Anne Elliot (novelist)
Anne Elliot (1856–1941)[1] was an English writer. Elliot's novels "show women in roles usually occupied by men."[2]
Biography[edit]
Anne was born in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1856 to Henry Elliot, a surgeon, and his wife Ann (sic). Anne and her elder sister Emma Elliott (1850–1927) were educated at home. They ran a private school at Jesmond (now a suburb of Newcastle) in the late 1870s and both later held posts as governesses. They turned to novel writing some time in the 1880s.[1] Emma wrote five novels over a twelve-year period, writing as Margery Hollis.[3][2]
Thereafter the Elliot sisters seem to have shared accommodation at boarding houses on the English coast and in the London suburbs.[2] By 1901, they were living together in the seaside village of Burnham Sutton, Norfolk.[1]
Neither Anne Elliot nor her sister ever married. Little is known of their personal lives. She died in 1941 and her sister at Burnham Sutton in 1927.
Career[edit]
Anne Elliot's first novel of a dozen, Dr. Edith Romney (1883), centres on a female general practitioner in a country town. Margery Hollis's first, Anthony Fairfax, appeared two years later. Evelyn's Career (1891) presents "another strong-minded heroine" amid realistic scenes of London poverty. The heroine of A Woman Takes the Helm (1892) takes over the running of her father's dye works.[2]
A critic in the 1990s concluded that "AE's novels are long and her plots over-complicated, but her writing is not without talent."[2] They were taken by two well-known London publishers. The full list:[1]
- Dr. Edith Romney: A Novel. 3 vols, Bentley, 1883. Reprinted as a British Library Historical Print Edition, 2011
- My Wife's Niece. 3 vols, Bentley, 1885
- An Old Man's Favour. 3 vols, Bentley, 1887
- Her Own Counsel: A Novel. 3 vols, Bentley, 1889. Reprinted as a British Library Historical Print Edition, 2011
- Evelyn's Career: A Novel. 3 vols, Bentley, 1891
- A Woman at the Helm. 3 vols, Hurst and Blackett, 1892
- The Winning of May. 3 vols, Hurst and Blackett, 1893
- A Family Arrangement. 3 vols, Bentley, 1894
- Michael Daunt: A Novel. 3 vols, Hurst and Blackett, 1895
- Lord Harborough: A Novel. 3 vols, Hurst and Blackett, 1896
- Where the Reeds Wave: A Story. 2 vols, Bentley, 1897
- A Martial Maid. 1 vol., Hurst and Blackett, 1900
- Mansell's Millions, 1 vol., Hurst and Blackett, 1903[4]
Non-fiction:
- The Memoirs of Mimosa. Stanley Paul & Co., 1912[5]
References[edit]
- ^ a b c d Victorian Research Retrieved 14 May 2018.
- ^ a b c d e Virginia Blain, Patricia Clements and Isobel Grundy: The Feminist Companion to Literature in English. Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present Day (London: Batsford, 1990), p. 336.
- ^ A list of titles appears in Victorian Research Retrieved 14 May 2018.
- ^ "Review of Mansell's Millions by Anne Elliot". The Athenaeum (3946): 750. 13 June 1903.
- ^ British Library Retrieved 14 May 2018.
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