E. Œ. Somerville and Martin Ross

Chapter 2 centres on the life-long partnership of Edith Somerville and Martin Ross (1888–1915). Special attention is paid to the relationship between these collaborators: as repeatedly underlines by the co-authors themselves, their close friendship constituted the bedrock of their co-authorship. By drawing on their correspondence, on Somerville’s memoir Irish Memories (1917), and on her late-life essay “Two of a Trade” (1946), chapter 2 analyses their collaborative model and highlights its original aspects. Somerville and Ross’s co-authored novels are discussed, with a focus on their first one, An Irish Cousin (1889), and on the work they considered their masterpiece, The Real Charlotte (1894). Many of Somerville and Ross’s contemporaries and subsequent critics denied them the status of authors worthy of study: such amazing disregard could be ascribed to a series of reasons, which chapter 2 identifies.