl plunged the family into financial difficulties which, compounded by her lack of access to family assets as a woman, meant that she relied on income from her books.
Emily had five brothers and three sisters. Her brother Edward Lawless, who inherited the family home, was a landowner with strong Unionist opinions, a policy of not employing Roman Catholics in any position in his household, and chairman of the Property Defence Association set up in 1880 to oppose theLand Leagueand "uphold the rights of property against organised combination to defraud". Emily Lawless was not in good terms with her brother Edward. The prominent Anglo-Irish unionist and laternationalist,Home RulepoliticianHorace Plunkettwas a cousin. Lord Castletown,Bernard FitzPatrick, 2nd Baron Castletownwas also a cousin.
According to Betty Webb Brewer, writing in 1983 for the journal of theIrish American Cultural Institute,Éire/Ireland:"An unflaggingunionist,she recognised the rich literary potential in the native tradition and wrote novels with peasant heroes and heroines, Lawless depicted with equal sympathy theAnglo-Irishlandholders. "This is the prevalent view of Lawless, yet she unequivocally referred to her Irish" patriotism ",[3]and her unshakeable love of Ireland, and several of her short stories denounce the inequalities brought about by colonialism and landlordism in Ireland. W.B.Yeats wrote scathingly about Lawless's supposed stereotyping of Irish peasants, and his views later contributed to the neglect of her work. Similarly, her initial opposition to female suffrage has been often read as an anti-feminist position (rather than a "feminism of difference"), yet much of her work makes a strong case for female autonomy, in financial and creative terms, and Lawless was a noted and popular writer in the"New Woman"movement which swept English fiction and journalism in the late nineteenth century. It has been speculated that she may have been lesbian.[4]Beginning in 1911, she lived with Lady Sarah Spencer, dedicatee ofA Garden Diary(1901), at a house named Hazelhatch inGomshall,Surrey.[5][6]Lawless died at Gomshall on 19 October 1913.[1]
She occasionally wrote under the pen name "Edith Lytton".[7]
Some archival material pertaining to Emily Lawless is held inMarsh's Library,Dublin.
Writings
[edit]Lawless wrote nineteen works of fiction, biography, history, nature studies and poetry, many of which were widely read at the time. She is increasingly considered a major fiction writer of the late nineteenth century, and an early modernist innovator. She is often remembered for herWild Geesepoems (1902). Her books were:
- A Chelsea Householder(1882)
- A Millionaire's cousin(1885)
- Ireland(1885)
- Hurrish(1886)
- Major Lawrence FLS(1887)
- With Essex in Ireland(1890)
- Grania(1892)
- Maelcho(1894)
- Plain Frances Mowbray and Other Tales(1889)
- A Colonel of the Empire(1895)[8]
- Traits and Confidences(1898)
- Atlantic Rhymes & Rhythms(1898)
- A Garden Diary(1901)
- With The Wild Geese(1902)
- Maria Edgeworth(1904)[9][10]
- Book of Gilly(1906)
- The Point of View(1909)
- The Race of Castlebar(1914) - co-authored withShan Bullock
- The Inalienable Heritage(1914)
Hurrish
[edit]Some critics identify a theme of noble landlord and noble peasant in her fourth book,Hurrish,aLand Warstory set in theBurrenCounty Clarewhich was read byWilliam Ewart Gladstoneand said to have influenced his policy. It deals with the theme of Irish hostility to English law. In the course of the book a landlord is assassinated, and Hurrish's mother, Bridget, refuses to identify the murderer, a dull-witted brutal neighbour.
It described the Burren Hills as "skeletons—rain-worn, time-worn, wind-worn—starvation made visible, and embodied in a landscape." The book was criticised by Irish-Ireland journals for its 'grossly exaggerated violence', its embarrassing dialect, staid characters. According toThe Nation"she looked down on peasantry from the pinnacle of her three generation nobility".
Her reputation was damaged byWilliam Butler Yeatswho accused her in a critique of having "an imperfect sympathy with the Celtic nature" and for adopting "theory invented by political journalists and forensic historians". Despite this, Yeats includedWith Essex in IrelandandMaelchoin his list of the best Irish novels.
EssexandGrania
[edit]Her historical novelWith Essex in Irelandwas better received and was ahead of its time in developing theunreliable narratoras a technique. Gladstone mistook it for an authentic Elizabethan document.
Her seventh book,Grania,about "a very queer girl leaping and dancing over the rocks of the sea" examined themisogynyof anAran Islandfishing society.
With the Wild Geese
[edit]Unusually for such a strong Unionist, herWild Geesepoems (1902) became very popular and were widely quoted in nationalist circles, especially the lines:
War-battered dogs are we,
Fighters in every clime;
Fillers of trench and of grave,
Mockers bemocked by time.
War-dogs hungry and grey,
Gnawing a naked bone,
Fighters in every clime
Every cause but our own
Two of the poems including "Clare Coast" (source of the above lines) and "After Aughrim" were included inTheOxford Book of Irish Verse(1958).[11]
Legacy
[edit]Her papers are inMarsh's Libraryin Dublin.
Emily Lawless Court inBayside, Dublinbears her name.[12]
References
[edit]- ^abChisholm, Hugh, ed. (1922).Encyclopædia Britannica(12th ed.). London & New York: The Encyclopædia Britannica Company. .
- ^"Emily Lawless".Princess Grace Irish Library. Archived from the original on 11 July 2002.Retrieved7 September2010.
{{cite web}}
:CS1 maint: unfit URL (link) - ^Emily Lawless, 'Traits and Confidences', London: Methuen, 1898, p. 37.
- ^Suzanne Raitt (1995).Volcanoes and Pearl Divers: Essays in Lesbian Feminist Studies.Onlywomen Press. p. 170.ISBN978-0-906500-48-4.
- ^Sichel, Edith (1917).New and Old.Constable and Company.p. 175.Retrieved13 June2024– via Internet Archive.
- ^The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing.Vol. V.New York University Press.2002. p. 921.ISBN9780814799079.Retrieved13 June2024– via Google Books.
- ^Jack Kirwan (2010).Wheelhouse to Kirwan in Easy Stages: A Voyage Round My Family History (so Far).Lulu.com. p. 117.ISBN978-1-4466-9743-6.
- ^Lawless, Emilia (6 July 1895)."A Colonel of The Empire".The Illustrated London News.107:9–12 – via Internet Archive.
- ^Lawless, Emily (1904).Maria Edgeworth.Macmillan.
- ^"Review ofMaria Edgeworthby Emily Lawless ".The Oxford Magazine.23.The Proprietors: 400. 14 June 1905.
- ^MacDonagh, Donagh & Robinson, Lennox, eds. (1958)The Oxford Book of Irish Verse.Oxford: Clarendon Press; pp. 100-05
- ^Northgate documentsfingalcoco.ieArchived8 September 2022 at theWayback Machine
Further reading
[edit]- A book of criticism on Lawless—Emily Lawless (1845-1913): Writing the Interspaceby Heidi Hansson—was published in 2007 by Cork University Press.[1]
- Emily Lawless,Grania: The Story of an Island,edited by Michael O'Flynn (Victorian Secrets, 2013)
External links
[edit]- 1845 births
- 1913 deaths
- 19th-century Irish writers
- 19th-century Irish women writers
- 20th-century Irish writers
- 20th-century Irish women writers
- Anglo-Irish women poets
- Anglo-Irish poets
- Irish Anglicans
- Irish historical novelists
- Irish women novelists
- Irish unionists
- Irish women poets
- Writers from County Kildare
- Women historical novelists
- Writers of historical fiction set in the early modern period