Viola Meynell
Viola Meynell, Mrs. Dallyn (15 October 1885, in Barnes, London – 27 October 1956) was an English writer, novelist and poet. She wrote around 20 books, but was best known for her short stories and novels. Biography Her parents were Wilfrid Meynell and Alice Thompson Meynell, noted Roman Catholic publishers and writers. Her father was a publisher and her mother was the sister of the well-known artist Lady Butler, (Charge of the Greys). Her parents had a chaotic and busy literary household in Palace Court, Nottinghill Gate, London. There was a constant stream of visitors such as Eric Gill, Robert Browning, Stevenson, Henley, Coventry Patmore, George Meredith, Francis Thompson, Stephen Phillips, W. B. Yeats, G. K. Chesterton, Shane Leslie, Sir Ronald Storrs and others more or less renowned. Viola had seven siblings. Her brother Francis was the driving force of The Nonesuch Press, with whom in the pre-war days she made homemade books on the kitchen table, dyeing with onion skins and typing her verse to be stitched by hand into the pages. They had a second home in the country at Greatham, Sussex where Viola married local farmer, John Dallyn, and had her only child, a son, John Jacob