I. A. R. Wylie

Ida Alexa Ross Wylie (16 March 1885 – 4 November 1959), known by her pen name I.A.R. Wylie, was an Australian-British-American novelist, screenwriter, short story writer, poet, and suffragette sympathiser, who was honoured by the journalistic and literary establishments of her time and received international recognition for her works. Between 1915 and 1953, more than 30 of her novels and stories were adapted into films, including Keeper of the Flame, which was directed by George Cukor and starred Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn.

Biography Early life Wylie was born Ida Alexa Ross Wylie on 16 March 1885 in Melbourne, Australia, to Alexander Coghill Wylie (1852–1910) from England and Ida Millicent Ross (1855–1890), a farmer's daughter from Australia. I.A.R. Wylie's father, Alec Wylie of Glasgow, Scotland, was in debt much of his life and often on the move from creditors. and also proposing to her sister, Christine (who refused). Her story "Grandmother Bernle Learns Her Letters", published in the Saturday Evening Post in 1926, was filmed twice, by John Ford in 1928 as Four Sons and by Archie Mayo in 1940, also as Four Sons. and Barbara Grier.

In her autobiography My Life with George, in which the "George" of the title is her subconscious ego, Wylie says:

I have always liked women better than men. I am more at ease with them and more amused by them. I too am rather bored by a conventional relationship which seems to involve either my playing up to someone or playing down to someone. Here and there and especially in my latter years when there should be no further danger of my trying to ensnare one of them I have established some real friendships with men in which we meet and like each other on equal terms as human beings. But fortunately, I have never wanted to marry any of them, nor with the exception of that one misguided German Grenadier, have any of them wanted to marry me.

In her autobiography, she acknowledges that many of her women friends refer to her as "Uncle", and as one critic says, her choice of being credited as "I.A.R. Wylie" instead of Ida Wylie was certainly an attempt to downplay her gender in publications.

In the 1930s, Wylie, Sara Josephine Baker, and another pioneering woman physician, Dr. Louise Pearce, settled on a property near Skillman, New Jersey, named Trevenna Farm. They lived there together until Baker died in 1945, followed by Pearce, and then later Wylie, who died on 4 November 1959 at the age of 74. Wylie and Pearce are buried alongside each other at Henry Skillman Burying Ground, Trevenna Farm's family cemetery.

Works

The Native Born, or, The Rajah's People (1910) My German Year (1910) Rambles in the Black Forest (1911) The Germans (1911) Dividing Waters (1911) In Different Keys (1911) The Daughter of Brahma (1913) The Red Mirage (1913) The Paupers of Portman Square (1913) Five Years to Find Out (1914) Eight Years in Germany (1914) Tristram Sahib (1915) The Temple of Dawn (1915) Happy Endings (1915) The Hermit Doctor of Gaya (1916) Armchair Stories (1916) The Duchess in Pursuit (1917) Toward Morning (1918) The Shining Heights (1918) All Sorts (1919) Holy Fire: And Other Stories (1920) Children of Storm (1920) Brodie and the Deep Sea (1920) Rogues & Company (1921) The Dark House (1922) Jungle Law (1923) Side Shows (1923) Ancient Fires (1924) Black Harvest (1926) The Mad Busman, and Other Stories (1926) The Silver Virgin (1929) Some Other Beauty (1930) The Things We Do, and Other Stories (1932) Prelude to Richard (1934) To The Vanquished (1934) A Feather in Her Hat (1934) The Novels of Elinor Wylie (1934) The Inheritors, and With Their Eyes Open (1936) Furious Young Man (1936) The Underpup (1938) The Young in Heart (1938) My Life With George: An Unconventional Autobiography (1940) Strangers Are Coming (1941) Keeper of the Flame (1942) Flight to England (1943) Ho, the Fair Wind (1945) Storm in April (1946) Where No Birds Sing (1947) Candles for Therese (1951) The Undefeated (1957) Home Are the Hunted (1959) Claire Serrat (1959)