Irene Cooper Willis
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Irene Cooper Willis | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1882 |
| Died | 1970 |
| Citizenship | British |
| Education | Girton College |
| Occupation | Literary scholar Barrister |
Irene Cooper Willis (1882 – 1970) was a British literary scholar and barrister.[1]
She was educated at Girton College, Cambridge, where she graduated with a BA in 1904.[2] As a barrister, she was a member of the Inner Temple and Lincoln's Inn.[1]
Willis wrote biographies of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Florence Nightingale and the Brontës.[1] Her work England's Holy War was originally published in three volumes in 1918, 1919 and 1920 before being published in one volume in 1928.[3] Here, Willis analysed how Liberals, upon the outbreak of the First World War, abandoned their pacifism and supported the war effort with a crusading spirit.[4] William L. Langer called it a "first rate study of national psychology".[4]
In 1911, Willis met Vernon Lee and became the sole beneficiary and executrix of Lee's will after her death in 1935. Two years later, she published privately a selection of Lee's correspondence, titled Letters Home.[1]
Willis was also the executrix of Thomas Hardy's estate after the death of his second wife, Florence, in 1937.[1]