Portrait of Eliza Davis Aria, c. 1918

Eliza Davis Aria (1866–1931) was an English fashion writer and gossip columnist known as "Mrs Aria". She was the editor of a fashion magazine titled The World of Dress, author of books on costume and motoring, and a society hostess. She was also the long-time lover of Henry Irving,[1][2] from the 1890s until his death in 1905.[3]

Early life

Eliza Davis was born in London on 11 August 1866 to portrait photographer Hyman Davis and his wife Isabella (Bella).[4] She spent her early years in the house attached to her father's Bruton Street, Mayfair studio. She attended Miss Belisario's school and was afterward tutored by Madame Paul Lafargue, the daughter of Karl Marx.

Eliza's seven siblings included several writers: novelist and art historian Julia Frankau (pseudonym Frank Danby) and their eldest brother James (pseudonym Owen Hall), a racing correspondent, theatre critic and librettist. "While James was still living at home, he brought to the house literary and theatrical figures, including Oscar and Willie Wilde, who would play tennis in a nearby public garden with Julia and Eliza."[5] A younger sister, Florence Collins, published one novel, The Luddingtons (Heinemann 1905), about which Mrs Aria had this to say: "'You are the beauty of the family,' we advised her, and she accepted the verdict as condemning the volume to solitude."[6] Her nephew Gilbert Frankau became a journalist and novelist, and Gilbert's younger brother Ronald Frankau went onto the stage.

Marriage and career

In 1884, Eliza married Jamaican-born merchant David Bonito Aria, and gave birth to their daughter the following year, but there was "little of real love between" the couple, and his precarious finances proved a poor match for her view of luxuries as "the absolute necessities of existence," leading to a permanent separation with David Aria's departure for South Africa after five years of marriage.

The separation served as a stimulus to her journalistic career. She became a prominent fashion columnist, eventually founding her own magazine, The World of Dress, which she edited from 1898 to 1908.

In 1898 she began an affair with prominent actor Henry Irving which lasted until his death in 1905.

Mrs Aria's literary and artistic salon included H. G. Wells, Isidore de Lara,[7] and C. R. W. Nevinson who painted a view of Fitzroy Square from the window of her flat.[8] Gilbert Frankau's novelist daughter Pamela recalled that Mrs Aria "was the friend of such gods as George Moore, Ivor Novello, Michael Arlen, Sybil Thorndike and Rebecca West. She sent her great-nieces a collection of autographs that looked like the Milky Way."[9] Mrs Aria's sister Julia Frankau "was wont to say, 'Unless Eliza receives each morning four letters from leading actresses which commence "Dearest" she looks unhappy.'"[10] "All celebrated people," commented Pamela Frankau, "were called 'Darling' by Aunt Eliza, and in her presence at least greeted one another by the same title. So much so that, leaving Buckingham Gate on one occasion, the copywriter said to a taxi-driver during controversy, 'I did hail you first, darling.'"[11]

Later life

Eliza Aria went with actor Frank Vosper to attend the London opening night of the stage play Grand Hotel, and died at the Adelphi Theatre just before the curtain went up[12][13] – "'Which is odd because I have often heard her say she would like to die in a theatre.'"[14]

References

  1. ↑ Stetz, Margaret D. "‘To defend the undefendable’: Oscar Wilde and the Davis Family" Archived 2011-10-02 at the Wayback Machine. Oscar Wilde, Jews & the Fin-de-Siècle, The OScholars, Summer 2010, accessed 26 July 2011
  2. ↑ d’Arch Smith, Timothy. The Times Deceas’d. Settrington, UK: Stone Trough Books, 2005.
  3. ↑ Jeffrey Richards, Sir Henry Irving: A Victorian Actor and his World, Hambledon and London 2005 - pp41&158
  4. ↑ William D. Rubinstein, ed., The Palgrave Dictionary of Anglo-Jewish History (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 34-5.
  5. ↑ Todd M. Endelman, "The Frankaus of London: A Study in Radical Assimilation, 1837-1967", Jewish History Vol. 8, Nos 1-2, 1994 - p128
  6. ↑ Mrs Aria, My Sentimental Self, Chapman & Hall 1922, p7
  7. ↑ Gilbert Frankau, Self-Portrait, Hutchinson 1940, p187
  8. ↑ Mrs Aria, My Sentimental Self, Chapman & Hall 1922 - pp241-242
  9. ↑ Pamela Frankau, I Find Four People, Ivor Nicholson and Watson 1935 - p131
  10. ↑ Mrs Aria, My Sentimental Self, Chapman & Hall 1922 - p215
  11. ↑ Pamela Frankau, I Find Four People, Ivor Nicholson and Watson 1935 - p233
  12. ↑ Pamela Frankau, I Find Four People, Ivor Nicholson and Watson 1935 - pp262-263
  13. ↑ Gilbert Frankau, Self-Portrait, Hutchinson 1940, p25
  14. ↑ Pamela Frankau, I Find Four People, Ivor Nicholson and Watson 1935 - p265

Publications

  • The May Book: compiled by Mrs Aria in aid of Charing Cross Hospital, Macmillan 1901
  • Mrs Aria. Woman and the Motor Car: being the autobiography of an automobilist, Sidney Appleton 1906
  • Mrs Aria. Costume - Fanciful, Historical, and Theatrical, Macmillan 1906
  • Mrs Aria. My Sentimental Self, Chapman and Hall 1922

Further reading

  • Frankau, Pamela. I Find Four People, Ivor Nicholson and Watson 1935
  • Frankau, Gilbert. Self-Portrait, Hutchinson 1940
  • Richards, Jeffrey. Sir Henry Irving: A Victorian Actor and his World, Hambledon and London 2005
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