Ellen Wood

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Standard Name: Wood, Ellen
Birth Name: Ellen Price
Married Name: Mrs Henry Wood
Pseudonym: Johnny Ludlow
Pseudonym: Ensign Thomas Pepper
In a writing career spanning most of the second half of the nineteenth century, EW produced a prodigious body of work (often writing two triple-deckers per year), including sketches, novels, and a series of interconnected Johnny Ludlow tales involving a character of that name, that were published over a twenty-year period. While much of her fiction takes the form of moralistic domestic dramas, EW could also be fascinated by the grotesque, and many of her works have sensational and supernatural themes. Her reputation today rests almost exclusively on the phenomenally popular East Lynne, 1861, possibly the best seller among novels of the Victorian period and the only one of her works that has remained generally available.

Connections

Connections Author name Sort descending Excerpt
Intertextuality and Influence Rose Allatini
But the manuscript never reaches a publisher, for Olive gives it to her mother, aunt, and sister to read, with fearful results. To her aunt it is indecent and impossible; to her mother it is...
Intertextuality and Influence Anna Atkins
Though AA 's preface concedes the the talent, the ingenuity, the very clever writing of sensation-authors,
Atkins, Anna. A Page from the Peerage. T. Cautley Newby.
i
it also hints that they are in it for the money, and expresses outrage at what it sees...
Wealth and Poverty Mary Elizabeth Braddon
She left a remarkably large estate for a Victorian woman writer. Despite the high style in which she lived, she was reportedly able from early in her career to save her literary earnings, since money...
Literary responses Mary Elizabeth Braddon
In 1951 Canadian novelist Robertson Davies made this book the centre of a fictional anecdote: a distinguished professor bequeaths to his grand-daughter a box of battered old books (Lady Audley's Secret, Mrs Henry Wood
Textual Features Mary Elizabeth Braddon
Critic Robert Lee Wolff sees MEB in her novels of the 1870s as satirizing the hypocrisy of middle-class Low-church values while seeming to espouse them,
Wolff, Robert Lee. Sensational Victorian. Garland.
241
in part because she was trying to compete with...
Textual Features Charlotte Mary Brame
With its presentation of Vivian as both sinful and saintly, Beyond Pardon gives CMB scope for comment on social attitudes to woman and propriety. When Vivian leaves England with Lord Rydal, the scandal is viewed...
Wealth and Poverty Rhoda Broughton
RB , who published almost exclusively with Bentley throughout her career, preferred to receive a lump sum for her novels rather than to rely on royalites and copyright earnings. In her reminiscence Ethel Arnold suggests...
Friends, Associates Rosa Nouchette Carey
After Blind , Carey counted among her friends the novelist Ellen Wood . Her life seems to have been quite retired, and centred on her family. From about 1875 she lived with another friend, a...
Reception Rosa Nouchette Carey
The Athenæum was lavish with faint praise. It likened Only the Governess to a tranquil backwater out of the main current of the turbid stream of modern fiction.
Athenæum. J. Lection.
3151 (1888): 337
Praising Carey for not...
Literary responses Rosa Nouchette Carey
Elaine Hartnell argues that the reception of RNC 's work was tied somewhat to its modes and places of publication, notably her serialisation in journals edited by Ellen Wood , Charlotte Yonge , and Annie S. Swan
Textual Features Charlotte Chanter
Critic John Sutherland discerns the influence of Wilkie Collins on the novel's plot. Certainly the figure of the mysterious woman in black who aims to avenge herself on her husband's destroyers recalls the description of...
Reception Wilkie Collins
The Woman in White, along with Ellen Wood 's East Lynne,1861, and Mary Elizabeth Braddon 's Lady Audley's Secret, 1862, established the massive popularity of the sensation novel, a genre marked by...
Textual Production Isa Craig
Its inaugural issues included several signed articles by her. She also enlisted contributions from Bessie Rayner Parkes , including an article she had previously published in the English Woman's Journal. IC also arranged for...
Textual Production May Crommelin
MC was a regular contributor to The Idler.
“May Crommelin (Maria Henriette de la Cherois-Crommelin) (1849 - 1930)”. Crommelin Family, The Netherlands.
On 30 January 1895 (as Over the Andes, from Argentine to Chile and Peru began the serialization that ran all year) she contributed A Water Horse...
Textual Production Victoria Cross
In 1915 films of VC 's novels Five Nights and Paula were produced in Britain. Cross stated that she had prepared and practically produced
“Dictionary of Literary Biography online”. Gale Databases: Literature Resource Center-LRC.
197
the former, although Charlotte Mitchell notes that the records do...

