Anne Elliot (1856–1941)Victorian Researc Retrieved 14 May 2018. /ref> was an English writer. Elliot's novels "show women in roles usually occupied by men."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.
Biography
Anne was born in
Newcastle upon Tyne
Newcastle upon Tyne, or simply Newcastle ( , Received Pronunciation, RP: ), is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. It is England's northernmost metropolitan borough, located o ...
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
Jesmond ( ) is a suburb of Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear, England, situated north of the city centre and to the east of the Town Moor. Jesmond is considered to be one of the most affluent suburbs of Newcastle upon Tyne, with higher aver ...
(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. Emma wrote five novels over a twelve-year period, writing as Margery Hollis.
Thereafter the Elliot sisters seem to have shared accommodation at boarding houses on the English coast and in the London suburbs. By 1901, they were living together in the seaside village of Burnham Sutton,
Norfolk
Norfolk ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in England, located in East Anglia and officially part of the East of England region. It borders Lincolnshire and The Wash to the north-west, the North Sea to the north and eas ...
.
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
Anne Elliot's first novel of thirteen, ''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.
A critic in the 1990s concluded that "AE's novels are long and her plots over-complicated, but her writing is not without talent." They were taken by two well-known London publishers. The full list:
*''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
Non-fiction:
*''The Memoirs of Mimosa''. Stanley Paul & Co., 1912Note that due to the disreputable content of these "Memoirs," the "Anne Elliot" who "edited" it is likely to be a completely different author.