# Ada Quayle

> Mediated Wiki article. Canonical URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Ada_Quayle
> Markdown URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Ada_Quayle.md
> Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Quayle
> Source revision: 1311060781
> License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)

**Ada Quayle** was the pseudonym of **Kathleen Louise Woods**, née **Robinson** (1920 – December 2002), a Jamaican novelist and author of a historical novel, *The Mistress* (1957).

## Life

Kathleen Robinson was born to a [mixed-race](/source/Mixed-race) marriage in [Jamaica](/source/Jamaica) in 1920. She married an English husband, whom she had apparently met on a boat to [Kenya](/source/Kenya) in [Egypt](/source/Egypt). She moved to England during the [Second World War](/source/Second_World_War), working there as a [wireless operator](/source/Wireless_operator). After the war she settled in [Manchester](/source/Manchester), where she wrote *The Mistress*.[1]

The "rather predictable" plot of *The Mistress*, set in Jamaica in 1915, is one of "[plantation](/source/Sugar_plantations_in_the_Caribbean) decadence and deterioration," dominated by "lust, avarice and cruelty."[2] The novel "explores the psychological (and psycho-sexual) legacy of a [slave economy](/source/Slave_economy)" after [emancipation](/source/Slavery_Abolition_Act_1833).[3] In one scene, a white landowner, Neil, finds he has blood on himself after whipping a black labourer, Sammy Johnson. The landowner's distress at what he feels as racial contamination has ambivalent erotic undertones.[3] The novel contains passing references to Jamaican folk traditions such as the [Junkanoo](/source/Junkanoo) dance, and an [Obeahman](/source/Obeahman), Chi-Ju-Ju.[2] Both white and black characters speak in [Jamaican creole](/source/Jamaican_creole).[3]

In a 1958 article on emerging Caribbean writers, [Sylvia Wynter](/source/Sylvia_Wynter) called *The Mistress* "a competent historical piece," though gave it no extended treatment.[4] [Frank Collymore](/source/Frank_Collymore), reviewing the novel for *[BIM](/source/BIM_(magazine)),* characterised its style as "that clipped staccato style which one might be tempted to call the earnest heming way." However, "much can be forgiven," Collymore continued, "so well is the story developed, so intense its presentation, so powerful its characterization."[5]

Wynter also identified Quayle as the first woman novelist from the Caribbean.[2] This claim doesn't account for several who preceded her. [Mayotte Capécia](/source/Mayotte_Cap%C3%A9cia)'s *Je suis martiniquaise* had been published in 1948.[6] (The novel is most known for [Frantz Fanon](/source/Frantz_Fanon)'s virulent critique of its characters in *[Black Skin, White Masks](/source/Black_Skin,_White_Masks)*.) Defender of British colonialism and producer of the *West Indian Review*, [Esther Hyman](/source/Esther_Hyman), had published four novels by 1953.[3][7] Three women from Dominica also wrote novels before 1958. [Phyllis Shand Allfrey](/source/Phyllis_Shand_Allfrey) had published *[The Orchid House](/source/The_Orchid_House_(novel))* in 1953, [Elma Napier](/source/Elma_Napier) had published two novels even earlier, in the 1930s,[2] and [Jean Rhys](/source/Jean_Rhys) had already published four, with her most famous fifth, *Wide Sargasso Sea,* still to come in 1966.

However, a novel by a woman from the Caribbean was still considered remarkable in the 1950s.

Woods died in [Suffolk](/source/Suffolk) in December 2002.[1]

## Works

- *The Mistress*. Letchworth, Hertfordshire: [MacGibbon & Kee](/source/MacGibbon_%26_Kee), 1957. Paperback reprint, London: [Four Square Books](/source/Four_Square_Books), 1961.

## References

1. Caribbean Literary Heritage (20 April 2020). ["Q is for Ada Quayle (Kathleen Louise Woods nee Robinson)"](https://www.facebook.com/1491063070954498/posts/q-is-for-ada-quayle-kathleen-louise-woods-nee-robinson-1920-2002kathleen-louise-/2987150064679117/). Retrieved 6 November 2021.

1. Campbell, Elaine (1982). ["An expatriate at home: Dominicas Elma Napier"](https://ro.uow.edu.au/kunapipi/vol4/iss1/8). *Kunapipi*. **4** (1)

1. Summer, Karen E. (1997). *Whiteness and women's writing in the Caribbean* (PhD). University of Western Ontario.

1. Wynter, Sylvia (1958). "Strangers at the Gate". *The Times Colonies Review*

1. Collymore, Frank A. (1958). "Review of *The Mistress*. By Ada Quayle". *[BIM](/source/BIM_(magazine))*. **7** (27): 185–86.

1. ["Women Writers of the Caribbean | Encyclopedia.com"](https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/women-writers-caribbean). *www.encyclopedia.com*. Retrieved 2022-08-02.

1. Irving, Claire Catherine. *Printing the West Indies: Literary magazines and the Anglophone Caribbean 1920s-1950s.* PhD Dissertation, Newcastle University, 2015.

---
Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Ada Quayle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Quayle) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Quayle?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.