A PATRICK'S DAY HUNT

Westminster England: Archibald Constable & Co., Ltd, 1902. Hardcover. Very Good Plus. Undated publication. Wide Quarto, 10.3 in. x 14 in., pp. 47. Illustrated with eight color plates and numerous ink drawings. Rebound in three quarter calf with decorative rule in blind over designer brown, green and white paper boards. Gilt tile to black and burgundy panels, gilt bandlines and fleurons, and five raised bands to spine. Card-stock pages. Age-toning to pages. A sturdy, handsome copy! Edith Anna Œnone Somerville (1858 - 1949) was an Irish novelist who habitually signed herself as "E. Œ. Somerville". The eldest of eight children, Somerville grew up in Drishane, Castletownshend, County Cork, She is said to have dominated her sister and brothers in a family where women were encouraged to be bold. She received her primary education at home, and then attended Alexandra College in Dublin. In 1884, she went to Paris for the first of several trips to study art at the Académie Colarossi and Académie Delécluse, and then spent a term at the Westminster School of Art in Dean's Yard, Westminster. At home, riding and painting were her absorbing interests.

In January 1886, she met her cousin Violet Martin (aka Martin Ross, 1862-1915), and their literary partnership began the following year. In 1898 Edith Somerville went to paint at the Etaples art colony, accompanied by Violet. There they profited from their stay by conceiving together the stories later gathered in Some Experiences of an Irish R. M., completed the following year. By the time Violet died in 1915, they had published fourteen books together.

Her cousin's death stunned Edith, who continued to write as "Somerville and Ross", claiming that they kept in contact through spiritualist séances.