Irene Cooper Willis

Irene Cooper Willis (1882 – 1970) was a British literary scholar and barrister.[1]

She was educated at Girton College, Cambridge where she graduated with a BA in 1904.[2] As a barrister, she was a member of the Inner Temple and Lincoln's Inn.[1]

Willis wrote biographies of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Florence Nightingale and the Brontës.[1] Her work England's Holy War was originally published in three volumes in 1918, 1919 and 1920 before being published in one volume in 1928.[3] Here, Willis analysed how Liberals, upon the outbreak of the First World War, abandoned their pacifism and supported the war effort with a crusading spirit.[4] William L. Langer called it a "first rate study of national psychology".[4]

In 1911, Willis met Vernon Lee and became the sole beneficiary and executrix of Lee's will after her death in 1935. Two years later, she published privately a selection of Lee's correspondence, titled Letters Home.[1]

Willis was also the executrix of Thomas Hardy's estate after the death of his second wife, Florence, in 1937.[1]

Works
  • (editor), Charles James Fox: Speeches During the French Revolution (London: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1924).
  • (editor), Charles James Fox: Speeches During the French Revolutionary War Period (London: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1924).
  • Montaigne (New York: Knopf, 1927).
  • England's Holy War: A Study of English Liberal Idealism During the Great War (New York: Knopf, 1928).
  • Elizabeth Barrett Browning (London: Gerald Howe, 1928).
  • Florence Nightingale: A Biography for Older Girls (London: G. Allen and Unwin, 1931).
  • The Brontës (London: Duckworth, 1933).
  • The Authorship of Wuthering Heights (London: Hogarth Press, 1969).

Notes
  1. "Irene Cooper Willis (Donor)", Colby College Community Web, retrieved 5 January 2020.
  2. "Cooper-Willis, Irene", University of St Andrews website, retrieved 5 January 2020.
  3. F. R. Flournoy, 'Review: Lord Grey and the World War by Hermann Lutz, E. W. Dickes; England's Holy War by Irene Cooper Willis', Political Science Quarterly Vol. 43, No. 4 (Dec., 1928), p. 624.
  4. William L. Langer, 'Some Recent Books on International Relations', Foreign Affairs Vol. 6, No. 4 (Jul., 1928), p. 690.
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