Bertha Jane Grundy

Bertha Jane Grundy was an English novelist born at Moss-side, Lancashire on 24 August 1837, who died on 5 September 1912. She also wrote as Mrs. Leith Adams and Mrs. R. S. de Courcey Laffan.[1]

Family

Bertha Jane was the eldest daughter of Frederick Grundy, solicitor, and Jane, née Beardoe. She was first married on 26 October 1859 to Andrew Leith Adams and moved with him to Malta, where the older of her two sons, Francis Adams, was born.

Nine years after Adams's death in 1882 she married Rev. Robert Stuart de Courcy Laffan, who was Headmaster of King Edward VI School, Stratford-upon-Avon in 1885–95, Principal of Cheltenham College, Cheltenham in 1895–99, and Rector of St Stephen Walbrook, London (1899–1927). Both her sons died young, in 1892 and 1893.[2]

Work

Grundy's first publication, a short story entitled "Keane Malcombe's Pupil", appeared in 1876 in All the Year Round,[2] where she was on the staff from 1895. Her most successful work was Geoffrey Stirling (1883), "which described a wife's revenge on the man who killed her husband."[3] She turned later to poetry, drama and lectures.[2]

Bibliography

  • Nancy's Work, 1876
  • Winstowe, 3 vols, 1877
  • Madelon Lemoine, 3 vols, 1879
  • My Land Of Beulah, 3 vols, 1880
  • Aunt Hepsy's Foundling, 3 vols., 1881
  • Cosmo Gordon, 3 vols, 1882
  • Expiated, 1882
  • Lady Deane, 1882
  • Geoffrey Stirling, 3 vols, 1883
  • My Brother Sol, 3 vols, 1883
  • A Song Of Jubilee, 1887
  • "Mathilde", a short story in All the Year Round, third series, summer extra, 1889
  • Louis Draycott, 1890; serialised in All the Year Round, third series, vols 1 and 2, 1889
  • Bonnie Kate, 1891
  • The Peyton Romance, 1892
  • A Garrison Romance, 1892
  • The Cruise Of 'The Tomahawk', 1892
  • Colour Sergeant, No 1 Company, 2 vols, 1894
  • The Old Pastures, 1895
  • The Prince's Feathers, 1899
  • Accessory After The Fact, 1899
  • Cruel Calumny, 1901
  • The Dream Of Her Life, 1902
  • What Hector Had To Say, 1902
  • The Vicar Of Dale End, 1906
  • Poems, 1907
  • Dreams Made Verity, 1910
  • The Story Of The Brotherhood Of Hero Dogs, 1910
  • A Book Of Short Plays And A Memory, 1912

References

  1. ↑ ALA Internet Archive Retrieved 5 April 2018.
  2. 1 2 3 Ellen Miller Casey: "Adams [née Grundy; other married name de Courcy Laffan], Bertha Jane Leith", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, UK, OUP), 2004 Retrieved 5 April 2018. Pay-walled.
  3. ↑ Jarndyce Booksellers' catalogue Women Writers 1795–1927 Part I: A–F (London, Summer 2017).
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