Story: Suicide

Robin Hyde

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
Watercolour 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, http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/artwork/26433/robin-hyde (accessed 20 April 2024)

Story by Jock Phillips, published 5 May 2011, reviewed & revised 16 Jul 2019 with assistance from Sunny Collings and Rosemary Du Plessis