Ethel Sidgwick (20 December 1877 – 29 April 1970) was a British novelist, poet, playwright, translator, biographer and peace activist. Sidgwick wrote over twenty plays, novels, stories, and nonfiction books during her lifetime.
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Personal life
Sidgwick was born on 20 December 1877 in Rugby to Arthur Sidgwick and Charlotte Sophia Wilson. Arthur Sidgwick was an educational reformer and suffragist who worked for Oxford's Association for the Education of Women.
She was the second oldest of five siblings: Rose Sidgwick (1877-1918), a professor; Frank Sidgwick (1879-1939), a publisher and poet; Margaret Sidgwick (1881-1948); and Hugh Sidgwick (1882-1917), scholar and Royal Garrison Artillery captain. Ethel Sidgwick was born 11 months after Rose Sidgwick.
Sidgwick was also the niece of physics and psychical researcher and principal of Newnham College Eleanor Sidgwick, and feminist philosopher and co-founder of Newnham College Henry Sidgwick.
Sidgwick completed her education at Oxford High School.
Writing career
Sidgwick worked as teacher and writer.
In 1909, Sidgwick published "Thackeray's Rose and the Ring, Dramatised in two acts" in the play anthology Plays for Schools. The play was her first of many for a child audience. Sidgwick published this play and many of her other works through her brother Frank Sidgwick's publishing house Sidgwick & Jackson.
In 1910, Sidgwick wrote her first novel Promise. Promise is about Antoine, a "young musical genius, half English, half French" who is considered a 'child of promise,' and his older brother, Philip. Sidgwick followed up the novel with a sequel, Succession: A Comedy of the Generations in 1913.
Sidgwick also worked as a translator, translating A History of the French People in 1923.
Her last book was a biography of Eleanor Sidgwick, Mrs. Henry Sidgwick: A Memoir, in 1938. Sidgwick died on April 29, 1970. She never married.
Reception
Reginald Brimley Johnson in his Some Contemporary Novelists (Women) described Sidgwick's writing style.
The essence of Miss Sidgwick is her instinct for Literature.... Our appreciation depends on a quick intellect, familiarity with art atmosphere and book-language, a low of the fine shades. In structure and style she is not realistic; she frankly composes; yet, in her own way, lays bare the soul. She is modern: because she does not concern herself with single emotions, whole characters, a crude clash of black and white. She is never melodramatic. Nor does the narrative make up one centralized plot. It grows out of the immense complexities and interchange which super-civilization imposes on human-nature. The persons of the drama are pulled in a thousand different directions, by circumstances, place, and standards; growing out of intellectual activity, a cultured outlook, inherited standards... It is supreme art, admirably controlled.
Dr. Sarah Londsdale wrote for The Neglected Books Page that "Ethel Sidgwick makes great demands of her readers. Her meaning is like a will o’ the wisp, darting in the darkness of her elliptical prose. She is always several paces ahead of the reader, who feels as if they are dully plodding behind, in danger of losing their way completely."
Selected works
Thackeray's Rose and the Ring, Dramatised in two acts (1909)
Promise (1910). OL 7126094M
Le Gentleman: An Idyll of the Quarter (1911). OL 7052440M
Herself (1912). OL 6543234M
Succession; a comedy of the generations (1913). OL 13509719M
Four Plays for Children: The Rose and the Ring, the Goody-Witch, the Goosegirl, Boots and the North Wind (1913). OL 18397879M
A Lady of Leisure (1914). OL 6565402M
Duke Jones (1914). OL 7132664M
The Accolade (1915). OL 7188659M
Hatchways (1916). OL 6591636M
Jamesie (1918). OL 7085531M
Madam (1921). OL 6632992M
Two plays for schools: The three golden hairs, The robber bridegroom (1922). OL 7180864M
The three golden hairs: (more plays for children) (1922). OL 7134879M
Restoration: the fairy-tale of a farm (1923). OL 14973594M LCCN 23-7990
Laura, a cautionary story (1924). OL 17355897M
When I grow rich (1928). OL 17788970M
The bells of Shoreditch (1928). OL 61035404M OCLC 4839507