Mary Eliza Haweis
Mary Eliza Haweis, née Joy (21 February 1848 – 24 November 1898)[1] was a British author of books and essays, particularly for women, and a scholar of Geoffrey Chaucer, illustrator and painter.
[3] When she was seventeen or eighteen, she became a member of Reverend Hugh Reginald Haweis's congregation at St. James the Less, Westminster, always writing notes of his sermons with pen and paper as he spoke.
Soon her travels abroad became an annual occurrence, enabling her to visit many great art galleries in European countries such as France, Germany, and Italy.
Haweis published several works on topics related to medieval and modern art design, with emphasis on viewer comprehension and use for improved artistic surroundings.
[5] During her spare time, she occupied herself with antiquarian studies in connection with the work of Geoffrey Chaucer, a medieval English poet and author.
"[5] As one of his most enthusiastic students, she became a Chaucerian and popularized a number of Chaucer's stories from The Canterbury Tales and some of the shorter poems in anthologies designed for children and for adult non-scholarly readers.
She not only provided modernized translations and Pre-Raphaelite illustrations of key scenes from the tales, but also included the type of critical apparatus otherwise only available in the contemporary scholarly editions published by Frederick James Furnivall, Walter W. Skeat, and Richard Morris.
Her adaptations played a role in widening general access to Chaucer's poetry and in promoting the reading of Middle English verse in its original.
In offering you her sincere sympathy in this your very sad and heavy bereavement, the Queen desires me to say that the book acquires for her, together with the inscription that coveys it, a special interest, owing to the pathetic circumstances under with it comes.
To reveal its hidden messages, she summoned the aid of relevant scholars and manuscripts, pondered the meanings of words and expressions, and sought their origins in other languages.
[11] Ultimately, she turned a taboo medieval story containing risqué elements into one appropriate for adolescents, managing to include morals and reminders of proper manners.
[2] Though Haweis was considered to be in the middle-class; she often deceived people as to her true social class with her thrifty yet elegant clothing, composed of economically procured, yet rare laces and exquisite fabrics.
[5] Some of her views on the necessity, even duty of women appearing well led to some good-natured sarcasm directed at the volume by The Contemporary Review, which complained, "In a word, Mrs. Haweis will spare nothing, and not shrink from anything, which will prevent our giving one another the least personal shock; she is for using every means to make quite sure that everybody will visibly delight everybody else.
"[12] Believing that decoration should be both useful and in harmony with natural proportion, she produced Rus in Urbe: Flowers that Thrive in London Gardens & Smoky Towns (1886) and The Art of Housekeeping: a Bridal Garland (1889), a practical household management guide for newly married women.
Like many other women writers of the nineteenth century, she turned to journalism, adding fashion and domesticity to the subjects of science, religion, and philosophy intended for men.
"[13] Because of her father's portrait painting, Haweis retained early memories of the empress, reminiscing, "The Princess Royal was a very sweet-looking child.
Joy, by for us children – a softened Georgian face in a quaint cap, and the stiff gown of some old German costume, in which Queen Victoria had commissioned him to sketch the child, I think in 1842: the original, of course, is still possessed by Her Majesty.
"[13] Late in her life, Haweis developed a strong addiction to occult and astrological studies, which is referenced in the article concerning the Empress Frederick, and left manuscript books full of horoscopes after her death.
In line with this interest, she appears to have published an article in The Humanitarian, edited by American suffragette Victoria Woodhull Martin entitled "Astrology Revived" in July 1896.
[14] Her last known publication was the novel A Flame of Fire (1897), written in support of the female suffrage movement and to illustrate the helplessness of women in marriage.
On 24 November 1898, Mary Eliza Haweis died at Lansdown Grove House, Bath, Somerset, from kidney disease and heart failure.
[1][16] Her body was cremated at Woking on 26 November, and her ashes interred in the Joy family vault at St. Peter's, Boughton Monchelsea, Kent.
[5][16] In honor and memory of Mary Eliza Haweis and her unfailing courage and unwearied efforts to support the rights of women, a fund was established in her name.
