Mary, Lady MacCarthy (August 1882 – 29 December 1953) was a British writer; known for her involvement in the "Bloomsbury Group", and commonly called Molly.^[1]

She was bornMary Josepha Warre-Cornish in Lynton, Devon; the daughter of schoolmaster and man of lettersFrancis Warre Warre-Cornish by his wife,Blanche.^[2]

In 1906 she married the literary critic SirDesmond MacCarthy, with whom she had two sons, Michael and Dermod, and a daughter, Rachel (later Lady David Cecil).

Though prevented by progressive hearing-loss from full participation in group conversation, she was active in the Bloomsbury group, as demonstrated by her formation of its Memoir group and Novel group, and by coining the term "Bloomsberries" to describe its members.

Her sister Cecilia marriedWilliam Wordsworth Fisher later Admiral. Her daughter Rachel married the biographerDavid Cecil.

She died at Hampton, Middlesex, of heart failure, and is buried at theParish of the Ascension Burial Ground in Cambridge, with her husband.

• A Pier and a Band (1918)
• A Nineteenth Century Childhood (1924)
• Fighting Fitzgerald and Other Papers (1930)
• Handicaps: Six Studies (1936)
• The Festival, Etc. (1937)

• The Bloomsbury Group: A Collection of Memoirs and Commentary, ed. S. P. Rosenbaum (University of Toronto Press, revised edition, 1995).
• Clever Hearts: Desmond and Molly MacCarthy: A Biography, by Hugh and Mirabel Cecil (Gollancz, 1990).

• 1882 births
• 1953 deaths
• Bloomsbury Group
• English women novelists
• 20th-century English women writers
• 20th-century English novelists
• Wives of knights

• Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the ODNB
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use British English from August 2011
• Use dmy dates from August 2018