Eliza Davis

Who is Eliza Davis?

Eliza Davis Aria was an English fashion writer and gossip columnist known as "Mrs Aria". She was the editor of a fashion magazine titled The World of Dress, author of books on costume and motoring, and a society hostess. She was also the long-time lover of Henry Irving, from the 1890s until his death in 1905.

Among her seven siblings was the novelist and art historian Julia Frankau and their eldest brother James was racing correspondent, theatre critic and librettist Owen Hall; "While James was still living at home, he brought to the house literary and theatrical figures, including Oscar and Willie Wilde, who would play tennis in a nearby public garden with Julia and Eliza." Another sister, Florette Collins, published one novel, The Luddingtons, about which Mrs Aria had this to say: "'You are the beauty of the family,' we advised her, and she accepted the verdict as condemning the volume to solitude." Her nephew Gilbert Frankau became a journalist and novelist, and Gilbert's younger brother Ronald Frankau went onto the stage.

Mrs Aria's literary and artistic salon included H. G. Wells, Isidore de Lara, and C. R. W. Nevinson who painted a view of Fitzroy Square from the window of her flat. Gilbert Frankau's novelist daughter Pamela recalled that Mrs Aria "was the friend of such gods as George Moore, Ivor Novello, Michael Arlen, Sybil Thorndike and Rebecca West. She sent her great-nieces a collection of autographs that looked like the Milky Way." Mrs Aria's sister Julia Frankau "was wont to say, 'Unless Eliza receives each morning four letters from leading actresses which commence "Dearest" she looks unhappy.'" "All celebrated people," commented Pamela Frankau, "were called 'Darling' by Aunt Eliza, and in her presence at least greeted one another by the same title. So much so that, leaving Buckingham Gate on one occasion, the copywriter said to a taxi-driver during controversy, 'I did hail you first, darling.'"