Mabel Quiller-Couch reflects on WW1’s Early Days

Julia Grigg

To introduce you to Julia Grigg and her writing, she has provided us with some valuable background information, followed by her beautiful extract Mabel Quiller-Couch Reflects on WW1’s Early Days, as we remember Mabel Quiller-Couch, one hundred years after her death on 27th November 1924. 

Background:

On November 27, it is 100 years since the death of Mabel Quiller-Couch. Mabel (1865-1924) was a writer.  Younger by two years than her much more well-known brother, Arthur, who in his era was regarded as ‘the most famous living Cornishman,’ Mabel nevertheless was something of an early 20th-century phenomenon in that she, never married, supported herself by her own journalism, novels and short stories at a time when such female success was seldom heard of.

Mabel’s death in 1924 came just a decade after the beginning of WW1 in 1914.  Having lived much of her adult life in Hampstead, she was buried in the graveyard of St John’s in Church Lane, London NW3.

The extract below is from Julia Grigg’s facts-based fiction about the Quiller-Couch dynasty.  Julia, a Cornish author and poet, is a recipient of a Q Fund Award, her writing focussing on the roles played by the women surrounding Arthur Quiller-Couch.

The extract ‘Mabel Quiller-Couch reflects on WW1’s Early Days’ is set at Q’s Fowey home, The Haven, in late 1914 and captures the atmosphere of Mabel and Arthur’s somewhat guarded relationship.  Describing the prevailing concerns expressed by the family for their loved one caught up in the war, it highlights their fears – those typical of any family at that time.  These range from the threat posed by the conflict in Europe to their known frames of reference, setting the certainty of their personal relevance against the current situation in all its flux.  Touching on the demands imposed by their era’s changing perceptions of the roles of men and women, it also celebrates the love of literature and the significance given to poetry as a solace in these dark times.

A very scarce picture of Mabel Quiller-Couch and her sister Lilian Hay Lobban (c1912)

To read Julia's extract, please click on the link to the PDF file here Mabel Quiller-Couch Reflects on WW1’s Early Days.

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