Life
?1870-1953 [or 1871]; b. Cloona[gh], nr. Dunmurry, Co. Antrim; ed. Margaret
Byers’ Ladies Collegiate College, Belfast, in Caen, Normandy; also
in Belfast, and London; Dublin journalist, 1891-99; record-breaking woman
cyclist; sub-edit. Irish Cyclist; ed. Social Review; 1895-99;
moved to London in her 20s to work as journalist; sub-ed. sports paper;
wrote press coverage for shipping companies in exchange for passage to
exotic places; Tahiti, 1906; ran coffee plantation in Papua, New Guinea,
and commissioned by Australian Govt. to publicise development of the country;
first white woman up Sepik and Fly rivers; thirty novels and numerous
travel books; contrib. Wide World Magazine and National Geographical;
wrote travelogues and novels based on her South Seas experiences.
DIB DIW ATT DUB OCIL.
[ top ]
Works
Brokenaway [sic] (Lon&NY: John Lane 1897); Little Red Speck
& Other South Sea Stories (London: Hurst & Blackett 1921;
2nd end. [1925], 286pp.; My South Sea Sweetheart (NY: Macmillan
1921; Hurst & Blackett [1927]), 128pp.; Conn of the Coral Seas
(NY: Macmillan 1922; London: Hurst & Blackett [1927]), 128pp.; Black
Sheep’s Gold (NY: Holt 1927); BML lists, Eyes in the Corners
and Other Stories (London: Hurst & Blackett [1927], 207pp.; The
Island Queen [presum. abridged from Vaiti of the Islands, below]
([London:] Todd Publ./Bantam Books 1943), 16pp.; another ed. (Vallancey
Press [1944], 8pp.; Isles of Adventure, Experiences in Papua &
Neighbouring Islands (London: Herbert Jenkins 1930), 307pp., plates;
Kris-Girl (Mills & Boon 1917, 1923), v, 310pp.; The Long
Beach and Other South Sea Stories (London: Hurst & Blackett [1922]);
another ed., (London: Cassell 1933); Lost Child (London: Herbert
Jenkins 1940), 231pp.; My Lady Far-Away (Lon;Cassell 1929; 1931),
318pp.; Mystery of the Tumbling Reef (London: Cassell 1932), 319pp.;
Guinea [... &c.] (Hutchinson 1910), viii, 322pp., with
45 ills. and map; Nobody’s Island [abridged; 7d. novel] (London:
Newnes [1920]), 128pp.; The Paradise Poachers (London: Hurst &
Blackett [1928]), 287pp.; Pieces of Gold and Other Stories (London:
Cassell 1935), 336pp.; Queen Vaiti [7d. Novels] (London: Newnes
[1921], [1925]); Red Bobs of the Bismarcks (London: Hurst &
Blackett 1915); Rita Regina (London: Herbert Jenkins 1939); The
Sands of Oro, a Novel (London: Hurst & Blackett 1924); The
Sorcerer’s Stone (London: Hodder & Stoughton [1914]); The
Star in the Dust (London: Cassell 1930); The Terrible Island (London:
Hurst & Blackett 1920), 288pp.; Vaiti of the Islands (London:
Eveleigh Nash 1907), 303pp.; new edition (London: Newnes [1920]); Never
Come Back and Other Stories (London: Hurst & Blackett [1923]);
Victorian Family Robinson, A Novel (London: Cassell 1934), (vi),
315pp.; When the Red Gods Call [abridged; ‘7d. Novels’;
1st ed. Mills & Boon, 1910, as above] (London: George Newnes [1916],
[1921]) END. ALSO COMMONLY NOTICED [NOT IN BML], In the Strange South
Seas (1907); When the Red Gods Call (1910); Guinea Gold
(1912); The Beach of Terror (1931); South Sea Sarah (1940);
White Savage [?]Sands (London: Newnes [1924], [1929]), 123pp.;
The Wreck of the Redwing (London: Hurst & Blackett [1927]),
287pp.; another ed. ([London: ]C. A. Pearson 1929), 254pp; another ed.,
([London: ]R Hale [1936]), 251pp. NOTE, ALL ABRIDGED EDS. PRESUMABLY SECOND
EDS., OR LATER.
[ top ]
Notes
Brian Cleeve & Ann Brady, A Dictionary of Irish Writers (Dublin:
Lilliput 1985) calls her the ‘first white woman to penetrate Borneo’
[cf. ATT, ‘white woman’ also]; but DUB reports that there is
a misleading claim to this effect, based on Who’s Who entry,
where she said she had often met natives who had never seen a white person
– that is easy in Papua’. SEE also Richard Ryan, Biographia
Hibernica: Irish Worthies (1821), Vol. II, p.288, ‘Nicholas Grimshaw’.
[NOTE vars. ?1880 DIW; 1880 DIB; 1871 ATT; 1870 DUB.]
Stephen Brown, Ireland in Fiction (Dublin: Maunsel 1919), lists When the Red Gods Call (Mills & Boon 1910) [in which the hero is Hugh Lynch, a Clareman]; Guinea Gold (Mills & Boon 1912) [with character Geo. Scott, A Belfastman],, both set in Guinea; IF lists as first novel Broken Away [sic] (Lane 1897) [set in Dublin and Belfast, in which a written-out novelist Alfred Moore attempts to murder and steal the manuscript of Stuart Rivington; Dublin literary milieu]. ATT [BIOG as above; BIBL as below], COMM, A. A. Kelly, paper presented to IASAIL, at TCD July 1992 [see Conference papers, ed. T. Brown. ]
Bernard Share, ed. Far Green Fields, 1500 Years of Irish Travel Writing (Belfast: Blackstaff 1992), excerpts from From Fiji to the Cannibal Islands (Nelson 1917) [err. for 2nd ed.]; Katie Donovan, A Norman Jeffares, and Brendan Kennelly, eds., Ireland’s Women, Writings Past and Present (G&M 1994), selects From Fiji to the Cannibal Islands [pp.301-04]. SEE also account of her in A. A. Kelly, ed., Wandering Women: Two Centuries of Travel out of Ireland (Dublin: Wolfhound 1995).
[ top ]
Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)