Mary Ansell's Deception and Barrie's play, Rosalind

[Robert Greenham]

In my book 'It Might Have Been Raining', which I published in 2005, I revealed for the first time that official records showed that the Victorian London stage actress Mary Ansell continually deceived people, perhaps even her husband, author and playwright J. M. Barrie, about her age.  I also indicated briefly how Barrie made use of this deception in the writing of his play Rosalind within three years of his divorce from Mary.

I thought some folks might be interested to learn that the recent release of the England census for 1911 has enabled me to augment the details of Mary's deception, and this prompted me to write a more enlightening piece which I have recently posted to my Fiery Chariot blog