Esther Murphy Strachey

Esther Strachey ( Murphy, later Arthur; October 22, 1897 – November 23, 1962) was an American academic, historian, and socialite.

Early life and education Esther Murphy Arthur as a girl with her mother, Mrs. Patrick Francis Murphy, née Anna Ryan, between 1910 and 1915

Murphy was born on October 22, 1897, the daughter of Patrick Francis Murphy (1858–1931), owner of the Mark Cross Company, sellers of fine leather goods, and Anna Elizabeth Ryan (c. 1858–1932). She had two siblings: Gerald Clery Murphy (1888–1964) and Frederic Timothy Murphy (1884–1924).

Unable due to her mother's health to attend Bryn Mawr College, Murphy followed the Harvard University curriculum at home.

When in Paris, she frequented Janet Flanner (who would later become a lover of her sister-in-law, Noël Haskins Murphy) and Solita Solano, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, Dolly Wilde and Natalie Clifford Barney (who was Murphy's passionate obsession). Indeed, in a story recounted by Murphy, Isabel Pell, with Barney, really infiltrated a 13th-century Italian convent to meet with Alice Robinson, one of Barney's affairs. Murphy was also friends with Mercedes de Acosta, Madge Garland, Edmund Wilson and Dorothy Parker. Oswald Mosley was the best man at the wedding.

In 1935, Murphy married Gavin Arthur, a San Francisco astrologer and sexologist and a grandson of U.S. President Chester A. Arthur. He was also an early gay rights activist and a practical prototype for the hippies. They divorced in 1961.

In 1945, she met writer Sybille Bedford, who would become her lover; the relationship lasted only a few years, but they remained lifelong friends.

Death Murphy died on November 23, 1962, in Paris. Her ashes were returned to the United States on December 5, 1962, to her brother, Gerald Murphy.

Gallery

Legacy Lisa Cohen, All We Know: Three Lives (Farrar, Straus and Giroux; First Edition (July 17, 2012)) is the biography of three women: Esther Murphy, detailing early Murphy life and the Mark Cross family business; writer-feminist Mercedes de Acosta; and British Vogue fashion editor Madge Garland. Cohen was intrigued by their invisibility: "if she is remembered at all today, it is as Gerald Murphy's eccentric, pathetic sister, a marvel who became a spectacular disappointment."