Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Martin Ross
-
Standard Name: Ross, Martin
Birth Name: Violet Florence Martin
Pseudonym: Martin Ross
Pseudonym: Somerville and 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 view has also been argued). Their most memorable works—an 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—were completed before her death, and Somerville's publications after Ross died are permeated with an elegiac tone. They themselves poured scorn on their public's desire to teize apart the individual strands in their collaboration.
Stone, Marjorie, and Judith Thompson. Literary couplings: writing couples, collaborators, and the construction of authorship. University of Wisconsin Press, 2006.
ES
and Martin Ross
campaigned for women's suffrage in Ireland, but they did not support the militancy and the anti-Home-Rule stance of English suffragists.
Publishing
Edith Somerville
ES
published in the USA, in two separate editions, The States through Irish Eyes, with her own name, followed by Joint-Author with Martin Ross
qtd. in
Cummins, Geraldine. Dr. E. Œ. Somerville: A Biography. Andrew Dakers, 1952.
264
of a list of earlier works.
Cummins, Geraldine. Dr. E. Œ. Somerville: A Biography. Andrew Dakers, 1952.
264-5
Publishing
Edith Somerville
ES
published, as by herself and Martin Ross
(who was now more than ten years dead), and with her own illustrations, The Sweet Cry of Hounds, another volume of essays or reminiscences.
ES
published, as another collaboration with Martin Ross
, with her own illustrations, Notions in Garrison.
The title, a quotation from the seventeenth-century writer Thomas Fuller
, depends on a military metaphor: from these...
Publishing
Edith Somerville
ES
published another book without the collaboration of Martin Ross
: The Story of the Discontented Little Elephant. Told in Pictures and Rhyme, for children.
Cummins, Geraldine. Dr. E. Œ. Somerville: A Biography. Andrew Dakers, 1952.
258
Reception
Edith Somerville
ES
's nephew Nevill Coghill
broadcast a talk about her for the BBC
: she thought it beautifully done but wished he had said more about Martin Ross
.
Collis, Maurice. Somerville and Ross: A Biography. Faber and Faber, 1968.
274-6
Reception
Edith Somerville
She made it a condition of her acceptance that Ross
's name be added to hers in the citation. She had been offered such a degree by Yale
in 1929, but conditionally on her staying...
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...
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...
Residence
Edith Somerville
ES
and Martin Ross
(Violet Martin) set up an apartment together on the Boulevard Edgar Quinet in Paris.
Cronin, John. Somerville and Ross. Bucknell University Press, 1972.
52
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 Features
Edith Somerville
The first chapter is Martin Ross
's incomplete memoir of her brother James.
Collis, Maurice. Somerville and Ross: A Biography. Faber and Faber, 1968.
146
ES
writes about her youth, her parents, and other family members, but mostly about Martin.
Collis, Maurice. Somerville and Ross: A Biography. Faber and Faber, 1968.
183
Textual Production
Edith Somerville
In Irish Memories, the first book she published after Martin Ross
's death, ES
used both names on the title-page, and related much of her collaboration with Ross.
Collis, Maurice. Somerville and Ross: A Biography. Faber and Faber, 1968.
52
Cummins, Geraldine. Dr. E. Œ. Somerville: A Biography. Andrew Dakers, 1952.
259-60
Textual Production
Edith Somerville
In the year of ES
's death there appeared, as a final collaboration with Martin Ross
and with her own illustrations, Maria, and Some Other Dogs.
