Humphreys, Eliza M. Y. (Mrs. W. Desmond) (d. 1938)

Popular British novelist and Spiritualist who wrote under the pseudonym Rita. She was a daughter of John Gilbert Gollan of Inverness-shire, Scotland. She was educated in Sydney, Australia, later returning to England. She was married twice; her second husband was W. Desmond Humphreys of Ballin, county Cork, Ireland.

She began writing at an early age and during her lifetime published more than 60 popular novels as well as several non-fiction works, including her own autobiographical Recollections of a Literary Life (1936). She was a convinced Spiritualist and in her book The Truth of Spiritualism (1918) she states that her interest began in her girlhood, "when, owing to my father's interest in the subject, we used to try for communications sitting at a table with joined hands in dim light, and received messages by means of the alphabet and raps … and my father used to keep a written record of communications." She died January 1, 1938.

Rita (cosmic order): see ṚTA(M).

"Rita"

Pseudonym of British novelist and Spiritualist Eliza M. Y. Humphreys, who died in 1938.