Timeline

1823: William Huskisson, as MP for Liverpool and...

Building item

1823

William Huskisson , as MP for Liverpool and President of the Board of Trade , secured the equalization of customs duties in Britain and Ireland, a big step on the road towards free trade.

4 November 1836: Richard Bentley (1794-1871) signed an agreement...

Writing climate item

4 November 1836

Richard Bentley (1794-1871) signed an agreement with Dickens to edit his new monthly periodical, Bentley's Miscellany.

April 1863: Henry Mansel in the Quarterly Review attacked...

Writing climate item

April 1863

Henry Mansel in the Quarterly Review attacked sensation novels as preaching to the nerves and as indications of a wide-spread corruption, of which they are in part both the effect and the cause; called into...

December 1865: Alexander Strahan launched The Argosy, a...

Writing climate item

December 1865

Alexander Strahan launched The Argosy, a monthly literary and travel magazine, with Isa Craig as its first editor, and Charles Reade 's Griffith Gaunt as its lead serial.

December 1868: With sales of the once-popular Bentley's...

Writing climate item

December 1868

With sales of the once-popular Bentley's Miscellany at an all-time low, the owner, Richard Bentley , ended its publication.

1874: Mary Cecil Hay published Old Myddleton's...

Women writers item

1874

Mary Cecil Hay published Old Myddleton's Money, an early detective story combining sensation fiction with small-town satire.

1898: The publishing firm of Richard Bentley and...

Writing climate item

1898

The publishing firm of Richard Bentley and Son , dating from 1 September 1832, was sold for eight thousand pounds to Macmillan .

1920: The number of Miners' Institutes (which included...

Writing climate item

1920

The number of Miners' Institutes (which included Miners' Libraries ) increased following the decision regularly to supplement the levy financing them from the national Miners' Welfare Fund .

Texts

Wood, Ellen. A Life’s Secret. Charles W. Wood, 1867.
Palmer, T. A., and Ellen Wood. “Appendix J: Extracts from T. A. Palmer’s adaptation of <span data-tei-ns-tag="tei_title" data-tei-title-lvl=‘m’>East Lynne</span&gt”;. East Lynne, edited by Andrew Maunder and Andrew Maunder, Broadview, 2000, pp. 741-76.
Wood, Ellen. Ashley, and Other Stories. R. Bentley and Sons, 1897.
Wood, Ellen. Danesbury House. Scottish Temperance League, 1860.
Wood, Ellen. East Lynne. R. Bentley, 1861.
Wood, Ellen. Edina. R. Bentley, 1876.
Wood, Ellen. Edina. R. Bentley and Son, 1889.
Wood, Ellen. Elster’s Folly. Tinsley Brothers, 1866.
Wood, Ellen. “Introduction”. East Lynne, edited by Andrew Maunder, Broadview, 2000, pp. 9-38.
Wood, Ellen. Johnny Ludlow. R. Bentley, 1874.
Wood, Ellen. Johnny Ludlow, Second Series. R. Bentley and Son, 1889.
Wood, Ellen. Lady Grace, and Other Stories. R. Bentley and Son, 1887.
Wood, Ellen. Mildred Arkell. Tinsley, 1865.
Wood, Ellen. Mrs. Halliburton’s Troubles. R. Bentley, 1862.
Wood, Ellen. Roland Yorke. R. Bentley, 1869.
Wood, Ellen. “Seven Years in the Wedded Life of a Roman Catholic”. The New Monthly Magazine, Vol.
91
, pp. 245-55.
Wood, Ellen. St. Martin’s Eve. Tinsley, 1866.
Craig, Isa et al., editors. The Argosy. R. Bentley and Son.
Wood, Ellen. The Channings. Ward, Lock.
Wood, Ellen. The Channings. R. Bentley, 1862.
Wood, Ellen. The Shadow of Ashlydyat. R. Bentley, 1863.
Wood, Ellen. Verner’s Pride. B. Tauchnitz, 1863.