Life
[?-?]; [née Hawes]; b. London of Suffolk family; married an Irishman
and settled in Ireland in 1920’s; The Willing Heart (1958),
based on 17th-century family papers; also Daughter of Aragon (1965), The Queen’s Affair (1968), and other novels; a believer the spirit-world, she communicated with absent friends; member of women-writers' club; close associate with Sybil le Brocquy and others, in Dublin; a dg., Sylvia, married an American and settled in Pennsylvania. DIW
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Works
The Willing Heart (London: Hodder & Stoughton 1958), 314pp.
[wrapper design by Meredith Hawes]; Daughter of Aragon (London:
Robert Hale 1965), 192pp. [jacket by Biro]; The Queen’s Affair (London: Robert Hale 1968), 221pp. [jacket by Biro].
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Quotations
‘I was born in London of a Suffolk family whose long history was, by a
happy chance, made available to their descendants, and this has provided
a stimulus to my love of writing and history and a subject for my first
book The Willing Heart. / Fond of animals and outdoor life when
possible, I equally enjoy reading, music and painting, love people and
conversation and the casual encounter in travel. A visit to New Mexico
last year with its delightful Indian contacts both simple and cultured,
opened a new world to me and gave me some of the material for my present
novel The Queen’s Affair. / Ireland has been my home since
my marriage and we have a married daughter in Pennsylvania whom we sometimes
visit and a son married in Dublin. I am deeply involved with my family
and consider myself to have been lucky in both the joys and trials with
which they have provided me. I believe that I have been fortunate also
in the quality and loyalty of my friends, who have made life so far full
of interest and variety and through their diversity and goegraphical distribution
have unconsciously apprenticed me to the art of writing, though correspondence;
I am am inveterate letter writer.’ [Dustjacket of The Queen’s Affair.]
Daughter of Aragon (1965): ‘‘Maria stood dumb for a second, time enough for Mary’s pent-up []114] feelings to expode. raising her small clenched hand, she brought it down heavily on the jewel casket beside her, so that it fell with a clatter, scattering its contents on the floor, bare and polished after the continental fashion. Her grey eyes blazed. / “Get out … slut!” she managed to articulate. / Maria turned without curtseying and hurried out, to the sound of wild weeping from the bed.’ (pp.114-15.)
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