Charlotte O'Conor Eccles (1863–1911) was an Irish writer, translator and journalist, who spent her working life in London. ''Aliens of the West'' (1904) was said to be among "the best modern books of short stories on Ireland yet written."''The Times'' (London, England), Thursday, 15 June 1911; p. 11; Issue 39612.

Life

Charlotte O'Conor Eccles was born in

County Roscommon County Roscommon () is a Counties of Ireland, county in Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is part of the province of Connacht and the Northern and Western Region. It is the List of Irish counties by area, 11th largest Irish county by area and Li ...

, Ireland, on 1 November 1863, the fourth daughter of Alexander O'Conor Eccles of Ballingard House, the founder of a home-rule newspaper, ''The Roscommon Messenger''. She attended a Catholic grammar school, Upton Hall School FCJ, near

Birkenhead Birkenhead () is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral, Merseyside, England. The town is on the Wirral Peninsula, along the west bank of the River Mersey, opposite Liverpool. It lies within the Historic counties of England, historic co ...

and convents in Paris and Germany.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), pp. 326–327.

Writings

Eccles later lived in London with her mother and sister, where after a number of setbacks she became a journalist in the London office of the ''

New York Herald The ''New York Herald'' was a large-distribution newspaper based in New York City that existed between 1835 and 1924. At that point it was acquired by its smaller rival the '' New-York Tribune'' to form the '' New York Herald Tribune''. Hi ...

''. She went on to become a staff member of the ''Daily Chronicle'' and the ''Star''.RIA/''Cambridge Dictionary of Irish Biography'' (2009) Vol. III, p. 568. She commented in an article in the June 1893 number of ''

Blackwood's Magazine ''Blackwood's Magazine'' was a British magazine and miscellany printed between 1817 and 1980. It was founded by publisher William Blackwood and originally called the ''Edinburgh Monthly Magazine'', but quickly relaunched as ''Blackwood's Edinb ...

'' on "the immense difficulty a woman finds in getting into an office in any recognised capacity". Eccles joined the agricultural reformer Sir

Horace Plunkett Sir Horace Curzon Plunkett (24 October 1854 – 26 March 1932), was an Anglo-Irish agricultural reformer, pioneer of agricultural cooperatives, Unionist MP, supporter of Home Rule, Irish Senator and author. Plunkett, a younger brother of J ...

in writing and lecturing around Ireland for the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction. Another of her ''Blackwood's Magazine'' articles, in December 1888, covered "Irish Housekeeping and Irish Customs in the Last Century". Her first novel, ''The Rejuvenation of Miss Semaphore'' (London: Jarrold & Sons, 1897), was published in 1897 under the male pseudonym Hal Godfrey: "This hilarious novel tells of a middle-aged woman who drinks too much of an elixir of youth, causing pandemonium in the... boarding-house where she lives with her sister." She also contributed to a number of periodicals, including the '' Irish Monthly'', the ''

Pall Mall Magazine ''The Pall Mall Magazine'' was a monthly British literary magazine published between 1893 and 1914. Begun by William Waldorf Astor as an offshoot of '' The Pall Mall Gazette'', the magazine included poetry, short stories, serialized fiction, a ...

'', the '' American Ecclesiastical Review'' and the '' Windsor Magazine''. Eccles's other books include ''Aliens of the West'' (London: Cassell, 1904) and ''The Matrimonial Lottery'' (London: Eveleigh Nash, 1906). An obituary in ''The Times'' described ''Aliens of the West'' as "one of the best modern books of short stories on Ireland yet written".

Death

Eccles died in 1911 at her home in St John's Wood, London of cerebral thrombosis after a reported nervous breakdown.Orlando site. Retrieved 30 May 2020.
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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Eccles, Charlotte O'Conor 1863 births 1911 deaths 19th-century Irish novelists 20th-century Irish novelists Irish women novelists Pseudonymous women writers 19th-century pseudonymous writers Writers from County Roscommon