Alice Meynell, poet, essayist and journalist, was born in Barnes, Surrey, on 11 October 1847. She was the younger daughter of Thomas and Christiana Thompson. Her father had inherited wealth from sugar plantations in the West Indies, enabling the leisurely pursuit of a variety of political and artistic interests. He was a widower by the time he met Christiana in 1844, an aspiring concert pianist. They were married a year later. Dickens, through whom the couple had met, was a witness at the wedding. Their other daughter, Elizabeth (known as Mimi), was born in 1846.
The family spent much of Alice’s childhood on the continent, rarely settling in one place for any length of time, though often drawn to Italy’s Ligurian coast. Alice retained a lifelong love of Italy from these early years.
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Citation: Dubois, Martin. "Alice Meynell". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 22 March 2010 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=3099, accessed 18 April 2024.]
