Annie M. P. Smithson  

The Marriage of Nurse Harding

14.99

A charming romantic novel about marriage by the Irish romance novelist Annie M. P. Smithson

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Description

'He watched her as she moved about, getting another cup and saucer, cutting cake. How charming she was in her uniform, her soft hair escaping in little tendrils from beneath her cap -- worn with such a becoming air . . . When Victor saw her in her own cottage, she always appealed to him in a special way. He would often picture her as his wife . . . He hated telling her that his mother was absolutely against their marriage . . .' Annie M.P. Smithson was the most successful of all Irish romantic novelists and all of her books were bestsellers. The Marriage of Nurse Harding is reprinted here for the benefit of the new generations who did not have the opportunity to read it. Other Annie M.P. Smithson books which have been reprinted include: The Walk of a Queen, Her Irish Heritage, Nora Connor, The Weldons of Tibradden, and Paid in Full.

Author

ANNIE M. P. SMITHSON (1873-1948) was the most successful of all Irish romantic novelists. Her nineteen books, including The Walk of a Queen, Her Irish Heritage, The Marriage of Nurse Harding and The Weldons of Tibradden were all bestsellers, with their wholesome mix of old-fashioned romance, spirited characters and commonsense philosophy.

She was born in Sandymount, Co Dublin, and reared in the strict Unionist tradition. On completion of her training as a nurse in London and Edinburgh, she returned to Dublin and was posted north as a Queen’s Nurse in 1901. Here, for the first time, she experienced the divide between Irish Nationalists and Unionists, and it appalled her. She converted to Catholicism at the age of 34 and was subsequently disowned by most of her family. She immersed herself in the Republican movement – actively can­vassing for Sinn Fein in the 1918 General Election, nursing Dubliners during the influenza epidemic of that year, instructing Cumann na mBan on nursing care and tending the wounded of the Civil War in 1922. She was arrested and imprisoned, and threatened to go on hunger-strike unless released.

Forced to resign her commission in the strongly Loyalist Queen’s Nurses Committee, she took up private work and tended the poor of Dublin city until she retired in 1942. During her long career, she did much to improve the lot of the nursing profession and championed its cause as Secretary of the Irish Nurses Union.

In later years, she devoted herself to her writing and was an active member of WAAMA, PEN and the Old Dublin Society. Her autobiography, Myself-and Others, was completed in 1944, four years before her death at the age of 75.