Mary Davys

Mary Davys (1674?–1732) was an Irish novelist and playwright.

Early life Davys was born in Ireland: nothing is known about her childhood, including her birth name. Comments by Jonathan Swift, who was at Trinity College Dublin with her husband, suggest that she grew up in conditions of poverty and obscurity. She married Peter Davys, master of the free school of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, and had two daughters both of whom seem to have died in infancy. Despite her lack of family connections, she had a number of socially prominent friends, including Margaret Walker, daughter of Sir John Jeffreyson, judge of the Court of Common Pleas (Ireland). After being widowed in 1698, she moved to London in 1700 in order to make a living. This textual variant ran to at least two editions, reprinted for H. Meere in 1722, as advertised in The London Journal. Despite this relative success, in about 1718 she abandoned the hope of staying in London. The note "As it was to be performed at the Drury Lane Theatre" on the title page of The Self-Rivals indicates possible disappointment. Instead, she moved to Cambridge, where she established a coffee house. Her chief patrons were the students at St. John's College, Cambridge, whom she thanks in her prefaces for their help. Her Familiar Letters, which satirises the upper classes and their political affiliations, is an example of a successful epistolary novel before Samuel Richardson. Her writing is often direct, even blunt: for example, Sir John Galliard, the main character in The accomplish'd Rake, a debauched womanizer, is presented without euphemism. She was attacked in The Grub-Street Journal in 1731 for being "bawdy" but she "replied with vigour."

Later life

Her response to a satirical letter in "The Grub Street Journal" refers to shaking hands and bad eyesight. She lived in Cambridge until her death after a period of ill health. She was buried in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Cambridge on 5 July 1732. Familiar letters betwixt a gentleman and lady (published in the Works of 1725; initially pseudonymously printed for J. Roberts as Love and Friendship in 1718) The accomplish'd rake, or, Modern fine gentleman (1727) The False Friend, or the Treacherous Portuguese (written c. 1704; published as The Cousins in Works, 1725)

Plays The Northern Heiress, or, The Humours of York (1716; debuted in 1715 at the Market House in York, and in London at Lincoln's Inn Fields in April 1716) The Self-Rival (unpublished until Works, 1725)

Poetry The Modern Poet (unpublished until Works, 1725)