Edith Anna OEnone Somerville (1858-1949), who in collaboration with her cousin Violet Martin published under the pseudonym "Somerville and Ross," wrote the popular Experiences of an Irish R. M. stories, as well as one of the finest Irish novels of the 19th century, The Real Charlotte.

Although she was born (May 2, 1858) on the island of Corfu, where her father, Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Henry Somerville, was stationed, Edith Anna OEnone Somerville returned by the age of one to Ireland, where she lived most of the rest of her life and where her stories and novels are set. Her mother was Adelaide Eliza Coghill. Edith was the eldest of eight children, all of them boys except Edith and one sister. Upon his retirement in 1859 her father returned the family to his home at Drishane House in the parish of Castlehaven in the western part of County Cork. The Somervilles (and also...