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Story: Suicide

Robin Hyde

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Robin Hyde

Iris Wilkinson, better known by her pen name Robin Hyde, was a very distinguished New Zealand journalist and writer. In August 1939, in her attic room in Kensington, London, she poisoned herself at the age of 33. Her death came after more than a decade of depression. She had spent four years in Auckland Mental Hospital as a voluntary patient, where she battled her mental illness to produce three novels and two collections of poetry. Robin Hyde, like many people who have killed themselves, struggled with depression.

Using this item

Alexander Turnbull Library

Reference: A-358-038

by Iris Guiver Wilkinson

Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.

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How to cite this page

Jock Phillips, Suicide – Personal factors and suicide, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/artwork/26433/robin-hyde (accessed 4 June 2026).

Story by Jock Phillips, published 31 March 2011, reviewed and revised 16 July 2019 with assistance from Rosemary Du Plessis.