The Ends

This chapter examines the deaths of Michael Field and the aftermath. Edith Cooper had died first, of cancer of the bowel, in 1913. Katherine Bradley died almost a year later of breast cancer. Bradley knew that she herself was dying of cancer at the time of Cooper's death, and she chose to keep this fact a secret from Cooper and from Works and Days. She revealed her secret in her first entry after Cooper's death. Taking up on the very page of Cooper's final written words, Bradley writes directly to her absent love, recapitulating the narrative structure of “first readers” that Michael Field have used in the diary since April 1888. The chapter also considers the execution of Bradley's will via Thomas Sturge Moore, who served as a literary executor for Bradley, and who retained the shared intellectual property of Michael Field when Cooper died.