Myra Kelly
{{short description|American novelist}}
File:Myra Kelly, 1908 LCCN99471797 (cropped).jpg
Myra Kelly (1875–1910) was an Irish American schoolteacher and author.
Life
Kelly was born in Dublin, she came to the United States with her father, a physician who established a practice on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.{{cite book|last1=Fanning|first1=Charles|title=The Irish Voice in America: 250 Years of Irish-American Fiction|date=2000|publisher=University Press of Kentucky|isbn=978-0-8131-2760-6|page=181|edition=2nd|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RDN6qCkrAxAC&q=Myra%20Kelly&pg=PA181}} She attended the Horace Mann School{{cite book|title=Myra Kelly, Originator |work=The Book Buyer |volume=39-40|date=1914|publisher=C. Scribner's Sons|page=77|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rx8xAQAAMAAJ&q=%22Myra%20Kelly%22&pg=PA77}} and Teachers College, Columbia University, graduating in 1899.{{cite book|title=The Work of Teachers in America: A Social History Through Stories|date=1997|publisher=Taylor and Francis|location=Hoboken|isbn=978-1-135-45934-5|pages=193–194|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=geRTAQAAQBAJ&q=%22Myra%20Kelly%22&pg=PA193}}
Kelly taught elementary school at Public School 147 from 1899 to 1901. She produced three collections of stories based on her experiences as a teacher. Her character Constance Bailey teaches Irish and Russian Jewish immigrant children. A minor theme within her works is the changing character of the neighborhood and the displacement of Irish immigrant families. After the publishing of her "In Loco Parentis", US President Theodore Roosevelt wrote her a letter of appreciation.{{cite book|title=Americans All: Stories of American Life of To-Day|publisher=Library of Alexandria|isbn=978-1-4655-2356-3|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=x0nhCxxtjC4C&q=%22Myra%20Kelly%22%20roosevelt&pg=PT43|chapter=Myra Kelly|year=2010}}
Kelly married Allan Macnaughton in 1905. Prior to her death, she also wrote the romance novels Rosnah and The Golden Season.
Kelly developed tuberculosis and died on March 30, 1910, in Torquay, England.{{cite news|title=Myra Kelly, Writer of Child Life, Dead |work=The New York Times|date=April 1, 1910}} She was 35 years old.
Works
- Little Citizens, The Humours of School Life (1905)
- The Isle of Dreams (1907)
- Wards of Liberty (1907)
- Rosnah (1908)
- The Golden Season (1909)
- Little Aliens (1910)
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
{{Commons category}}
- {{Gutenberg author | id=2137| name=Myra Kelly}}
- {{Internet Archive author |sname=Myra Kelly |birth=1875 |death=1910 |sopt=t }}
- {{IMDb name|2721257}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kelly, Myra}}
Category:20th-century American novelists
Category:Horace Mann School alumni
Category:Irish emigrants to the United States
Category:Teachers College, Columbia University alumni
Category:American expatriates in England
Category:American women novelists