Mary Isabel Leslie facts for kids

Mary Isabel Leslie (1899–1978) was an Irish nationalist and the writer of over 30 novels. She also used the pseudonym Temple Lane.

Life and work

Leslie was born in Portabello House, Dublin in April 1899, to Reverend John Leslie and Mary Richardson Smith. She had one sister, Jean Annette. Her father was later Dean of Lismore, although Leslie was raised in County Tipperary. She received her secondary education at Sherborne School for Girls in Dorset, and then attended Trinity College Dublin. Leslie remained at the university, where she was academically successful, winning a gold medal in 1922 and gaining her D. Litt in 1943 for work on Felicia Hemans.

Leslie wrote poetry and novels under two pen names, those of Jean Herbert and Temple Lane. Her novel Friday's Well was adapted for the stage by Frank Carney in 1950. She was a member of Dublin's Women Writers' Club, which had been founded by Blanaid Salkeld along with Dorothy Macardle, Elizabeth Bowen, Helen Waddell, Maura Laverty, Winifred Letts, Sybil le Brocquy, Patricia Lynch, Rosamond Jacob, Hanna Sheehy Skeffington, Nora Connolly O'Brien, Christine Longford, Ethel Davidson (President of the Club in 1937) and Teresa Deevy. As Davidson put it, their aim was sharpening "the wits, and improving the standard of criticism, as well as encouraging the writers".

Leslie's novels were popular with readers, but not highly appreciated by the writing profession. Mary Rose Callaghan termed her work "female fiction before the Liberation". She added, "There is little individuality in her novels and much simplicity and humorless earnestness."