Adelaide Eden Phillpotts
Adelaide Eden Phillpotts was a British author born on April 23, 1896, in Ealing, England, into a literary family, as her father was the novelist Eden Phillpotts. Growing up in an environment rich with literary influence, she interacted with notable writers such as Thomas Hardy and Agatha Christie. Educated at local boarding schools and later Bedford College in London, she developed a strong foundation in writing, which was furthered by her attendance at university lectures by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch. While she had a successful solo career, she frequently collaborated with her father, notably on the play "Yellow Sands," which later became a novel.
Despite her literary accomplishments, her relationship with her father was complex and troubled, particularly as she later detailed in her autobiography, "Reverie." Her writing often featured strong, independent female characters who faced and overcame challenges, reflecting emerging feminist themes. Novels like "The Gallant Heart" addressed issues such as women's rights and societal expectations. By the time of her death on June 4, 1993, in Cornwall, she had produced a diverse body of work that, while not widely recognized, anticipated many important discussions around women's roles and struggles.
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Subject Terms
Adelaide Eden Phillpotts
Writer
- Born: April 23, 1896
- Birthplace: Ealing, England
- Died: June 4, 1993
- Place of death: Cornwall, England
Biography
Mary Adelaide Eden Phillpotts was born on April 23, 1896, in Ealing, England, to Eden Phillpotts, an author, and Emily Topham Phillpotts. From the beginning, Phillpotts and her older brother were exposed to continual literary activity. The children were kept quiet while their father worked, and the house was frequented by such celebrated writers as Thomas Hardy, Agatha Christie, and Arnold Bennett.
Phillpotts attended a local boarding school and then went to Gressendale at Southbourne. At age fourteen, traveling in France with her mother, she was profoundly affected by that country’s atmosphere of political and racial equality. From 1915 to 1916, while writing for Cambridge Magazine, Phillpotts also attended university lectures on the art of writing by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch. A few years later, she completed a social science course at Bedford College in London. There, she met the philosopher L. Susan Stebbing and the actress Sybil Thorndike, who were to influence her literary work.
Although Phillpotts had a highly productive literary career on her own, she also collaborated with her father on many works. For example, in 1926 they cowrote a dramatic comedy, Yellow Sands, which enjoyed a long and successful run at the Haymarket Theatre in London. Four years later, they turned the play into a novel. Individually, father and daughter dedicated many books to each other.
In later life, Phillpotts speculated that one reason for the close collaboration was that her father saw her as an extension of himself. In Reverie: An Autobiography (1981), published twenty-one years after her father’s death, she explicitly detailed many alleged incestuous acts on his part. While growing up, she reported, she did not resist his actions, citing her “fear of hurting him.” In Reverie, she said he had told her that she must never marry; indeed it was not until 1951, when she was fifty-five, that she married Nicholas Ross in a civil ceremony. Possibly out of jealousy, her father never spoke to her again.
Phillpotts’s fictional heroines were less compliant than their creator. Typically beset with poverty, hardship, and social rejection, these independent women eventually triumph through courage, good will, and resourcefulness. Novels such as The Gallant Heart and The Fosterling foreshadow vital feminist issues of the 1960’s and later years, including equal pay for equal work and the right of women to choose a career other than marriage and childbearing. From Jane to John, an epistolary novel, portrays events of World War II from a feminine perspective. Phillpotts’s heroines are by no means perfect; several begin as domineering and hypercritical characters, but they later experience a change of heart that makes them gentler and more compassionate, though no less strong.
By the time of her death in Cornwall on June 4, 1993, Phillpotts (now using her married name, Ross) had produced works in a variety of genres, covering a wide thematic range. Though not well remembered, her work was ahead of its time in sympathetically portraying female characters facing extreme tribulations.