Grace Rhys (1865 - 1929)

RA Collection: People and Organisations

Novelist, essayist and poet. Her first novel, Mary Dominic, was published in 1898. Several of her stories have an Irish setting, including The Charming of Estercel (1904) set in Elizabethan Ireland, which was illustrated by Howard Pyle in Harper’s Magazine. In 1891 Rhys married Ernest Percival Rhys (1859–1946), whom she first met at a garden party given by the poet W.B. Yeats.

Her other work includes The Wooing of Sheila (1901),The Bride (1909), and Five Beads on a String (1907), a book of essays. She also wrote poetry and books for children.