Emily Lawless: Difference between revisions

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|image name = Emily Lawless

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| birth_date = 17 June = {{Birth date|1845|6|17|df=yes}}

| birth_place = Lyons Demesne

| death_date = 19{{Death Octoberdate and age|1913|10|19|1845|6|17|df=yes}}

| death_place = = Gomshall, Surrey

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|credits occupation = Writer

|occupation party = Writer

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[[The Hon.]] '''Emily Lawless''' (17 June 1845{{spaced ndash}}19 October 1913) was an [[List of Irish novelists|Irish novelist]], historian, [[entomologist]], gardener, and poet from [[County Kildare]]. Her innovative approach to narrative and the psychological richness of her fiction have been identified as examples of early modernism.

She was born at [[Lyons Demesne|Lyons House]] below [[Lyons Hill]], [[Ardclough]], [[County Kildare]]. She spent part of her childhood with the [[Sir John Kirwan|Kirwans of]] [[Castle Hackett]], [[County Galway]], her mother's family, and drew on West of Ireland themes for many of her works. Her grandfather was [[Valentine Lawless, 2nd Baron Cloncurry|Valentine Lawless]], a member of the [[United Irishmen]] and son of a convert from Catholicism to the [[Church of Ireland]]. Her father was Edward Lawless, 3rd [[Baron Cloncurry]] (d. 18961869),<ref name= "eb1922" /> thus giving her the [[Courtesy titles in the United Kingdom|title]] of "The Honourable".<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.pgil-eirdata.org/html/pgil_datasets/authors/l/Lawless,E/life.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20020711114809/http://www.pgil-eirdata.org/html/pgil_datasets/authors/l/Lawless,E/life.htm|url-status=usurped|archive-date=11 July 2002|title=Emily Lawless|publisher=Princess Grace Irish Library|accessdate=7 September 2010}}</ref> 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 the [[Land League]] and "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 later [[Irish nationalism|nationalist]], [[Irish Home Rule movement|Home Rule]] politician [[Horace Plunkett]] was a cousin. Lord Castletown, [[Bernard FitzPatrick, 2nd Baron Castletown]] was also a cousin.

According to Betty Webb Brewer, writing in 1983 for the journal of the [[Irish American Cultural Institute]], ''Éire/Ireland'': "An unflagging [[Unionism in Ireland|unionist]], she recognised the rich literary potential in the native tradition and wrote novels with peasant heroes and heroines, Lawless depicted with equal sympathy the [[Anglo-Irish]] landholders." This is the prevalent view of Lawless, yet she unequivocally referred to her Irish "patriotism",<ref>Emily Lawless, 'Traits and Confidences', London: Methuen, 1898, p. 37.</ref>, 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 ishas believedbeen speculated that she may have been lesbian.<ref name="Raitt1995">{{cite book|author=Suzanne Raitt|title=Volcanoes and Pearl Divers: Essays in Lesbian Feminist Studies|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=A9pkAAAAMAAJ|year=1995|publisher=Onlywomen Press|isbn=978-0-906500-48-4|page=170}}</ref> andBeginning thatin 1911, she lived with Lady Sarah Spencer, dedicatee of ''A Garden Diary'' (1901), wasat hera life-partnerhouse named Hazelhatch in [[Gomshall]], Surrey.<ref>{{CitationCite book needed|dateurl=Septemberhttps://archive.org/details/newoldwithintrod00sichuoft/page/175/mode/1up 2010}}|title=New Sheand diedOld at|first=Edith |last=Sichel |publisher=[[GomshallConstable and Company]], |page=175 |date=1917 |access-date=2024-06-13 |via=Internet Archive}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qZ6W1LiIyYYC&pg=PA921 |title=The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing |volume=V |publisher=[[SurreyNew York University Press]] |isbn=9780814799079 |page=921 |date=2002 |access-date=2024-06-13 |via=Google Books}}</ref> Lawless died at Gomshall on 19 October 1913.<ref name= "eb1922" >{{Cite EB1922|wstitle=Lawless, Emily}}</ref>

She occasionally wrote under the pen name "Edith Lytton".<ref name="Kirwan2010">{{cite book|author=Jack Kirwan|title=Wheelhouse to Kirwan in Easy Stages: A Voyage Round My Family History (so Far)|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-MA-AwAAQBAJ&pg=PA117|year=2010|publisher=Lulu.com|isbn=978-1-4466-9743-6|page=117}}</ref>

Some archival material pertaining to Emily Lawless is held in [[Marsh's Library]], Dublin.

Her reputation was damaged by [[William Butler Yeats]] who 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 included ''With Essex in Ireland'' and ''Maelcho'' in his list of the best Irish novels.

Her seventh book, ''Grania'', about “a"a very queer girl leaping and dancing over the rocks of the sea”sea" examined the [[Misogyny|misogynismmisogyny]] of an [[Aran Islands|Aran Island]] fishing society.

:{{Poemquote|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}}

* {{Gutenberg author |id=Lawless,+Emily 4132| name=Emily Lawless}}

[[Category:PeopleWriters from County Kildare]]