Suzanne R. Day
| Suzanne R. Day | |
|---|---|
 From the cast of 1901 production of The Mikado, Cork | |
| Born |
Suzanne Rouvier Day 24 April 1876 Cork, Ireland |
| Died |
26 May 1964 London |
| Nationality | Irish |
| Occupation | writer |
Suzanne Rouvier Day (1876–1964) was an Irish feminist, novelist and playwright. She founded the Munster Women's Franchise League, was one of Cork's first women poor-law guardians and served a support role in both World Wars.
Biography
Day was born in Cork, Ireland in 1876 to Robert and Rebecca Day. Her father Robert ran a Saddler and Ironmonger business and was a well known antiquarian and photographer.[1] She was active as a suffragette founding the Munster Women's Franchise League and as a member of the Irishwomen's Suffrage Federation. In 1911 she became one of Cork's first women poor-law guardians which led to her first novel.[2] From 1913 to 1917 she wrote three plays for the Abbey Theatre in collaboration with Geraldine Cummins, the most successful of which was the comedy Fox and Geese (1917).[3][4] Day worked as a nurse on the French front during the First World War. She worked as a member of the fire service in London during the Second World War. She lived in Cork, France and London. She was living in London when she died.[3][5]
The work of Suzanne R. Day and Geraldine Cummins has been described as a mixture of paganism and melodrama and has been suggested as a precursor to John B. Keane.[6]
Works
Plays
- Out of a Deep Shadow (1912)
- Toilers (1913)
- Broken Faith (co-written with Geraldine Cummins; Abbey Theatre, 1913)
- The Way of the World (co-written with Geraldine Cummins; Abbey Theatre, 1914)
- Fox and Geese (co-written with Geraldine Cummins; Abbey Theatre, 1917)
Books
- The Amazing Philanthropists (1916)
- Round about Bar-le-Duc (1918)
- Where the Mistral blows (1933)
Further reading
- The fate of Irish Female Playwrights
- The Irish New Woman, Tina O'Toole, Springer, 12 Jul 2013, 216 pages
- The Abbey Theatre, 1899-1999: Form and Pressure, Robert Welch, Oxford University Press, 2003, 280 pages
- Modernism, Drama, and the Audience for Irish Spectacle, Paige Reynolds, Cambridge University Press, 2007, 257 pages
- George Fitzmaurice: 'Wild in His Own Way' : Biography of an Abbey Playwright, Fiona Brennan, Peter Lang, 2005, 211 pages
- Theatre and the State in Twentieth-Century Ireland: Cultivating the People, Lionel Pilkington, Routledge, 22 Jan 2002, 272 pages
- Shakespiritualism: Shakespeare and the Occult, 1850-1950, Jeffrey Kahan, Springer, 28 Feb 2013, 270 pages
Notes
- ↑ "Census return 1901".
- ↑ "(Source: Dictionary of Irish Biography, and Brendan Goggin)".
- 1 2 Alexander G. Gonzalez, Irish Women Writers: An A-To-Z Guide, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2006, pp.76–78.
- ↑ "Oxford Biography".
- ↑ Lorna Sage; Germaine Greer; Elaine Showalter (1999). The Cambridge Guide to Women's Writing in English. Cambridge University Press. p. 696.
- ↑ "Exeunt Magazine:Feminism and Irish Theatre".