![Mary ('Molly') MacCarthy1915](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e9/Mary_%28%27Molly%27%29_MacCarthy1915.jpg)
Mary, Lady MacCarthy (August 1882 – 29 December 1953) was a British writer; known for her involvement in the "
Bloomsbury Group", and commonly called Molly.
She was born Mary Warre-Cornish in Lynton, Devon; the daughter of schoolmaster and man of letters
Francis Warre Warre-Cornish
Francis Warre Warre-Cornish (8 May 1839 – 28 August 1916) was a British schoolmaster, scholar and writer.
Life
He was the son of Hubert Kestell Cornish, vicar of Bakewell, and his wife Louisa Warre, daughter of Francis Warre (1775–1854), and ...
by his wife,
Blanche.
In 1906 she married the literary critic Sir
Desmond MacCarthy
Sir Charles Otto Desmond MacCarthy FRSL (20 May 1877 – 7 June 1952) was a British writer and the foremost literary and dramatic critic of his day. He was a member of the Cambridge Apostles, the intellectual secret society, from 1896.
Early li ...
, with whom she had two sons, Michael and Dermod, and a daughter, Rachel (later Lady David Cecil).
Though prevented by progressive hearing-loss from full participation in group conversation, she was active in the Bloomsbury group, as demonstrated by her formation of its Memoir group and Novel group, and by coining the term "Bloomsberries" to describe its members.
Her sister Cecilia married
William Wordsworth Fisher later Admiral. Her daughter Rachel married the biographer
David Cecil.
![Grave of Sir Desmond MacCarthy](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6b/Grave_of_Sir_Desmond_MacCarthy.jpg)
She died at Hampton, Middlesex of heart failure, and is buried at the
Parish of the Ascension Burial Ground in Cambridge, with her husband.
Sources
* ''The Bloomsbury Group: A Collection of Memoirs and Commentary'', ed. S. P. Rosenbaum (University of Toronto Press, revised edition, 1995).
* ''Clever hearts: Desmond and Molly MacCarthy: a biography'', by Hugh and Mirabel Cecil (Gollancz, 1990).
Selected bibliography
* ''
A Pier and a Band'' (1918)
* ''
A Nineteenth Century Childhood'' (1924)
* ''
Fighting Fitzgerald and Other Papers'' (1930)
* ''
Handicaps: Six Studies'' (1936)
* ''
The Festival, Etc.'' (1937)
External links
*
1882 births
1953 deaths
Bloomsbury Group
English women novelists
20th-century English women writers
20th-century English novelists
Wives of knights
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