Harriette Smythies aka Mrs. Gordon Smythies born Harriet Maria Gordon, (1813–1883, aged 69), was an English novelist and poet. She was a prolific writer of
sensation novel
The sensation novel, also sensation fiction, was a literary genre of fiction that achieved peak popularity in Great Britain in between the early 1860s and mid to late 1890s,I. Ousby ed., ''The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English'' (1995) p. 8 ...
s, publishing 20 books between 1838 and 1875, some under the name "Mrs. Gordon Smythies".
Life
Smythies may have been born Harriet Maria Gordon in 1813 however there are other sources that suggest dates varying from 1809 to 1817. She was born to an aristocratic military family in
Margate, Kent. Her parents were Jane Gordon (née Halliday) and Edward Lesmoir Gordon, a
Sergeant-at-Arms
A serjeant-at-arms or sergeant-at-arms is an officer appointed by a deliberative body, usually a legislature, to keep order during its meetings. The word "serjeant" is derived from the Latin , which means "servant". Historically, serjeants-at-a ...
. Smythie had four siblings, including a sister
Jane who was a noted benefactor
and a brother, Edward, who was Sergeant-at-Arms at the
coronation of Queen Victoria
The coronation of Queen Victoria, Victoria as queen of the United Kingdom took place on Thursday, 28 June 1838, just over a year after she succeeded to the throne of the United Kingdom at the age of 18. The ceremony was held in Westminster Abbey ...
in 1838.
Smythies married Reverend William Yorick Smythies (1816-1910).
Smythies's works were published primarily by
Richard Bentley
Richard Bentley FRS (; 27 January 1662 – 14 July 1742) was an English classical scholar, critic, and theologian. Considered the "founder of historical philology", Bentley is widely credited with establishing the English school of Hellenis ...
,
Thomas Cautley Newby
Thomas Cautley Newby (1797/1798 – 1882) was an England, English publisher and printer based in London.
Newby published ''Wuthering Heights'' by Emily Brontë and both Anne Brontë's novels, ''Agnes Grey'' and ''The Tenant of Wildfell Hall'' ...
, and
Hurst and Blackett
Hurst and Blackett was a publisher founded in 1852 by Henry Blackett (26 May 1825 – 7 March 1871), the grandson of a London shipbuilder, and Daniel William Stow Hurst (17 February 1802 – 6 July 1870). Shortly after the formation of their partn ...
,
sometimes under the name "Mrs. Gordon Smythies." Many of her novels involve themes of love and marriage.
In 1871 her sister Jane Weld died leaving a large fortune to charity and small annuities to their mother and their sister Elizabeth Matilda Gordon. Her mother and sister tried unsuccessfully to appeal the will. Harriette was suing her husband for separation since he had left her and their parish behind. Her husband used the court case about her sister's will to establish a motive for her request for the marriage to be separated. This caused her to abandon the case and she remained actually but not legally separated from her husband until she died in 1883. Her only child was the barrister William Gordon Smythies who also became a writer.
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]
Bibliography
Poetry
* ''The Bride of Siena'' (poem, 1835)
Novels
* ''Fitzherbert: or, Lovers and Fortune-Hunters'' (1838)
* ''Cousin Geoffrey: The Old Bachelor, A Novel'' (1840)
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Smythies, Harriette
1813 births
1883 deaths
People from Margate
Victorian women writers
19th-century English women writers
19th-century English novelists
Victorian novelists
Victorian poets
Writers from Kent
19th-century English poets
English women poets
English women novelists
Sensation novelists