Edith Ellis

Edith Ellis
Ellis in 1914
Born Edith Mary Oldham Lees
1861
Manchester, Lancashire, England
Died 14 September 1916 (aged 55)[1]
Paddington, London, England
Spouse
Havelock Ellis (m. 1891)

Edith Mary Oldham Ellis (née Lees; 1861 – 14 September 1916) was an English writer and women's rights activist. She was married to the early sexologist Havelock Ellis.

Biography

Edith Lees & Havelock Ellis

Born in Manchester in 1861, Ellis' mother died when she was young and she was sent to a convent in 1873. She joined the Fellowship of the New Life and met Havelock Ellis in 1887 at a meeting.[2] 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.[3] Their open marriage was the central subject in Havelock Ellis's autobiography, My Life (1939).

Lily, 1902

Her first novel, Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll, was published in 1898.[4] 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.[5]

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.[6]

Works

  • 'Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. London: University Press. 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. Stanley Paul. 1918.
  • The New Horizon in Love and Life (1921)

References

  1. ↑ "Edith Ellis". Find a Grave. Retrieved 17 February 2011.
  2. ↑ Doan, Laura; Garrity, Jane (2006). Sapphic Modernities: Sexuality, Women, and National Culture. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. p. 184. ISBN 9781403984425.
  3. ↑ Pettis, Ruth. "Ellis, Havelock". glbtq.com. Archived from the original on 2014-03-27. Retrieved 2008-06-11.
  4. ↑ Ellis 1898.
  5. ↑ Simkin, John (n.d.). "Havelock Ellis". Spartacus Educational. Retrieved 2018-07-24.
  6. ↑ Ellis 1918.

Further reading

  • Grosskurth, Phyllis (1980). Havelock Ellis: a biography. New York: Knopf. ISBN 978-0-394-50150-5.
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