Mary Beaumont (author)

Title page of A Ringby Lass (USA edition)
Author	Mary Beaumont
Original title	A Ringby Lass and Other Stories
Illustrator	I. Walter White
Series	Iris Series
Genre	Short story collection
Published	New York: Macmillan, 1895

Mary Beaumont was the pseudonym of Rosa Oakes (née Mellor, 1849–1910), a minor Victorian author.

Beaumont was from Halifax in Yorkshire, England. Her father, Enoch Mellor, was a clergyman. Enoch and his wife Caroline raised their daughter in a family atmosphere that has been described as "a combination of piety and intellectual discovery." In 1874, Beaumont married the manufacturer John Oakes; they had two daughters. Beaumont was lifelong friends with Robert Forman Horton (1855–1934), a leading nonconformist minister. Beaumont and her husband lived with Horton from 1902 until Beaumont's death in 1910.

Beaumont had begun writing at a young age, publishing some poetry in magazines by the time she was nineteen. However, ill health interfered with her writing, and she was not able to pursue authorship in earnest until the 1890s.

Beaumont's first published works appeared in the Christian-themed Sunday Magazine, edited by Thomas Guthrie. One of her later works, The Valley of Stars, was published as a serial. In addition to publishing her work in periodicals, Beaumont published at least three volumes: A Ringby Lass and Other Stories (1895), the novel Joan Seaton (1896), and Two New Women and Other Stories (1899). In addition to painting a vivid picture of her native Yorkshire, many of her works show Victorian attitudes towards social issues like colonialism and women's emancipation.

This collection includes five short stories: "A Ringby Lass," "Jack," "The White Christ," "Miss Penelope's Tale," and "The Revenge of Her Race." The title story, "A Ringby Lass," is set in Beaumont's native Yorkshire, as is the story "Jack." Macmillan issued this story collection as the fifth installment in its "Iris Series." As such, it was nicely bound, with illustrations by I. Walter West. The book's attractive physical format was part of its appeal, with the New York Times noting its "charming" format and "delicate illustrations."

Based on its publication history, "The Revenge of Her Race" seems to be the most widely-read story in this volume. It was popular enough that it was reprinted in Stories by English Authors: The Orient, a 1902 collection that also included Rudyard Kipling's "The Man Who Would Be King." More recently, the story appeared in the 2004 Broadview Anthology of Victorian Short Stories.

"The Revenge of Her Race" is set in colonial New Zealand and tells the tale of a beautiful Maori woman named Maritana who marries an Englishman. The story depicts Maritana as a tragic character who is caught between two cultures and dies young. Although the narrator shows Maritana in a sympathetic light, the story and its critical reception demonstrate the influence of scientific racism in the 1890s. One of Beamont's English characters states that Maritana's inability to become completely Anglicized is due to "something" in her "very blood." In response, the New York Times commented, "There is an exceeding truthfulness in 'The Revenge of Race.' We have all heard of the Zulu lad taken from savagery . . . who, on his return to Africa . . . resumed the ways of his wild kindred. It is a case of atavism."