Meynell, Alice Christiana Gertrude (1847-1922)

English poet and essayist. She published Preludes (1875) and several other slim volumes of poetry, concluding with Last Poems (1923). Her writing is similar to that of Christina Rossetti in its delicate craftsmanship. Her essays were collected in The Rhythm of Life (1893), The Colour of Life (1896), and The Spirit of Place (1898). She married the author and journalist Wilfrid Meynell (1852-1948).

She was born in Barnes, London, but spent most of her youth in Italy and was converted to Catholicism 1872. After her first volume of poems, Preludes, she wrote no further verse for nearly 20 years. Poems 1893 established her as a poet, while The Rhythm of Life, brought her recognition in the field of prose writing. Among her other works are The Children 1897, The Flower of the Mind 1897 (an anthology of English verse), John Ruskin 1900, Later Poems 1902, Ceres' Runaway 1909, Collected Poems 1913, and Essays 1914.