Mary Augusta Ward

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Standard Name: Ward, Mary Augusta
Birth Name: Mary Augusta Arnold
Married Name: Mary Augusta Ward
Pseudonym: Mrs Humphry Ward
Best known for her influential loss-of-faith novel Robert Elsmere, MAW was among the more prolific and popular novelists of the later Victorian and Edwardian periods. Her fifty-year career spanned an era of enormous transformation. During it she produced twenty-five novels, an autobiography, journalism (including reviews and literary criticism), a children's book, a translation, and several works of war propaganda. Her more serious earlier works were weighty novels of ideas in the tradition of George Eliot , which seek to chart the complex relationships among character, intellect, religion, and morality. Her work insistently takes up what she sees as the pressing social issues of her day, shifting in the early twentieth century to briefer works on a much wider geographical canvas and then taking up the war effort in both fiction and prose. It displays an abiding interest in the social, intellectual, and sexual relations between men and women. The education and occupations of women are recurrent themes, and Oxford with its intellectual ferment a common setting. Although MAW 's nationalism, imperialism, and anti-suffrage stance cast her as conservative to recent readers, she was a reformer, in her earlier years a democrat, and an acute analyst of gender who believed strongly in the currents of progress and the transformative power of texts.

Connections

Connections Sort descending Author name Excerpt
Education Enid Bagnold
This small, progressive school, which emphasized the study of art, literature, and theatre, was founded and headed by Julia (Mrs Leonard) Huxley , mother of Aldous Huxley and sister of the novelist Mary Augusta Ward
Education Catherine Carswell
After her discovery of literature, CC 's early reading included many pious books: Bunyan 's Pilgrim's Progress, Foxe 's Book of Martyrs, and Lives of the Saints. She also read widely in...
Family and Intimate relationships Aldous Huxley
The novelist Mary Augusta Ward , who was godmother as well as aunt to Aldous (he was named after the hero of her Marcella, published three months before his birth), became even more important...
Family and Intimate relationships Walter Pater
WP was particularly close to his unmarried sisters. Both women were accomplished in their own right. The elder sister, Hester , became known as a talented embroiderer and friend to Mary Augusta Ward and Virginia Woolf
Family and Intimate relationships Matthew Arnold
Mary Augusta Ward was MA 's niece; she strongly revered him although they had little contact on literary matters.
Mitchell, Sally, editor. Victorian Britain: An Encyclopedia. Garland Press.
843
Fictionalization Lady Caroline Lamb
The other great love of her life, her husband, was equally productive for fictionalized versions of her character and doings. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography cites among novels dealing with her marriage Thomas Lister
Friends, Associates Maude Royden
At Alderly, MR met novelist and anti-suffragist Mrs Humphry Ward , who attended Alderly Church and who admired Shaw. She was later to disagree publicly with Ward over the latter's anti-suffragism. Another friend, Constance Todd Coltman
Friends, Associates Mary Elizabeth Braddon
The Maxwells had frequent house guests and entertained regularly at both their houses. Later friends and acquaintances included Robert Browning , Mary Cholmondeley , Sir Arthur Conan Doyle , Ford Madox Ford , Thomas Hardy
Friends, Associates Freya Stark
Through her association with Jeyes, FS met such literary figures as H. G. Wells and W. B. Yeats . She also campaigned for the Anti-Suffrage League and met key figures in the group, including its...
Friends, Associates Annie S. Swan
She also mentions a great many literary names. Among women writers whom she calls the stars of her generation were Mary Augusta Ward , Lucas Malet , Lucy Clifford , Sarah Grand , Violet Hunt
Friends, Associates Henry James
HJ 's circle of acquaintance in the world of letters and the theatre was very wide. As well as men of letters such as Edmund Gosse , it included a great many women writers, among...
Friends, Associates Susan Tweedsmuir
ST 's parents made connections through friendship as remarkable as those made for them by family descent. Her mother was a friend of many writers and intellectuals of both sexes, including Marie Belloc Lowndes ,...
Friends, Associates Walter Pater
From his time at BrasenoseWP knew Oscar Browning . In Oxford and London he socialized with Edmund Gosse , Algernon Charles Swinburne , Simeon Solomon , Oscar Wilde , Vernon Lee , A. Mary F. Robinson
Friends, Associates Emily Lawless
Lawless made a number of other friends, acquaintances, and admirers through her writing, including Margaret Oliphant , an early friend and critic, Rhoda Broughton , George Meredith , Aubrey de Vere , Mary Augusta Ward
Friends, Associates Anne Thackeray Ritchie
ATR wrote to Charlotte Yonge a few years later, lamenting: oh! what a pity it is that we are all growing old who have had such happy happy times with one another.
Ritchie, Anne Thackeray. Anne Thackeray Ritchie: Journals and Letters. Editors Bloom, Abigail Burnham and John Maynard, Ohio State University Press.
242
She uttered...

Timeline

1832: Joseph Henry Parker took over his uncle's...

Writing climate item

1832

Joseph Henry Parker took over his uncle's Oxford bookselling and publishing business; as J. H. Parker it soon became the foremost publisher of the Oxford or Tractarian Movement.

November 1860: Thomas Hill Green became one of the first...

Building item

November 1860

Thomas Hill Green became one of the first laymen to hold a fellowship at Balliol College .

