Life
1854-1943 [var. 1862] [pseud. of Frances Elizabeth (Bellenden) McFall,
née Clarke]; b. Donaghadee, Co. Down; of English parents, her f.
a RN lieutenant; sent to English boarding school at 14; eloped with thirty-nine
year-old naval surgeon at sixteen; separated after publication of first
novel and moved to London with child; gives sharp picture of shabby gentility
in The Beth Book: A study in the Life of a Woman of Genius (1897),
novel, sold 20,000 copies in first week; m. at 16 Lt-Col. David McFall,
an army surgeon who modelled for Dan Maclure in The Beth Book;
lived with him in Hong Kong and Far East, Norwich and Warrington (d. 1898,
yrs. after separation); Ideala (1888), a preachy novel, afforded
her enough to separate; The Heavenly Twins (1893) made her reputation,
featuring syphilis; refused by George Meredith for Chapman and Hall, but
taken nervously by Blackwood’s, it sold 20,000 and was reprinted
6 times in the year; another polemical novels are A Domestic Experiment
(1891), a story of justified adultery; The Winged Victory (1916).
President of Nat. Union of Suffrage Soc. at Tunbridge Wells; moved to
Bath in 1920, and mayoress on 6 occasions. BL 11. DNB SUTH NCBE KUN
DUB OCIL
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Works
Sarah Grand, Our Manifold Nature (1894), short stories, and rep.
n.d.; The Beth Book being &c [as below] rep. 1st ed., with
intro by Elaine Showalter (Virago 1980), xv, 527pp.; also Sarah Grand,
The Heavenly Twins (1st pub. 1893; Michigan UP 1993), 679pp. COMM,
Elaine Showalter, A Literature of their Own (1984); also essay
on The Beth Book by Tereda Mangum, in Nikki Lee Manos and Meri-Jane Rochelson,
eds., Transforming Genres, New Approaches to British Fction of the
1890s (Macmillan 1995)
The Beth Book, Virago reprint, introduced by Elaine Showalter (London: Virago Press 1980), ‘sustained critiques of such issues as marriage, the education of girls, the physical and scoial degradation of women, the rights of women to work, and the possible restructuring of society’; uses stream of consciousness technique.
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British Library holds Adnan’s Orchard, a Prologue (Heinemann 1912), 640pp.; Babs the Impossible (London: Hutchinson 1901); The Beth Book (London: Heinemann [1897]); another ed. (Toronto: Morang 1897); A Domestic Experiment (1891) [SEE Experiment]; Emotional Moments (London: Hurst and Blackett 1906); The Heavenly Twins, 3 vols. (London: Heinemann 1893); another ed. [Sixpenny Editions] (London: Hodder & Stoughton 1901, 912), 244pp.; 6d ed.; The Heavenly Twins [4th thousand] (London 1893); De Hemelsche Tweelingen, 3 vols. (Haarlem 1895); The Human Quest, being some thoughts in contribution to the subject of the art of happiness (Heinemann 1900); Ideals, A Study from Life [issued anonymously] (1889, 1893); The Modern Man and Maid [10th thousand] (London: Horace Marshall & Son 1898); Our Manifold Nature (Heinemann 1894), viii, 271pp, stories; Singularly Deluded (London: [Heinemann] 1893), novel; Variety [Tales] (Heinemann 1922), 221pp.; The Winged Victory (Heinemann 1916), x, 655pp.; also Bartholomew, As They Were, pref. Grand [1908]; see Matilde B. B. Edwards, Mid Victorian Memories ... with a personal sketch by Mrs Sarah Grand (1919); see Ernst Foerster, Die Frauenfrage in den Romanen englische Schofstellerinnen[?] der Gegenwart [incl. Sarah Grand, &c.] (1907).[END]
John Sutherland, The Longman Companion to Victorian Fiction, (Harlow: Longmans 1988); most interesting of novelists engaging with the political issues of the new woman; The Heavenly Twins (1893), loosely connected exemplary tales of marriage; Evadne Frayling marries Colonel George Colquhoun, who has a disreputable past; her parents demand she gives in to convention, but she rebels; she married the Dr. Galabriath who treats her after her attempted suicide. Eithe Beale, a bishop’s dg., marres Sir Mosley Menteith, who has syphilis; delivers a syphilitic child, and dies. Angelica Hamilton-Wells is twin to the boy Diavolo; marrying, she makes up for the inequality of their upbringing by dressing as a man; cultivates the friendship of a singer, who saves her from drowning; at his death she returns to her husband. Sold 40,000 [but see 20,000, above] in weeks probably due to frank treatment of syphilis theme. SEE Sutherland, ‘New Woman Fiction’ [Victorian Fiction, p.460), in which she is associated with Egerton and IOTA (Kathleen Caffyn), as one of the leading exponents of the genre.
University of Ulster Library holds Gillian Kersley, Darling Madame, Sarah Grand and Devoted Friend (Virago 1983). See Territories of the Voice, ed. with pref., Louise de Salvo, et al., (Virago 1990)
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)