Molly Keane
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Molly Keane (20 July 1904 – 22 April 1996),Who's Who 1987 Mary Nesta Skrine, and who also wrote as M. J. Farrell, was an Irish novelist and playwright.


Early life

Keane was born Mary Nesta Skrine in Ryston Cottage,
Newbridge, County Kildare Newbridge, officially known by its Irish language, Irish name Droichead Nua (), is a town in County Kildare, Ireland. While the nearby Great Connell Priory was founded in the 13th century, the town itself formed from the 18th century onwards, an ...
. Her father, Walter Clarmont Skrine (died 1930), was from a
Somerset Somerset ( , ), Archaism, archaically Somersetshire ( , , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel, Gloucestershire, and Bristol to the north, Wiltshire to the east ...
family and owned land in
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, and was a fanatic for horses and hunting; her mother, Agnes Shakespeare Higginson (1864–1955), a poet who wrote under the pseudonym Moira O'Neill, was daughter of Charles Henry Higginson (son of James Macaulay Higginson,
Governor of British Mauritius The governor of Mauritius was the official who governed the Crown Colony of Mauritius (now Republic of Mauritius) during the British colonial period between 1810 and 1968. Upon the end of British rule and the independence of Mauritius in 1968, ...
from 1851 to 1857), a colonial administrator in
Mauritius Mauritius, officially the Republic of Mauritius, is an island country in the Indian Ocean, about off the southeastern coast of East Africa, east of Madagascar. It includes the main island (also called Mauritius), as well as Rodrigues, Ag ...
. Keane grew up at Ballyrankin House beside the
River Slaney The River Slaney (; ) is a large river in the southeast of Ireland. It rises on Lugnaquilla Mountain in the western Wicklow Mountains and flows west and then south through counties Wicklow, Carlow and Wexford for 117.5 km (73 mi), ...
, a few miles south east of Bunclody,
County Wexford County Wexford () is a Counties of Ireland, county in Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster and is part of the Southern Region, Ireland, Southern Region. Named after the town of Wexford, it was ba ...
and refused to go to boarding school in England as her siblings had done. She was educated by her mother, governesses, and at a boarding school in
Bray Bray may refer to: Places France * Bray, Eure, in the Eure ''département'' * Bray, Saône-et-Loire, in the Saône-et-Loire ''département'' * Bray-Dunes, in the Nord ''département'' * Bray-en-Val, in the Loiret ''département'' * Bray-et-Lû ...
,
County Wicklow County Wicklow ( ; ) is a Counties of Ireland, county in Republic of Ireland, Ireland. The last of the traditional 32 counties, having been formed as late as 1606 in Ireland, 1606, it is part of the Eastern and Midland Region and the Provinces ...
. Relations between Keane and her parents were cold and she states that she had no fun in her life as a child. Her own passion for hunting and horses was born out of her need for fun and enjoyment. Reading did not feature much in her family, and, although her mother wrote poetry, it was of a sentimental nature, "suitable to a woman of her class". Keane claimed she had never set out to be a writer, but at seventeen she was bedbound due to suspected
tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB), also known colloquially as the "white death", or historically as consumption, is a contagious disease usually caused by ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can al ...
, and turned to writing out of sheer boredom. It was then she wrote her first book, ''The Knight of Cheerful Countenance'', which was published by
Mills & Boon Mills & Boon is a romance imprint of British publisher Harlequin UK Ltd. It was founded in 1908 by Gerald Rusgrove Mills and Charles Boon as a general publisher. The company moved towards escapist fiction for women in the 1930s. In 1971, the ...
. She wrote under the pseudonym "M. J. Farrell", a name over a pub that she had seen on her return from hunting. She explained writing anonymously because "for a woman to read a book, let alone write one was viewed with alarm: I would have been banned from every respectable house in Co. Carlow." In her teenage years, she spent much of her time in the Perry household in Woodruff,
County Tipperary County Tipperary () is a Counties of Ireland, county in Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Munster and the Southern Region, Ireland, Southern Region. The county is named after the town of Tipperary (tow ...
. Here she befriended the two children of the house, Sylvia and John Perry. She later collaborated with John in writing a number of plays. Among them was ''
Spring Meeting ''Spring Meeting'' is a 1941 British comedy film directed by Walter C. Mycroft and Norman Lee and starring Enid Stamp-Taylor, Michael Wilding, Basil Sydney and Sarah Churchill. It was based on a 1938 play of the same title by Molly Keane (a ...
'', directed by
John Gielgud Sir Arthur John Gielgud ( ; 14 April 1904 – 21 May 2000) was an English actor and theatre director whose career spanned eight decades. With Ralph Richardson and Laurence Olivier, he was one of the trinity of actors who dominated the Britis ...
in 1938, and one of the hits of the West End that year. She and Gielgud became lifelong friends.


