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 Author name Sort descending Excerpt
Travel Gertrude Bell
During 1899 GB visited Mrs Humphry Ward in Rome. She also went to Athens with her father, where they watched David Hogarth working on an archaeological dig. She went home via Constantinople, Prague...
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
Literary responses Emily Brontë
Since the early criticism which took its lead from Charlotte's biographical portrait, a biographical and hagiographic industry has arisen around all three Brontë sisters and their home in Haworth. A. Mary F. Robinson published...
Textual Production Emma Frances Brooke
EFB , as the Author of A Superfluous Woman, published Transition. A Novel, which connects feminist and socialist themes and which she intended as an antidote to Marcella by Mrs Humphry Ward ...
Textual Features Rhoda Broughton
This novel begins with the death of Althea Vane's father, and her mother's subsequent decision to escape from her conventional role and abandon her children,
Jones, Shirley et al., editors. “’LOVE’: Rhoda Broughton, Writing and Re-writing Romance”. Popular Victorian Women Writers, Manchester University Press, 2004, pp. 208-36.
223
thereby effectively orphaning Althea and her three sisters. Two...
Publishing Mona Caird
MC wrote to the Times about Mary Augusta Ward 's account of the Women's National Anti-Suffrage League , which had been published in the same paper.
“The Times Digital Archive 1785-2007”. Thompson Gale: The Times Digital Archive.
(11 August 1908): 10
Literary responses Joanna Cannan
Favourable reviews of High Table tended to concentrate on its blend of qualities not often found together. The Spectator noted its combination of sympathy and insight with wit and a fine gift of phrase.The...
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...
politics Jane Hume Clapperton
Her signature was among six hundred appended (chosen from those of more than two thousand women supporting the document) to the anonymously-published Women's Suffrage: A Reply. This argument in support of female suffrage appeared...
Intertextuality and Influence Caroline Clive
Despite the universal opinion that the sequel was decidedly weaker than the original, it nevertheless did well enough to go into several editions. The Saturday Review noted that it was a book which, even if...
Textual Features Ivy Compton-Burnett
The protagonist, a clergyman's daughter, lives up to her name. She is a child at her mother's graveside in the book's opening scene: by the age of thirty-three she has repeatedly sacrificed her hopes of...
Reception Marie Corelli
Barabbas sold extremely well. It was translated into Farsi, Greek, Hindi, and Russian, among other languages. Critics were, however, unrelenting: some thought MC heretical for supposing herself worthy of rewriting the gospel, while others just...
Textual Features Sara Jeannette Duncan
The Imperialist features a double-stranded plot focusing on a Canadian brother and sister. Lorne Murchison pursues a connection with Britain through formal trade agreements while Advena Murchison unites the countries with bonds of affection when...
Friends, Associates George Eliot
By 1870 it was at last becoming common for married couples (like the scholar Mark Pattison and his wife Emelia, or Emily Francis ) to visit GE and her partner. Publisher Charles Kegan Paul and...
Textual Features Millicent Garrett Fawcett
The chapters which follow these address the difficulties in the suffrage campaign that were brought about by women themselves. A chapter on the anti-suffragists explains the thinking of a group of women led by Mrs Humphry Ward

Timeline

November-December 1906: Mediation in the Book WarRSC: link to other...

Writing climate item

November-December 1906

Mediation in the Book War (of the Times Book Club against the Net Book Agreement) was attempted unsuccessfully by an unofficial committee composed of several eminent authors.
Kingsford, Reginald John Lethbridge. The Publisher’s Association, 1896-1946. Cambridge University Press, 1970.
31-2

21 July 1908: The Women's National Anti-Suffrage League...

National or international item

21 July 1908

The Women's National Anti-Suffrage League was established.
Norquay, Glenda. Voices and Votes: A Literary Anthology of the Women’s Suffrage Campaign. Manchester University Press, 1995.
xv-xvi
Tickner, Lisa. The Spectacle of Women: Imagery of the Suffrage Campaign, 1907-1914. University of Chicago Press, 1988.
99

December 1908: The Anti-Suffrage Review began monthly publication...

