SOURCE: Graves, C. L. “The Lighter Side of Irish Life.” Quarterly Review 219, no. 436 (July 1913): 26-47.

In the following excerpt, Graves praises the partnership of Somerville and Ross.

The literary partnership of Miss Edith Somerville and Miss Violet Martin—the most brilliantly successful example of creative collaboration in our times—began with An Irish Cousin in 1889. Published over the pseudonyms of ‘Geilles Herring’ and ‘Martin Ross,’ this delightful story is remarkable not only for its promise, afterwards richly fulfilled, but for its achievement. The writers proved themselves the possessors of a strange faculty of detachment which enabled them to view the humours of Irish life through the unfamiliar eye of a stranger without losing their own sympathy. They were at once of the life they described and outside it. They showed a laudable freedom from political partisanship; a minute familiarity with the manners and customs of all strata of...