Mary Frances Harriet Dowdall (née Borthwick, 11 February 1876 – 1939) was an English writer of fiction and non-fiction born in London. Her four novels have been called "astutely critical" on the subject of marriage.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. 306.

Background

Mary Frances was the youngest of the five children of Cunninghame Borthwick, 19th

Lord Borthwick Lord Borthwick is a title in the Peerage of Scotland. Alexander Nisbet relates that "the first of this ancient and noble family came from Hungary to Scotland, in the retinue of Queen Margaret, in the reign of Malcolm Canmore, ''anno Domini'' 105 ...

(1813–1885) and his wife Harriet Alice (née Day, from

Rochester, Kent Rochester ( ) is a town in the unitary authority of Medway, in Kent, England. It is at the lowest bridging point of the River Medway, about from London. The town forms a conurbation with neighbouring towns Chatham, Rainham, Strood and Gillin ...

, died 1917). She was privately educated. The family lived in

Mayfair Mayfair is an affluent area in the West End of London towards the eastern edge of Hyde Park, in the City of Westminster, between Oxford Street, Regent Street, Piccadilly and Park Lane. It is one of the most expensive districts in the world. ...

as her father worked as a stockbroker, but since 1870 they had also owned property in Scotland: Ravenstone Castle at

Glasserton Glasserton is a civil parish in Dumfries and Galloway, south-west Scotland. It is on the Machars peninsula, in the traditional county of Wigtownshire. The parish is about in length, varying in breadth from , and contains . The Parish It is thou ...

Wigtownshire Wigtownshire or the County of Wigtown (, ) is one of the historic counties of Scotland, covering an area in the south-west of the country. Until 1975, Wigtownshire was an administrative county used for local government. Since 1975 the area has f ...

, now

Dumfries and Galloway Dumfries and Galloway ( sco, Dumfries an Gallowa; gd, Dùn Phrìs is Gall-Ghaidhealaibh) is one of 32 unitary council areas of Scotland and is located in the western Southern Uplands. It covers the counties of Scotland, historic counties of ...

. In 1897 Mary Frances married Judge Harold Chaloner Dowdall, KC (1868–1955). They had four children. Judge Harold Dowdall was the subject of a 1909 painting by

Augustus John Augustus Edwin John (4 January 1878 – 31 October 1961) was a Welsh painter, draughtsman, and etcher. For a time he was considered the most important artist at work in Britain: Virginia Woolf remarked that by 1908 the era of John Singer Sarg ...

made at the end of his term as Lord Mayor of

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...

. One account of the painting contains incidental information on the work and on the Dowdalls. Mary Frances Dowdall herself had her portrait painted in oils by the British lithographer and painter Charles Hazelwood Shannon, whose surviving papers include correspondence with Harold Chaloner Dowdall and his mother and wife about the arrangements for portrait sittings and exhibitions of their portraits.

Writings

Mary Frances Dowdall began her writing career with contributions to periodicals, including ''Time & Tide''. These stoked five books of amusing non-fiction on the difficulties of housekeeping, marriage and social relations, published by

Duckworth Duckworth may refer to: * Duckworth (surname), people with the surname ''Duckworth'' * Duckworth (''DuckTales''), fictional butler from the television series ''DuckTales'' * Duckworth Books, a British publishing house * , a frigate * Duckworth, W ...

: ''The Book of Martha'' (1913, with a frontispiece by Augustus John), ''Joking Apart...'' (1914, self-illustrated), ''The Second Book of Martha, etc.'' (1923), ''Manners & Tone of Good Society'' (1926) and ''Questionable Antics'' (1927). In addition, Duckworth published four novels by Dowdall addressing the problems of marriage, beginning with ''The Kaleidoscope'' (1915). ''Susie Yesterday, To-Day, and Forever'' (1919) presents a young woman with suspect motives, which backfire in an unhappy marriage. ''Three Loving Ladies'' (1921) explores the lack of communication between men and women: "I have to treat what I want to say as if it were to a foreigner and had to be translated into his language." The novel explains this in terms of radically different gender characteristics: "He wants to preserve his own qualities; you want to preserve yours; they are wholly contradictory, and one side or the other must impose its will." ''The Tactless Man'' (1922) has its protagonist bargaining with her husband for treatment as a complete person, not a "wretched button-faced, bird-happy, soap-spirited fool". Facsimiles of several of Dowdall's books are available.E. g
Retrieved 21 April 2018.
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References

External links

Full text of ''The Book of Martha''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dowdall, Mary Frances 1876 births 1939 deaths 20th-century English novelists 20th-century English women writers People from Mayfair English women novelists English women journalists English non-fiction writers English women non-fiction writers Writers from London