9 August 1870: The Education Act established a national...

National or international item

9 August 1870

The Education Act established a national elementary education system governed by local school boards, to which women could be elected.

December 1874: French actress Sarah Bernhardt was in the...

Building item

December 1874

French actress Sarah Bernhardt was in the first full tide of her success
Ward, Mary Augusta. A Writer’s Recollections. Harper and Brothers.
157
in Paris.

1880: Thomas Humphry Ward published with Macmillan...

Writing climate item

1880

Thomas Humphry Ward published with Macmillan a highly successful four-volume anthology, The English Poets.

December 1882: Henri-Frédéric Amiel's Fragments d'un Journal...

Writing climate item

December 1882

Henri-Frédéric Amiel 's Fragments d'un Journal Intime was posthumously published in Geneva.

7 November 1885: The last spike of the Canadian Pacific Railway...

National or international item

7 November 1885

The last spike of the Canadian Pacific Railway was driven in Eagle Pass, British Columbia, completing the transcontinental railway.

March 1887: Following his appointment as Chief Secretary,...

National or international item

March 1887

Following his appointment as Chief Secretary, Arthur Balfour undertook a policy towards Ireland popularly characterized as killing Home Rule with kindness.

June 1889: Nineteenth Century published An Appeal against...

Building item

June 1889

Nineteenth Century published An Appeal against Female Suffrage by Mary Augusta Ward , signed by 103 other women.

July 1889: Women's Suffrage: A Reply appeared in the...

Building item

July 1889

Women's Suffrage: A Reply appeared in the Fortnightly Review to counter Mary Augusta Ward 's Appeal Against Female Suffrage in the previous month's Nineteenth Century.

1 July 1891: The International Copyright Act, known as...

Writing climate item

1 July 1891

The International Copyright Act, known as the Chace Act, came into force in the United States to protect the copyrights of foreign authors and end the longstanding practice of producing pirated editions of popular British...

1 July 1891: The International Copyright Act, known as...

Writing climate item

1 July 1891

The International Copyright Act, known as the Chace Act, came into force in the United States to protect the copyrights of foreign authors and end the longstanding practice of producing pirated editions of popular British...

November 1896: The Publishers Council objected to series...

Writing climate item

November 1896

The Publishers Council objected to series such as Popular New Novels, The Masterpiece Library, and the Review of Reviews, all of which published abridgements of popular novels and were edited by W. T. Stead .

1899: Josephine Ward published One Poor Scruple:...

Women writers item

1899

Josephine Ward published One Poor Scruple: A Seven Weeks' Story.

11 September 1905: The Times Book Club opened at 93 New Bond...

Writing climate item

11 September 1905

The Times Book Club opened at 93 New Bond Street, London, and quickly ran afoul of the Net Book Agreement.

Texts

Ward, Mary Augusta. ’Missing’. W. Collins, 1917.
Ward, Mary Augusta. A Writer’s Recollections. Harper and Brothers, 1918.
Ward, Mary Augusta. A Writer’s Recollections. W. Collins, 1918.
Amiel, Henri-Frédéric. Amiel’s Journal. Translator Ward, Mary Augusta, Brentano’s, 1928.
Ward, Mary Augusta. “An Appeal Against Female Suffrage”. Nineteenth Century, Vol.
25
, pp. 781-8.
Ward, Mary Augusta, and Albert Sterner. Canadian Born. Smith, Elder, 1910.
Ward, Mary Augusta. Cousin Philip. W. Collins, 1919.
Ward, Mary Augusta, and Fred Pegram. Daphne. Cassell, 1909.
Ward, Mary Augusta. Delia Blanchflower. McClelland, Goodchild, and Stewart, 1914.
Ward, Mary Augusta. Delia Blanchflower. Ward, Lock, 1915.
Ward, Mary Augusta. Diana Mallory. Smith, Elder, 1908.
Ward, Mary Augusta, and Albert Sterner. Eleanor. Smith, Elder, 1900.
Ward, Mary Augusta. England’s Effort. Smith, Elder, 1916.
Ward, Mary Augusta, and Albert Sterner. Fenwick’s Career. Smith, Elder, 1906.
Ward, Mary Augusta. Fields of Victory. Hutchinson, 1919.
Ward, Mary Augusta. Harvest. W. Collins, 1920.
Ward, Mary Augusta. Helbeck of Bannisdale. Smith, Elder, 1898.
Ward, Mary Augusta. Helbeck of Bannisdale. Editor Worthington, Brian, Penguin, 1983.
Watters, Tamie, and Mary Augusta Ward. “Introduction”. Marcella, Virago, 1984, p. vii - xvi.
Ward, Mary Augusta. “Introduction”. Robert Elsmere, edited by Rosemary Ashton, Oxford University Press, 1987, p. vii - xviii.
Ward, Mary Augusta. “Introduction and Notes”. Helbeck of Bannisdale, edited by Brian Worthington, Penguin, 1983, pp. 9 - 27, 391.
Ward, Mary Augusta. Lady Connie. Smith, Elder, 1916.
Ward, Mary Augusta, and Albert Sterner. Lady Connie. Hearst’s International Library, 1916.
Ward, Mary Augusta, and Arthur I. Keller. Lady Merton, Colonist. Musson Book Company, 1910.
Ward, Mary Augusta, and Howard Chandler Christy. Lady Rose’s Daughter. Harper and Brothers, 1903.