Dorothy Edwards

Dorothy Edwards (18 August 1902 – 5 January 1934) was a Welsh short story writer and novelist who wrote in English. She became associated with David Garnett and other members of the Bloomsbury Group, but she stated in her suicide note that she had "accepted kindness and friendship and even love without gratitude, and given nothing in return."

Early life and education Edwards was born at Ogmore Vale, Glamorgan, Wales, the only child of Vida (née Jones) and Edward Edwards. Her father was headmaster of Tynewydd School, Ogmore Vale, where her mother had also worked before her marriage. He was a significant person in the Independent Labour Party and the British co-operative movement. At nine years old and dressed in red, she welcomed Hardie onto the stage in Tonypandy during the national coal strike of 1912.

Dorothy was taught to believe that a revolution was at hand and that class and gender-based divisions would soon crumble; Although her parents spoke Welsh, she was not taught the language as a child. Edwards was aware of what was considered her socially inferior position, but still held her father's teachings in reverence and was drawn increasingly to the Welsh nationalist movement. Flay describes her as riddled with guilt at leaving her mother with a hired companion, frustrated at her dependence on the Garnetts, and reeling after a love affair with Ronald Harding, a married Welsh cellist. She was cremated at Glyntaff, Pontypridd, on 9 January. Her mother died later that year.

Mutiny was published in Life and Letters in September 1933 shortly before her death, in a volume edited by Desmond MacCarthy and Hamish Miles. The Problem of Life followed a few months later, also in Life and Letters To-day. Edwards's works were largely forgotten, although critic Beryl Jones wrote an article about her in The Welsh Review in 1948*.

Some manuscripts came to light in the Garnett family archive at Northwestern University in Evanston, Il, which allowed Blackthorn Press to include three previously unpublished stories in their Complete Short Stories by Dorothy Edwards (2025).

Works Rhapsody (short stories), London: Wishart, 1927; London: Virago 1986; Cardigan: Parthian, 2007, Pickering, Blackthorn Press, 2021, Winter Sonata (novel), London: Wishart, 1928; London: Virago 1986; Aberystwyth: Honno, 2011. Pickering: Blackthorn Press, 2021, Complete Short Stories by Dorothy Edwards, Blackthorn Press, 2025, ISBN 9781906259716

Papers The University of Reading acquired Edwards' letters and papers in the 1990s. The Garnett family archive housed at the Charles Deering McCormick Library (Special Collections and Archives) at Northwestern University hold several of her manuscripts and notebooks.