Mary Josephine " Maisie " Ward Sheed (4 January 1889 ? 28 January 1975), who published under the name Maisie Ward, was a writer, speaker, and publisher. In 1926 Maisie's brother Leo Ward was invited to be co-founder of the publishing house Sheed and Ward , but he proved ill-suited to the work. Maisie took his place when Leo left to become a priest. ^[1]

Early life [ edit ]

She was born in Shanklin on the Isle of Wight on 4 January 1889, the eldest of the five children of Wilfrid Philip Ward and the novelist Josephine Mary Hope-Scott Ward . On her mother's side she was descended from Henry Fitzalan-Howard, 14th Duke of Norfolk and on her father's side from William George Ward , a prominent member of the Oxford Movement . All four of her grandparents were converts to Roman Catholicism . ^[2]

She spent her childhood at first on the Isle of Wight, then Eastbourne , and finally in Dorking , before being sent off to board at St Mary's School, Cambridge . Here she was influenced by the preaching of Robert Hugh Benson and inspired by Mary Ward who had founded the order of nuns who ran the school. ^[2] She remembered preparing for confirmation in 1905, when she was 16, with Mother Mary Loyola's book The Soldier of Christ, or, Talks Before Confirmation (1900), and she then boarded for a time at the Bar Convent to study with her personally. ^[3]

Career [ edit ]

On leaving school, Maisie returned home to work for her father when he served as editor of the Dublin Review . ^[4] She worked for the Red Cross as a nursing aide during the First World War , alongside the Daughters of Charity and Sisters of Charity nurses. After her father's death in 1916 she co-edited with her mother a posthumous collection of his last lectures. ^[5]

In 1919, Ward became a charter member of the Catholic Evidence Guild . Ward was a forceful public lecturer. It was through the Guild that she met Frank Sheed . The couple have sometimes been cited as a modern Catholic example of street preaching . ^[6] They were married in 1926; that same year, they moved to London and founded Sheed and Ward publishing.

Ward gained fame for her authorized biography of friend G. K. Chesterton , written at the request of Chesterton's widow. ^[7] Ward also wrote biographies of John Henry Newman , her own father, and Robert Browning ; and on other areas, including New Testament scholarship, spirituality, and stories of saints and lesser notables, among them her good friend, the writer and mystic Caryll Houselander .

Maisie Ward died 28 January 1975 in Jersey City, New Jersey. Sheed wrote a posthumous tribute to his wife under the title The Instructed Heart . ^[8]

Family [ edit ]

Ward was the great-great-grandniece of Robert Plumer Ward , father of Sir Henry George Ward and grandfather of Dudley Ward ; the great-granddaughter of William Ward , and of Henry Fitzalan-Howard, 14th Duke of Norfolk and Augusta Mary Minna Catherine Lyons ; the granddaughter of William George Ward , and of James Hope-Scott and Lady Victoria Alexandrina Fitzalan-Howard ; the niece of James Hope, 1st Baron Rankeillour ; and the daughter of Wilfrid Philip Ward and the novelist Josephine Mary Hope-Scott Ward .

Maisie and Frank's son, Wilfrid Sheed was also a writer, ^[9] and their daughter, Rosemary Sheed was a translator. ^[10]

Works [ edit ]

• Catholic Evidence Training Outlines , ed., Benziger Bros., 1925.
• The Wilfrid Wards and the Transition , Sheed & Ward, 1934.
• Insurrection vs. Resurrection , Sheed & Ward, 1937.
• The Oxford Group , Sheed & Ward, 1937.
• Gilbert Keith Chesterton , Sheed & Ward, 1943.
• The Splendor of the Rosary , Sheed & Ward, 1945.
• Young Mr. Newman , Sheed & Ward, 1948.
• Return to Chesterton , Sheed & Ward, 1952.
• They Saw His Glory , Sheed & Ward, 1956.
• Early Church Portrait Gallery , Sheed & Ward, 1959.
• Saints Who Made History: The First Five Centuries , Sheed & Ward, 1960.
• Carryll Houselander: That Divine Eccentric , Sheed & Ward, 1962.
• Unfinished Business [autobiography] , Sheed & Ward, 1963.
• The Letters Of Caryll Houselander: Her Spiritual Legacy , ed., Sheed & Ward, 1965.
• Robert Browning and His World: His Private Face , Holt, 1967.
• The Tragi-Comedy of Pen Browning , Sheed & Ward, 1972.
• To and Fro on the Earth: A Sequel to an Autobiography , Sheed & Ward, 1973.

See also [ edit ]

• Catholic Evidence Guild

References [ edit ]

Further reading [ edit ]

• Frank Sheed, The Church and I , Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1974.
• Wilfrid Sheed, Frank and Maisie: A Memoir with Parents , New York: Simon & Schuster, 1985.
• Dana Greene, The Living of Maisie Ward . University of Notre Dame Press, 1997.
• Frank Sheed, The Instructed Heart: Soundings at Four Depths , Our Sunday Visitor, 1979.
• "Concealed With a Kiss," in Joseph Pearce, Literary Giants, Literary Catholics , Ignatius Press, 2005.

External links [ edit ]

• Works by Maisie Ward at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about Maisie Ward at Internet Archive
• Works by Maisie Ward at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
• Obit, New York Times