“ROBIN HYDE” DEAD

Wairarapa Times-Age, 25 August 1939, Page 8

“ROBIN HYDE” DEAD

TALENTED NEW ZEALAND AUTHORESS. AN ENTERPRISING JOURNALIST By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. LONDON. August 24. The death has occurred of the New Zealand writer. Miss Iris Wilkinson (Robin Hyde). An Independent cable message says she was found by a friend at her home in London, death having resulted from gas poisoning. Oxygen was administered without avail. The New Zealand High Commissioner, Mr Jordan, visited Miss Wilkinson on Monday, and found her depressed and anxious to return to China, where she spent some months in the war zone. Mr Jordan offered to help her to return to New Zealand.

Miss Iris Wilkinson, as “Robin Hyde,” achieved considerable success as a journalist and writer of poems, articles and novels. In January last year she left New Zealand with the intention of travelling via Shanghai, Kobe, Vladivostok, and the Trans-Si-berian railway to Russia and then to England. She eventually reached England by another route in November, but in the meantime spent an adventurous time in the fighting zone in China. With the aid of a passport from General Chiang Kai-Shek —the only one he ever issued to a foreign woman —she penetrated deep into the interior of China, where few European journalists had ever been. She travelled on troop trains and lorries, stayed in the soldiers’ camps for - a time and lived on soldiers’ rations, was bombed when they were bombed, and was in Hsuchow when it was captured by the Japanese. She then started on a 300-mile walk to safety, but fell into the hands of the Japanese, and. bruised and torn by thorns, and nearblinded, she was returned to Hsuchow. In attempting to make for safety a second time, Miss Wilkinson again fell into the hands of the Japanese, but they subsequently put her on a troop train going to Tsingtao, and on arrival there she was sent to the British Consulate. In the meantime considerable anxiety had been felt by her friends and relatives for her safety. She was in a sorry plight when she reached Tsingtao, but after a rest she recovered and went to London by way of Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Singapore, travelling in a Dutch liner. Her remarkable adventures in China are detailed in a book “Dragon Rampant” which has only just been published. Miss Wilkinson began her literary career- on the staff of “The Dominion” as a young woman in her ’teens. After a period of preliminary training she was given opportunity to develop her talents by writing sketches of Parliament from the women’s gallery under the pen-name of “Novitia.” Her “Peeps at Parliament” was an entertaining column which found an appreciative public. Her career was interrupted by ill-health. On resuming journalistic work she enlarged her experience on various New Zealand papers, including the Wanganui “Chronicle” and the Auckland “Observer.” She was on the staff of that journal when she decided to go to China. “Robin Hyde” had a number of successful publications to her name. “Journalese,” her first book, was published in New Zealand, and dealt with her wide journalistic experience in the Dominion. “Passport to hell,” “Check to Your King,” “Wednesday’s Children,” “Nor the Years Condemn,” and “The Godwits Fly,” were novels which followed. She herself published her first collection of verse and two other volumes, including “Persephone in Winter,” followed. Her contributions to magazines and various periodicals have been numerous. It was not only Britain and New Zealand who have recognised in “Robin Hyde” a poet and writer of unusual force; the same recognition has been accorded her by the United States. At the time of her death she was under contract to publish two more novels. Miss Wilkinson’s parents live in Wellington.