' . . . Desmond raised his eyes and looked at her. She had let her cloak fall on to the back of her chair, and her beautiful shoulders gleamed like polished ivory above the dead gold of her gown, while her great mass of hair shone like hot ashes when they are stirred. He could only look and look again -- all his heart in his eyes, and he, who was always so self-possessed, so perfectly at home when talking to the opposite sex, now felt as tongue-tied and gauche as any schoolboy . . .'
In The Walk of a Queen the scene is set in Dublin during the War of Independence and it is a fascinating story of passion and intrigue which holds the reader's interest from start to finish.
Annie M. P. Smithson was one of the most successful of all Irish romantic novelists and all her books were bestsellers. The Walk of a Queen is reprinted here for the benefit of the new generations who did not have the opportunity to read it.
ANNIE M. P. SMITHSON (1873-1948) was the most successful of all Irish romantic novelists. Her nineteen books, including The Walk of a Queen, Her Irish Heritage, The Marriage of Nurse Harding and The Weldons of Tibradden were all bestsellers, with their wholesome mix of old-fashioned romance, spirited characters and commonsense philosophy. She was born in Sandymount, Co Dublin, and reared in the strict Unionist tradition. On completion of her training as a nurse in London and Edinburgh, she returned to Dublin and was posted north as a Queen's Nurse in 1901. Here, for the first time, she experienced the divide between Irish Nationalists and Unionists, and it appalled her. She converted to Catholicism at the age of 34 and was subsequently disowned by most of her family. She immersed herself in the Republican movement - actively can-vassing for Sinn Fein in the 1918 General Election, nursing Dubliners during the influenza epidemic of that year, instructing Cumann na mBan on nursing care and tending the wounded of the Civil War in 1922. She was arrested and imprisoned, and threatened to go on hunger-strike unless released. Forced to resign her commission in the strongly Loyalist Queen's Nurses Committee, she took up private work and tended the poor of Dublin city until she retired in 1942. During her long career, she did much to improve the lot of the nursing profession and champic, med its cause as Secretary of the Irish Nurses Union. In later years, she devoted herself to her writing and was an active member of WAAMA, PEN and the Old Dublin Society. Her autobiography, Myself-and Others, was completed in 1944, four years before her death at the age of 75.
