Off Sandy Hook & Other Stories: Dehan

Clotilde Augusta Inez Mary Graves was born on the 3rd June 1863 at Buttevant Castle, Co. Cork, to parents with military backgrounds.

At age nine, the family moved to Southsea in England for yet another military posting. Her father’s postings gave her valuable experiences that would be put to good use in later years in some of her literary works.

She was educated at a Catholic convent in Lourdes before returning to London in 1884 to study art in Bloomsbury. She worked part-time at the British Museum and the Royal Female School of Art and generated further income by drawing little pen-and-ink grotesques for the comic papers.

A few years later a chance meeting found her writing extra lyrics for a pantomime version of Puss in Boots. She followed up with several financially successful plays, both in London and New York, and gained a measure of notoriety in one with the comparison of marriage and prostitution.

Despite her dramatic success she published her first novel in 1911 under the pseudonym of Richard Dehan which she continued to use for later works. As well as novels and plays she published collections of short stories which glow with talent and invention.

She was an unusual figure in London society, wearing her hair short, taking on a masculine manner and cut of clothing, and smoking cigarettes in public when such traits were considered eccentric at best. Add to this her admired collection of Chinese and Japanese trophies, her enthusiasm for fly-fishing and her riding of a tricycle and you have a perfect image of this fascinating writer.

Clotilde Graves died at the convent of Our Lady of Lourdes at Hatch End in Middlesex, on the 3rd December 1932. She was 69.

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