Career

Keane loved
Jane Austen Jane Austen ( ; 16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) was an English novelist known primarily for #List of works, her six novels, which implicitly interpret, critique, and comment on the English landed gentry at the end of the 18th century ...
, and like Austen's, her ability lay in her talent for creating characters. This, with her wit and astute sense of what lay beneath the surface of people's actions, enabled her to depict the world of the big houses of Ireland in the 1920s and 1930s. She "captured her class in all its vicious snobbery and genteel racism". She used her married name for her later novels, several of which (including '' Good Behaviour'' and '' Time After Time'') have been adapted for television. Between 1928 and 1956, she wrote 11 novels, and some of her earlier plays, under the pseudonym "M. J. Farrell". She was a member of
Aosdána Aosdána ( , ; from , 'people of the arts') is an Irish association or academy of artists, each of whom must have produced a distinguished body of work of genuine originality. It was created in 1981 by the country's Arts Council on the initiati ...
. Her husband died suddenly in 1946, and, following the failure of a play, she published nothing for twenty years. In 1981 '' Good Behaviour'' came out under her own name; the manuscript, which had languished in a drawer for many years, was lent to a visitor, the actress
Peggy Ashcroft Dame Edith Margaret Emily "Peggy" Ashcroft (22 December 1907 – 14 June 1991) was an English actress whose career spanned more than 60 years. Born to a comfortable middle-class family, Ashcroft was determined from an early age to become ...
, who encouraged Keane to publish it. The novel was warmly received and was short-listed for the
Booker Prize The Booker Prize, formerly the Booker Prize for Fiction (1969–2001) and the Man Booker Prize (2002–2019), is a prestigious literary award conferred each year for the best single work of sustained fiction written in the English language, wh ...
.


Personal life and death

It was through the Perry family that Molly met Bobby Keane, whom she married in 1938. He belonged to a Waterford
landed gentry The landed gentry, or the gentry (sometimes collectively known as the squirearchy), is a largely historical Irish and British social class of landowners who could live entirely from rental income, or at least had a country estate. It is t ...
family, the Keane baronets. The couple went on to have two daughters, Sally and Virginia. After the death of her husband in 1946, Molly moved to
Ardmore, County Waterford Ardmore () is a seaside resort and fishing village in County Waterford, Ireland, not far from Youghal on the south coast of Ireland. The village is in a civil parish of the same name. As of the 2022 census, the village had a population of 468. ...
, a place she knew well, and lived there with her two daughters. She died on 22 April 1996 in her Cliffside home in Ardmore. She was 91. She is buried beside the
Church of Ireland The Church of Ireland (, ; , ) is a Christian church in Ireland, and an autonomy, autonomous province of the Anglican Communion. It is organised on an all-Ireland basis and is the Christianity in Ireland, second-largest Christian church on the ...
church, near the centre of the village.


Critical reception

Reviewers were generally appreciative of Keane's novels. Her mix of comic wit and poetic sensibility was called delightful. Some reviewers recoiled at the "indecent" subject of ''Devoted Ladies'', which was a lesbian relationship between Jessica and Jane. Homosexuality was also a topic in Good Behaviour. A reviewer in ''The New York Times'' book review in August 1991 stated that ''Good Behaviour'' may well become "a classic among English Novels". It connected her in a personal way with the famous London editor,
Diana Athill Diana Athill (21 December 1917 – 23 January 2019) was a British literary editor, novelist and memoirist who worked with some of the greatest writers of the 20th century at the London-based publishing company Andre Deutsch Ltd. Early life ...
, who identified strongly with Keane after reading it, insisted on editing it herself, later calling the book "mindblowingly clever." Although the real identity of M. J. Farrell had long since become known in Irish and English literary circles, it was not until ''Good Behaviour'' that Keane felt secure in publishing under her own name. After the publication of ''Good Behaviour'', her earlier works, including ''Conversation Piece'' and ''Rising Tide'', were re-issued.


Bibliography


As M. J. Farrell

;Novels * ''The Knight of Cheerful Countenance'' (1926) * ''Young Entry'' (1928) * ''Taking Chances'' (1929) * ''Mad Puppetstown'' (1931) * ''Conversation Piece'' (1932) * ''Devoted Ladies'' (1934) * ''Full House'' (1935) * ''The Rising Tide'' (1937) * ''Two Days in Aragon'' (1941) * ''Loving Without Tears'' (1951) * ''Treasure Hunt'' (1952) ;Plays * ''
Spring Meeting ''Spring Meeting'' is a 1941 British comedy film directed by Walter C. Mycroft and Norman Lee and starring Enid Stamp-Taylor, Michael Wilding, Basil Sydney and Sarah Churchill. It was based on a 1938 play of the same title by Molly Keane (a ...
'' (1938) — co-written with John Perry; filmed in 1941 * '' Ducks and Drakes'' (1941) * ''Treasure Hunt'' (1949) — co-written with John Perry; the later novel is based on the play; filmed in 1952 * ''Dazzling Prospect'' (1961)


As Molly Keane

;Novels * '' Good Behaviour'' (1981) * ''Time After Time'' (1983) * ''Loving and Giving'' (1988) — ''Queen Lear'' in the United States


References


Further reading

* * Sally Phipps: ''Molly Keane: a life'', London : Virago, 2017,


External links

* https://web.archive.org/web/20071011230325/http://www.virago.co.uk/author_results.asp?TAG=&CID=&PGE=&LANG=EN&ref=e2007030614553308&SF1=data&ST1=profile * http://www.mollykeane.com {{DEFAULTSORT:Keane, Molly 1904 births 1996 deaths Irish women novelists Writers from County Kildare Irish people of Canadian descent Irish women dramatists and playwrights Molly 20th-century Irish women writers 20th-century Irish novelists 20th-century Irish dramatists and playwrights People from Newbridge, County Kildare