Molly Keane facts for kids

Molly Keane (born Mary Nesta Skrine on July 20, 1904 – died April 22, 1996) was an Irish novelist and playwright. She also wrote under the name M. J. Farrell.

Growing Up

Molly Keane was born in Newbridge, County Kildare, Ireland. Her family lived in a large house called Ballyrankin House in County Wexford, near the River Slaney. Molly did not go to boarding school in England like her brothers and sisters. Instead, she was taught at home by her mother and governesses. She also went to a boarding school in Bray, County Wicklow. Molly felt that her childhood was not very exciting. She found fun and enjoyment through her passion for horses and hunting. When she was seventeen, Molly became sick and had to stay in bed. She was very bored, so she started writing. This is how she wrote her first book, The Knight of Cheerful Countenance. She used the pen name "M. J. Farrell" because she saw the name on a pub after a hunting trip. She explained that she wrote secretly because "for a woman to read a book, let alone write one was viewed with alarm". As a teenager, Molly spent a lot of time with the Perry family in County Tipperary. She became good friends with their children, Sylvia and John Perry. Later, she worked with John to write several plays. One famous play was Spring Meeting, which was very popular in London in 1938.

Her Writing Career

Molly Keane loved the writer Jane Austen. Like Austen, Molly was very good at creating interesting characters. She used her sharp wit to show what people were really like, even if they acted differently on the surface. This helped her describe the world of the big houses in Ireland during the 1920s and 1930s. She showed the hidden feelings and ways of the people in her social class. Molly used her married name for her later novels. Some of these, like Good Behaviour and Time After Time, were even made into television shows. Between 1928 and 1956, she wrote 11 novels and some plays using her pen name, "M. J. Farrell". After her husband died suddenly in 1946, and one of her plays did not do well, Molly stopped writing for twenty years. Then, in 1981, her novel Good Behaviour was published under her own name. The story had been sitting in a drawer for many years. An actress named Peggy Ashcroft read it and encouraged Molly to publish it. The book was very well-liked and was even nominated for the Booker Prize, a major award for books.

Personal Life and Death

Molly met Bobby Keane through the Perry family, and they got married in 1938. Bobby came from a well-known family in Waterford. They had two daughters, Sally and Virginia. After her husband passed away in 1946, Molly moved to Ardmore, County Waterford, a place she knew well. She lived there with her two daughters. Molly Keane died on April 22, 1996, at her home in Ardmore. She was 91 years old. She is buried near the Church of Ireland church in the village.