Mary Stella Edwards’ School Days: tedium before fun

Mary Stella Edwards’ School Days: tedium before fun

What can Mary Stella Edwards’ early childhood and school days tell us about her hyphenated career as poet, artist, and commercial artist? Mary Stella on holiday in Swanage, 1904: “Here a man gave me a sunshade, and I was photographed on the terrace carrying it.”...
Finding Judith Ackland in the archive

Finding Judith Ackland in the archive

Judith Ackland remains a rather shadowy figure in the archive. She wrote just one journal (to Mary Stella’s 20+) and she seems to have left much of the business correspondence of their professional lives to Edwards. However, the relationship between Judith and Mary...
Writing poetry in the “true” way

Writing poetry in the “true” way

The photo above of Mary Stella Edwards is my favourite one of her in the archive. It’s a miss-shot really. Perhaps there was a light leak in the camera. But it shows – perhaps better than words can describe – how Mary Stella Edwards wrote poetry. Queen of enjambment...
Lament for Murdered Trees

Lament for Murdered Trees

… and a Curse on Evil Men! One of the many reasons I love Mary Stella Edwards’ poetry is that she writes about the more-than-human world in such an unusual way for her time. Even the wooden furniture in her bedroom prickles with agency. In her 1920 poem ‘The...
Letters from Gilbert Murray

Letters from Gilbert Murray

Archive research tends to be non-chronological. For example, I spent my early months in the archive reading Mary Stella Edwards’ letters from the 1970s and 80s. One name (apart from Judith’s) kept appearing in these letters… Gilbert Murray. Mary Stella mentioned...