Yeats' biographer Alexander Jeffares writes, "she was unselfcentered, unselfish, deeply imaginative and sympathetic and, until she met Yeats, she seems to have accepted the fact of her unhappy loveless marriage". Nine months after the wedding their only child, Dorothy, was born on 14 September 1886 Olivia realised soon that the marriage was devoid of passion. Olivia's father endowed them with a comfortable income in the form of a trust. The couple were married on 8 December 1885, and honeymooned in Boulogne and Paris. Henry had attended Harrow, studied law, and joined a law practice in 1875. Born in India in 1849, he was descended from 17th-century East London ropemakers and, like Olivia, came from a military family, although of less prestige and wealth than the Tuckers and Johnsons. Yeats: A Critical Biography as "worthy" but "dull". In 1885 Olivia married Henry Hope Shakespear, a man described by Terence Brown in The Life of W.B. It is likely that Olivia received little formal education she may have been educated by tutors, and appears to have become well-read as a young woman. Olivia often visited her many Johnson relatives in the country, and became particularly fond of her cousin Lionel Johnson-the only one of many uncles and cousins not to join the military-who went on to become a poet and friend to W. In 1877 the family moved to London and raised their daughters in a social world that encouraged the pursuit of leisure. ![]() Soon after they relocated to Sussex where their third child, Henry, was born in 1866. The couple moved to the Isle of Wight where their two daughters were born: Florence in 1858 and Olivia on 17 March 1863. Within a year of returning to Britain he married Harriet Johnson (b. He rose to the rank of Adjutant General in Bengal, but retired in 1856 at age 48 owing to ill health. Olivia's father, Henry Tod Tucker, was born in Edinburgh and joined the British Indian Army as an ensign at age 16. He lived with Olivia until her death twelve years later, in 1938. When Dorothy gave birth to a son, Omar Pound, in France in 1926, Olivia assumed guardianship of the boy. After their marriage, Pound would use funds received from Olivia to support T. Olivia's daughter Dorothy Shakespear married Pound in 1914, despite the less than enthusiastic blessing of her parents. Olivia began hosting weekly salons frequented by Ezra Pound and other modernist writers and artists in 1909, and became influential in London literary society. On October 20, 1917, Yeats went on to marry Georgie Hyde-Lees, Olivia Shakespear's step-niece and Dorothy's best friend. They nevertheless remained lifelong friends and corresponded frequently. He declared that they "had many days of happiness" to come, but the affair ended in 1897. ![]() In 1894 her literary interests led to a friendship with William Butler Yeats that became physically intimate in 1896. ![]() In 1885 she married London barrister Henry Hope Shakespear, and in 1886 gave birth to their only child, Dorothy. She was well-read however, and developed a love of literature. Olivia was the daughter of a retired adjutant general, and had little formal education. She wrote two plays in collaboration with Florence Farr. Her last novel, Uncle Hilary, is considered her magnum opus. ![]() Her works sold poorly, sometimes only a few hundred copies. She wrote six books that are described as "marriage problem" novels. Olivia Shakespear ( née Tucker 17 March 1863 – 3 October 1938) was a British novelist, playwright, and patron of the arts.
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