The following essay covers the collaborative literary efforts of Irish writers Edith OEnone Somerville and Martin Ross.

The Irish writers Edith OEnone Somerville and Violet Florence Martin, who wrote under the pseudonym Martin Ross, collaborated on many novels, short stories, travel books, memoirs, and essays during the last decade of the nineteenth century and the early part of the twentieth century. From the time they published their first novel, An Irish Cousin (1889), the authors enjoyed great popularity. Their most critically acclaimed work is the novel The Real Charlotte (1894), but they are best known for three volumes of humorous stories-- Some Experiences of an Irish R.M. (1899), Further Experiences of an Irish R.M. (1908), and In Mr. Knox's Country (1915), which were later collected as The Irish R.M. and His Experiences (1928).

The two women, who were second cousins, were born into the Anglo-Irish Ascendancy, at that time the ruling...