Ray Strachey, née Costelloe (4 June 1887 – 16 July 1940) was a British

British people

The British are citizens of the United Kingdom, of the Isle of Man, any of the Channel Islands, or of any of the British overseas territories, and their descendants...

 novelist, born Rachel Costelloe in London, England.

Early life

She is the elder of the two girls in her family. She married at Cambridge on 30 May 1911 the civil servant Oliver Strachey

Oliver Strachey

Oliver Strachey , a British civil servant in the Foreign Office was a cryptographer from World War I to World War II....

, elder brother of the biographer Lytton Strachey

Lytton Strachey

Giles Lytton Strachey was a British writer and critic. He is best known for establishing a new form of biography in which psychological insight and sympathy are combined with irreverence and wit...

 of the Bloomsbury group

Bloomsbury Group

The Bloomsbury Group or Bloomsbury Set was a group of writers, intellectuals, philosophers and artists who held informal discussions in Bloomsbury throughout the 20th century. This English collective of friends and relatives lived, worked or studied near Bloomsbury in London during the first half...

; other siblings in the Strachey included psychoanalyst James Strachey

James Strachey

James Beaumont Strachey was a British psychoanalyst, and, with his wife Alix, a translator of Sigmund Freud into English...

 and novelist Dorothy Bussy née Strachey

Dorothy Bussy

Dorothy Bussy was an English novelist and translator.-Family background and childhood:Dorothy Bussy was a member of the Strachey family, one of ten children of Jane Strachey and the great British Empire soldier and administrator Lt-Gen Sir Richard Strachey...

. Ray's mother-in-law was Jane, Lady Strachey, a well-known authoress and supporter of women's suffrage

Women's suffrage

Women's suffrage or woman suffrage is the right of women to vote and to run for office. The expression is also used for the economic and political reform movement aimed at extending these rights to women and without any restrictions or qualifications such as property ownership, payment of tax, or...

 who co-led the Mud March

Mud March (Suffragists)

The Mud March of 7 February 1907 was the first large procession organized by the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies . Over 3,000 women trudged through the cold and the rutty streets of London from Hyde Park to Exeter Hall to advocate for women’s suffrage.Millicent Fawcett, the renowned...

 of 1907 in London.

Career

Most of her publications are non-fiction and dealt with women's suffrage

Women's suffrage

Women's suffrage or woman suffrage is the right of women to vote and to run for office. The expression is also used for the economic and political reform movement aimed at extending these rights to women and without any restrictions or qualifications such as property ownership, payment of tax, or...

 issues. She is most often remembered for her book The Cause. Papers of Rachel Pearsall Conn Strachey (also known as Ray Strachey, née Costelloe) (1887–1940) are held at The Women's Library at London Metropolitan University

London Metropolitan University

London Metropolitan University , located in London, England, was formed on 1 August 2002 by the amalgamation of the University of North London and the London Guildhall University . The University has campuses in the City of London and in the London Borough of Islington.The University operates its...

.

Death

She died in the Royal Free Hospital

Royal Free Hospital

The Royal Free Hospital is a major teaching hospital in Hampstead, London, England and part of the Royal Free Hampstead NHS Trust....

in London in her early fifties of heart failure, following an operation to remove a fibroid tumour.

Non-fiction about women's roles

• Women's Suffrage and Women's Service
• The Cause
• Careers and Openings for Women
• Our Freedom and Its Results

External links

• The Women's Library at London Metropolitan University