This biography is republished from The Dictionary of Irish Biography and was written by Nicholas Allen. Shared by permission in line with Creative Commons ‘Attribution’ (CC BY) licencing.
Born: 12 July 1865, Ireland
Died: 15 March 1929
Country most active: United Kingdom
Also known as: Grace Little
Rhys, Grace Little (1865–1929), author, editor, and poet, was born 12 July 1865 at Knockadoo, Boyle, Co. Roscommon, youngest of three daughters of Joseph Bennett Little , landowner, and Emily Little (née White), of a wealthy Dublin family. Her father gambled his estate away and she worked from adolescence in her eccentric uncle Roper Little’s house in Kilrush, Co. Clare. She remained there until a visit to London to see her two sisters, in the summer of 1890, resulted in her meeting Ernest Rhys, a friend of W. B. Yeats since May 1887, at a party organised by the Yeats family. They married in January 1891. Her elder sister, Elizabeth Mary Little, enjoyed some small fame as author of Persephone and other poems (1884), but Grace worked first as an editor of the ‘Cradle songs’ and ‘Banbury Cross’ series of children’s books. Typical of these is her edition of Jack the giant-killer and Beauty and the beast (1894). Noting that these two stories originate from England and France respectively, she suggests, with all the conviction of one committed to the Celtic revival, that both share a common root in fairyland. She attended London evenings held by Yeats throughout the late 1890s and published the first of her seven novels, Mary Dominic (1898), to the praise of Lady Gregory. Her second novel, The wooing of Sheila (1901), was her most commercially successful and tells the story of Sheila McBride’s betrothal to the squire Michael Power. By turns grotesque and comic, the novel entertains grand themes of murder and repentance. The prince of Lisnover (1904) is a sentimental recovery of Gaelic Ireland, but of her subsequent works The bride (1909) is unusual in its London setting. Its plot is more familiar, revolving around the love affair of a young Esther Carey with Armstrong, the enigmatic sculptor.
She worked tirelessly for Belgian refugees during the first world war and was awarded the Couronne d’or by order of King Leopold for her efforts. Time away from London was spent in Devon or Exmoor, and her excellent essays reflect her pleasure in the countryside. ‘Swallows’ and ‘An Exmoor wall’, both collected in A book of Grace (1930), breathe fresh air into her prose. Like that other accomplished Irish essayist Robert Lynd, she identifies a small point of interest, such as a bird’s nesting habits, to make a broad generalisation about the human condition. ‘Swallows’, for example, ends with a refreshingly romantic vision of her departure to foreign climes with her lover on the wing. She was also a poet and edited A Celtic anthology (1927), an innovative collection of poetry from Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. She enjoyed travel and (despite serious illness) accompanied her husband on his 1929 American lecture tour. She died in Washington on 15 March 1929 in the company of Ernest Rhys and her daughter Stella, one of three children of their marriage.