Edith Mary Oldham Ellis (née Lees; 9 March 1861 – 14 September 1916) was an English writer and women's rights activist. She was married to the early sexologist Havelock Ellis.
Edith Ellis | |
|---|---|
 Ellis in 1914 | |
| Born | Edith Mary Oldham Lees 9 March 1861 Newton, Lancashire, England |
| Died | 14 September 1916 (aged 55) Paddington, London, England |
| Spouse | |
Biography
editEllis was born on 9 March 1861 in Newton, Lancashire. She was the only child of Samuel Oldham Lees, a landowner, and his wife Mary Laetitia, née Bancroft. She was born prematurely after her mother sustained a head injury during pregnancy and she died when Ellis was an infant. In December 1868, her father married Margaret Ann (Minnie) Faulkner and in time she had a younger half-brother.[1] She did not get on well with her father or his new wife. She was educated at a convent school in 1873 until her father realised that she was taking a strong interest in the Catholic faith. She was removed from the school and sent to another.[1]
She joined the Fellowship of the New Life and she briefly worked with Ramsay MacDonald when they both served as secretaries to the Fellowship.[1] She met Havelock Ellis at a meeting in 1887.[2] The couple married in November 1891.
From the beginning, their marriage was unconventional; she was openly lesbian[citation needed] and at the end of the honeymoon Ellis 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).
Her first novel, Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll, was published in 1898.[4] Around this time Edith began a relationship with Lily Kirkpatrick,[5] an Irish artist based in St Ives; Kirkpatrick died in June 1903.[6]
Ellis had a nervous breakdown in March 1916 and died of diabetes that September. She was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium. James Hinton: a Sketch, her biography of surgeon James Hinton, was published posthumously in 1918.[7]
Works
edit- 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)
- The Mothers (1915)
- James Hinton: A Sketch. Stanley Paul. 1918.
- The New Horizon in Love and Life (1921)
References
edit- ^ a b c Jenkins, Lyndsey (2020). "Ellis [née Lees], Edith Mary Oldham (1861–1916), writer, lecturer, and socialist". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. doi:10.1093/odnb/9780198614128.013.90000369546. ISBN 978-0-19-861412-8. Retrieved 24 June 2021.
- ^ Doan, Laura; Garrity, Jane (2006). Sapphic Modernities: Sexuality, Women, and National Culture. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. p. 184. ISBN 9781403984425.
- ^ Pettis, Ruth. "Ellis, Havelock". glbtq.com. Archived from the original on 27 March 2014. Retrieved 11 June 2008.
- ^ Ellis 1898.
- ^ Wallace, Jo-Ann (2006). "Edith Ellis, Sapphic Idealism, and The Lover's Calendar (1912)". In Garrity, Jane; Doan, Laura (eds.). Sapphic Modernities: Sexuality, Women and National Culture. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 186. ISBN 9781403984425.
- ^ Simkin, John (n.d.). "Havelock Ellis". Spartacus Educational. Retrieved 24 July 2018.
- ^ Ellis 1918.
Further reading
edit- Grosskurth, Phyllis (1980). Havelock Ellis: a biography. New York: Knopf. ISBN 978-0-394-50150-5.
- Wallace, Jo-Ann (2000). "The Case of Edith Ellis". In Stevens, Hugh; Howlett, Caroline (eds.). Modernist Sexualities. Manchester University Press. ISBN 978-0-7190-5161-6.