Edith Escombe (1866–1950) was an English writer of stories and essays born in

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

. Several of her works concern marriage and the demands it makes on women. Two of her novellas were republished in 2010 and 2011 by the

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British ...

Family

Edith Escombe was third in a family of six girls and two boys born to William Escombe (died 1882), a Manchester shipping and insurance agent, and his wife Eliza, ''née'' Fergusson. She later lived at Bishopstoke, near

Eastleigh Eastleigh is a town in Hampshire, England, between Southampton and Winchester. It is the largest town and the administrative seat of the Borough of Eastleigh, with a population of 24,011 at the 2011 census. The town lies on the River Itchen, ...

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English cities on its south coast, Southampton and Portsmouth, Hampshire ...

with her mother, who died in 1930, and her sisters. The family firm provided them with a comfortable living.Virginia Blain, Patricia Clements and Isobel Grundy: '' The Feminist Companion to Literature in English. Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present Day'' (London: Batsford, 1990), p. 345. The firm was later the subject of a short history: ''Full and Down: The History of Escombe, McGrath & Company Limited'' (1953) by William Malcolm Lingard Escombe.

Works

Escombe's first book, ''Bits I Remember'', published under the pseudonym "A Grown-Up" (1892), gives an entertaining account of her childhood and her education by governesses and in boarding school. Also humorous and subtle are some later novellas about women and marriage. ''A Tale that is Told'' (1893, republished by the British Library in 2010) and ''Stucco and Speculation'' (1894, likewise republished by the British Library in 2011) both involve experimental marriages. Two other novellas, ''Love's Ghost'' and ''Le Glaive'', appeared in one volume in 1903. Escombe's volume of essays, ''Old Maids' Children'' (1906), explores child-rearing from the viewpoint of an aunt. ''Phases of Marriage'' (1907) is expressly critical of marriage as an institution and what it can do to women who are insufficiently educated and independent for the role. Edith Escombe contributed regularly between 1902 and 1907 to ''The Parents' Review. A Monthly Magazine of Home-Training and Culture'', covering aspects of child care and education such as "over-education", "natural growth" and "Christmas without children".Ambleside Onlin
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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Drury, Anna Harriett 1866 births 1950 deaths 19th-century English writers 20th-century English novelists English women novelists Writers from Manchester People from Bishopstoke 20th-century English women writers 19th-century women writers 19th-century English women