Building item

December 1908

The Anti-Suffrage Review began monthly publication in London.
Doughan, David, and Denise Sanchez. Feminist Periodicals, 1855-1984. Harvester Press, 1987.
27

6 May 1913: The House of Commons defeated a private member's...

National or international item

6 May 1913

The House of Commons defeated a private member's Representation of the People Bill which would have enfranchised women over twenty-five who were either householders or wives of householders.
Hume, Leslie Parker. The National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies, 1897-1914. Garland, 1982.
190n190
Sutherland, John, b. 1938. Mrs. Humphry Ward. Clarendon Press, 1990.
417

2 September 1914: The British War Propaganda Bureau (newly...

Writing climate item

2 September 1914

The British War Propaganda Bureau (newly formed along the lines of a similar body in Germany) summoned twenty-five writers to discuss the production of texts that would boost national feeling and the war effort.
Spartacus Educational. 28 Feb. 2003, http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/.

June 1966: Anthropologist Mary Douglas published her...

Women writers item

June 1966

AnthropologistMary Douglas published her best-known work, Purity and Danger, a study of ritual behaviour and taboo.
Douglas, Mary. Purity and Danger. Routledge, 2002.
2, xvi-xviii
Fardon, Richard. Mary Douglas: An Intellectual Biography. Routledge, 1999.
80-3
Kristeva, Julia. Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection. Translator Roudiez, Leon S., Columbia University Press, 1982.
65-6
British Books in Print. J. Whitaker and Sons, 1874–1987.
1967

Texts

Ward, Mary Augusta, and Howard Chandler Christy. Lady Rose’s Daughter. Harper and Brothers, 1903.
Ward, Mary Augusta. Marcella. Smith, Elder, 1894, 3 vols.
Ward, Mary Augusta. Marcella. John Murray, 1911.
Ward, Mary Augusta, and Tamie Watters. Marcella. Virago, 1984.
Ward, Mary Augusta. Marcella. Editors Sutton-Ramspeck, Beth and Nicole B. Meller, Broadview, 2002.
Ward, Mary Augusta, and Fred Pegram. Marriage à la Mode. A. L. Burt, 1909.
Ward, Mary Augusta. Miss Bretherton. Macmillan, 1884.
Ward, Mary Augusta. Miss Bretherton. Macmillan, 1889.
Ward, Mary Augusta. Miss Bretherton. John Murray, 1911.
Ward, Mary Augusta. Robert Elsmere. Smith, Elder, 1888, 3 vols.
Ward, Mary Augusta. Robert Elsmere. John Murray, 1911.
Ward, Mary Augusta. Robert Elsmere. Editor Ashton, Rosemary, Oxford University Press, 1987.
Ward, Mary Augusta. Sir George Tressady. Smith, Elder, 1896.
Ward, Mary Augusta. Sir George Tressady. John Murray, 1911.
Ward, Mary Augusta. The Case for the Factory Acts. Editor Webb, Beatrice, G. Richards, 1901.
Ward, Mary Augusta. The Case of Richard Meynell. Smith Elder, 1911.
Ward, Mary Augusta. The History of David Grieve. Smith, Elder, 1892, 3 vols.
Ward, Mary Augusta. The History of David Grieve. Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1913.
Ward, Mary Augusta, and Albert Sterner. The Marriage of William Ashe. Smith, Elder, 1905.
Ward, Mary Augusta. The Mating of Lydia. Smith, Elder, 1913.
Ward, Mary Augusta. The Story of Bessie Costrell. Smith, Elder, 1895.
Ward, Mary Augusta. The War and Elizabeth. W. Collins Sons, 1918.
Ward, Mary Augusta. The Writings of Mrs. Humphry Ward. Smith, Elder, 1912, 16 vols.
Ward, Mary Augusta, and Theodore Roosevelt. Towards the Goal. John Murray, 1917.
Ward, Mary Augusta. Unbelief and Sin. Printed for the author, 1881.