Anne Elliot (novelist)

Anne Elliot (1856–1941)[1] was an English writer of novels which often "show women in roles usually occupied by men." Her elder sister Emma Elliott (1850–1927) was also a novelist, writing as Margery Hollis.[2]

Background

Relatively little is known of the Elliots' personal lives.

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 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]

Thereafter the Elliot sisters seem to have cohabited at various 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] They both remained single.

Anne Elliot died at Burnham Sutton in 1941. Her sister had died there in 1927.

Novels

Anne Elliot's first novel of a dozen, Dr. Edith Romney (1883), has as its protagonist 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 brought out 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

Non-fiction:

  • The Memoirs of Mimosa. Stanley Paul & Co., 1912[3]

"Margery Hollis" wrote five novels over a twelve-year period.[4]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Victorian Research Retrieved 14 May 2018.
  2. 1 2 3 4 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.
  3. ↑ British Library Retrieved 14 May 2018.
  4. ↑ A list of titles appears in Victorian Research Retrieved 14 May 2018.
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