Edith Ellis
| Edith Ellis | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born | Edith Mary Oldham Ellis 1861 Manchester, England |
| Died | September 1916 Paddington, London, England |
| Spouse | Havelock Ellis |
Edith Mary Oldham Ellis (née Lees; 1861, Manchester – 1916, Paddington, London) was an English writer and women's rights activist. She was married to the early sexologist Havelock Ellis.
Biography[edit]
Her mother died when she was young and she was sent to a Manchester convent in 1873. She joined the Fellowship of the New Life and met Havelock Ellis in 1887 at a meeting.[1] The couple married in November 1891.
From the beginning, their marriage was unconventional; she was openly lesbian and at the end of the honeymoon he went back to his bachelor rooms. She had several affairs with women, which her husband was aware of.[2] Their open marriage was the central subject in Havelock Ellis's autobiography, My Life (1939).
Her first novel, Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll, was published in 1898.[3] During this period Edith began a relationship with Lily, an artist from Ireland who lived in St. Ives. Edith was devastated when Lily died from Bright's Disease in June 1903.[4]
Ellis had a nervous breakdown in March 1916 and died of diabetes that September. James Hinton: a Sketch, her biography of surgeon James Hinton was published posthumously in 1918.[5]
Works[edit]
- Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll (1898)
- My Cornish Neighbours (1906)
- Kit's Woman (U.S. title: Steve's Woman) (1907)
- The Subjection of Kezia (1908)
- Attainment (1909)
- Three Modern Seers (1910)
- The Imperishable Wing (1911)
- The Lover's Calendar: An Anthology (ed) (1912)
- Love-Acre (1914)
- Love in Danger (1915)
- James Hinton: A Sketch (1918)
- The New Horizon in Love and Life (1921)
References[edit]
- ^ Doan, Laura; Garrity, Jane (2006). Sapphic Modernities: Sexuality, Women, and National Culture. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. p. 184. ISBN 1-4039-6498-X.
- ^ Pettis, Ruth. "Ellis, Havelock". Glbtq.com. Retrieved 2008-06-11.
- ^ "Women in the Literary Marketplace". Rmc.library.cornell.edu. Retrieved 2015-09-19.
- ^ "Havelock Ellis". Retrieved 2014. Check date values in:
|access-date=(help) - ^ "James Hinton; a sketch". Archive.org. Retrieved 2015-09-19.
Further reading[edit]
- Grosskurth, Phyllis (1980). Havelock Ellis: A Biography. New York: Random House.
External links[edit]
- "Edith Ellis". Find a Grave. Retrieved 17 February 2011.
