Life
1879-1911; b. Wood’s Gift, Cork, dg. Dr. Paul Madden, friend of Parnell;
ed. privately; m. Ernest Temple Thurston, 1901, sep. 1907, and div., 1910;
success with John Chilcote (1904), second novel; her popular novels
include The Gambler, and The Fly on the Wheel, all dramatised;
due to remarry when she was found dead in her room at Moore’s Hotel,
Cork; verdict asphyxia as result of epileptic fit [Brown, implies suicide]
5 Sept.. DIW DIB IF ATT OCIL
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Works
Novels, The Circle (Edin: Blackwood 1903), John Chilcote
(Edin: Blackwood 1904); The Gambler (London: Hutchinson 1906);
The Mystics (Edin: Blackwood 1907); The Fly on the Wheel
(London: Hutchinson 1908; rep. Virago 1987); Max (London: Hutchinson
1910). Note, an extract from ‘The Fly on the Wheel’ appears
in Colm Toibín, ed., The Penguin Book of Irish Fiction (1999).
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NotesIreland in Fiction, ed. Stephen Brown (Dublin: Maunsel 1919), lists John Chilcote, MP (London: Hutchinson 1906; NY: Harper; new eds., 1917), of which 200,000 copies were sold in USA; also The Gambler (London: Hutchinson 1906; NY: Harper, new ed. 1917) [psychological study of Irish woman’s character, Protestant upper middle class society; Ireland, Venice, and London; smart set, empty life; two ill-assorted marriages; shows foolish pride of some Irish gentry]; The Fly on the Wheel (Blackwood 1908), 327pp. [Middle class Catholic Waterford; self-willed girl in revolt; falls in love with middle-aged Stephen Carey; restraint, though passionate scenes; complications ended by intervention of priest, sympathetically drawn; ends in suicide of girl; Brown adds, ‘The manner of the author’s own death gives this a poignant interest].’
Unveiling Treasures, ed., Ann Owens Weekes (Dublin: Attic Press 1993), m. English novelist and playwright, 1901; John Chilcote MP (1904), political thriller, sensational incidents, dramatised by her husband, and twice filmed; sense of humour and colourful life-style; The Fly on the Wheel (1908) and Max [1910] more original; compares her Waterford fiction world of newly arisen Catholic middle classes to Kate O’Brien’s, ‘guards itself against intrusion of questions, ideas or characters; although Waterford matrons welcome Isabella Costello, beautiful, penniless, but educated (in Fly), she will not be accepted as wife to their sons; engaged to young Frank Carey, whom she met in Paris; his brother Stephen intervenes; Stephen, the ‘father’ of his brothers, all sons of a builder, ruthlessly refuses to pay Frank’s fees unless she writes and breaks the engagement; ‘if a woman likes to make a poor marriage she does it with her eyes open and she finds compensations; it’s the man who does it blindly, and its the man who sinks under it’; but Stephen falls in love with Isabel; refuses to leave Waterford because it would blight his sons future; bitterly humorous analysis of Irish Catholic middle-class society of time; rep. Virago, 1987, ed. Janet Madden-Simpson, with afterword; lists The Circle (Edinburgh: Blackwood 1903), John Chilcote (Edinburgh: Blackwood 1904); The Gambler (Edinburgh: Hutchinson 1906); The Mystics (London: Blackwood 1907); The Fly on the Wheel (1908; rep. Virago 1987); Max (London: Hutchinson 1910), all novels.
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)