Irene Cooper Willis

{{Short description|British literary scholar and barrister (1882–1970)}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}

Irene Cooper Willis (1882 – 1970) was a British literary scholar and barrister."[http://web.colby.edu/csc-history-of/the-people/highlighted-donors/i-c-willis-donor/ Irene Cooper Willis (Donor)]", Colby College Community Web, retrieved 5 January 2020.

She was educated at Girton College, Cambridge, where she graduated with a BA in 1904."[http://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Davis/Names/Cooper-Willis_Irene.html Cooper-Willis, Irene]", University of St Andrews website, retrieved 5 January 2020. As a barrister, she was a member of the Inner Temple and Lincoln's Inn.

Willis wrote biographies of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Florence Nightingale and the Brontës. 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.F. R. Flournoy, 'Review: Lord Grey and the World War by Hermann Lutz, E. W. Dickes; England's Holy War by Irene Cooper Willis', Political Science Quarterly Vol. 43, No. 4 (Dec., 1928), p. 624. 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.William L. Langer, 'Some Recent Books on International Relations', Foreign Affairs Vol. 6, No. 4 (Jul., 1928), p. 690. William L. Langer called it a "first rate study of national psychology".

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.

Willis was also the executrix of Thomas Hardy's estate after the death of his second wife, Florence, in 1937.