Amabel Williams-Ellis

Amabel Williams-Ellis (née Mary Annabel Nassau Strachey; 10 May 1894 – 27 August 1984)^[1] was an English writer, critic,^[2] and an early member of the Bloomsbury Group.^[3] As well as publishing her own writings, Williams-Ellis was a prolific editor, translator, and anthologist,^[4] compiling collections of fairy stories, folk tales, and science fiction.^[5]

Life

Amabel Nassau Strachey was born at Newlands Corner, near Guildford, Surrey,^[5] to journalist and newspaper proprietor John Strachey^[2] and Amy (née Simpson).^[6] Her cousin was Lytton Strachey, and her childhood described as 'glittering and comfortable'.^[7]

During World War I, Amabel served as a Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse, which partly inspired an increasing interest in science and anatomy.^[7] This led in turn to her scientific writings for children, particularly on notable discoveries and responses to the typical inquiries of children.^[7]

On 31 July 1915, Amabel married Clough Williams-Ellis, an architect, with whom she collaborated on a history of the Tank Corps.^[8] The couple also worked together on The Pleasures of Architecture (1924), and other works. They had three children: a son and two daughters.^[8] Their daughter, Susan Caroline Williams-Ellis (1918–2007) was a successful ceramics designer and manufacturer.^[9] Their son was killed during World War II.^[7]

Between 1922 and 1923, she was literary editor of The Spectator.^[7] Attracted to socialism, Williams-Ellis described herself as a "class traitor".^[7]

Works

Over the course of her life, Williams-Ellis wrote more than 40 books.^[10] These included novels, books for children, and histories.^[5] She wrote regularly for periodicals, and edited multiple volumes of folk legends, fairy tales, and science fiction.^[5] She was significantly inspired by the writer and explorer Mary Kingsley, whom Williams-Ellis had met in childhood, and whom she described as "an anthropologist before anthropology".^[7] The Times described Williams-Ellis as someone who "wrote books to find things out, and seemed prepared to take on anything."^[7]

Death

Amabel Williams-Ellis died on 27 August 1984, at the age of 90.^[10] Shortly before her death, she published a memoir: All Stracheys Are Cousins. This showed, wrote The Times, that she was "an undiminished optimist who had lived a busy and a happy life, and enjoyed her second living of it on the page."^[7]

Publications

• The Tank Corps (1919) with Clough Williams-Ellis
• An anatomy of poetry (1922)
• The pleasures of architecture (1924) with Clough Williams-Ellis
• Men who found out: stories of great scientific discoverers (1929)
• The exquisite tragedy; an intimate life of John Ruskin (1929)
• The voyage of the Beagle; adapted from the narratives and letters of Charles Darwin and Capt. Fitz Roy (1931)
• The art of being a woman (1951)
• Fairy tales from the British Isles (1960)
• Darwin's moon: a biography of Alfred Russel Wallace (1966)
• Old World & New World fairy tales (1966)

References

External links

• Works by Amabel Williams-Ellis at WorldCat
• Works by Amabel Williams-Ellis at Internet Archive
• Works by Amabel Williams-Ellis at Open Library