Mrs Victor Rickard

Rickard (real name Jessie Louisa Rickard) was an Irish literary novelist. During her lifetime she became a versatile writer who produced over 60 works. She was born in Dublin in 1976, her father being a (protestant) churchman. Her first novel was published in 1912. She had married Lieut-Col Victor Rickard, of the 2nd Battalion Munster Fusiliers. He featured prominently in the painting "The Last Absolution of The Munsters" by the war artist Mantania, which depicted the battalion halting at a wayside shrine at "Rue du Bois", on the eve of the Battle of Aubers Ridge in May 1915, and in which Rickard died. The painting was, in fact, commissioned by Mrs Rickard and she published "The Story of the Munsters" in 1915. In later life she was a prolific novelist with a sound reputation. (She co-founded the Detective Writers' Club with Dorothy L. Sayers, G.K. Chesterton, Father Ronald Knox and others). She died in 1963 at the age of 86.