Amabel Williams-Ellis (

née A birth name is the name of a person given upon birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name, or the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a birth certificate or birth re ...

Mary Annabel Nassau Strachey; 10 May 1894 – 27 August 1984) was an English writer, critic, and early member of the

Bloomsbury Group The Bloomsbury Group—or Bloomsbury Set—was a group of associated English writers, intellectuals, philosophers and artists in the first half of the 20th century, including Virginia Woolf, John Maynard Keynes, E. M. Forster and Lytton St ...

. As well as her own writings, Williams-Ellis was a prolific editor, translator, and

anthologist In book publishing, an anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler; it may be a collection of plays, poems, short stories, songs or excerpts by different authors. In genre fiction, the term ''anthology'' typically catego ...

, compiling collections of fairy stories, folk tales, and science fiction.

Life

Annabel Nassau Strachey was born at

Newlands Corner Newlands Corner is a nature reserve east of Guildford in Surrey, England. It is owned by the Albury Estate and managed by the Surrey Wildlife Trust under an access agreement between the estate and Surrey County Council. Features The site reac ...

, near

Guildford Guildford () is a town in west Surrey, around southwest of central London. As of the 2011 census, the town has a population of about 77,000 and is the seat of the wider Borough of Guildford, which had around inhabitants in . The name "Guildf ...

Surrey Surrey () is a ceremonial county, ceremonial and non-metropolitan county, non-metropolitan counties of England, county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant ur ...

, to journalist and newspaper proprietor John Strachey and Amy (née Simpson). Her cousin was

Lytton Strachey Giles Lytton Strachey (; 1 March 1880 – 21 January 1932) was an English writer and critic. A founding member of the Bloomsbury Group and author of '' Eminent Victorians'', he established a new form of biography in which psychological insight ...

, and her childhood described as 'glittering and comfortable'. During

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

, Amabel served as a Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse, which partly inspired an increasing interest in science and anatomy. This led in turn to her scientific writings for children, particularly on notable discoveries and responses to the typical inquiries of children. On 31 July 1915, Amabel married

Clough Williams-Ellis Sir Bertram Clough Williams-Ellis, CBE, MC (28 May 1883 – 9 April 1978) was a Welsh architect known chiefly as the creator of the Italianate village of Portmeirion in North Wales. He became a major figure in the development of Welsh architec ...

, an architect, with whom she collaborated on a history of the Tank Corps. The couple also worked together on ''The Pleasures of Architecture'' (1924), and other works. They had three children: a son and two daughters. Their daughter, Susan Caroline Williams-Ellis (1918–2007) was a successful ceramics designer and manufacturer. Their son was killed during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

. Between 1922-23, she was literary editor of

The Spectator ''The Spectator'' is a weekly British magazine on politics, culture, and current affairs. It was first published in July 1828, making it the oldest surviving weekly magazine in the world. It is owned by Frederick Barclay, who also owns ''Th ...

. Attracted to socialism, Amabel Williams-Ellis described herself as a 'class traitor'.

Works

Over the course of her life, Amabel Williams-Ellis wrote more than 40 books. These included novels, books for children, and histories. She wrote regularly for periodicals, and edited multiple volumes of folk legends, fairy tales, and science fiction. She was significantly inspired by the writer and explorer

Mary Kingsley Mary Henrietta Kingsley (13 October 1862 – 3 June 1900) was an English ethnographer, scientific writer, and explorer whose travels throughout West Africa and resulting work helped shape European perceptions of both African cultures and ...

, who she had met in childhood, and who she described as 'an anthropologist before anthropology'. ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' ( ...

'' described Amabel Williams-Ellis as someone who 'wrote books to find things out, and seemed prepared to take on anything.'

Death

Amabel Williams-Ellis died on 27 August 1984, at the age of 90. Shortly before her death, she published a memoir: All Stracheys Are Cousins. This showed, wrote ''The Times,'' that she was:

an undiminished optimist who had lived a busy and a happy life, and enjoyed her second living of it on the page.

Publications

* ''The Tank Corps'' (1919) with Clough Williams-Ellis * ''An anatomy of poetry'' (1922) * ''The pleasures of architecture'' (1924) with Clough Williams-Ellis * ''Men who found out: stories of great scientific discoverers'' (1929) * ''The exquisite tragedy; an intimate life of John Ruskin'' (1929) * ''The voyage of the Beagle; adapted from the narratives and letters of Charles Darwin and Capt. Fitz Roy'' (1931) * ''The art of being a woman'' (1951) * ''Fairy tales from the British Isles'' (1960) * ''Darwin's moon: a biography of Alfred Russel Wallace'' (1966) * ''Old World & New World fairy tales'' (1966)

References

External links

Works by Amabel Williams-Ellis
at

WorldCat WorldCat is a union catalog that itemizes the collections of tens of thousands of institutions (mostly libraries), in many countries, that are current or past members of the OCLC global cooperative. It is operated by OCLC, Inc. Many of the O ...

Works by Amabel Williams-Ellis
at

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Williams-Ellis, Amabel 1894 births 1984 deaths Strachey family English women writers Anthologists Bloomsbury Group World War I nurses 20th-century English women