Edna Lyall

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Standard Name: Lyall, Edna
Birth Name: Ada Ellen Bayly
Nickname: Ellie
Pseudonym: Auntie Elfie
A highly popular writer, EL published eighteen novels or novellas between 1879 and 1902, as well as a play, an account of her childhood which she designed for young readers, and shorter pieces. Several of her novels are historical, some take up contemporary political isues. Though her plots are melodramatic, her people often verging on caricature, and her appetite for virtuous self-sacrifice immense, she is interestingly radical in her political sympathies and unconventional in her habit of choosing outsiders like foreigners, non-Christians, or activists, for her exemplary characters. She remained a byword for big sales, if not for artistry, past the mid twentieth century.
Black and white photograph of Edna Lyall by the firm of G. P. Abraham of Keswick. She is shown from the shoulders up, wearing a black and white feather boa over a dress which apparently has a white and black pattern on the body and stripes on the sleeves, She has dark, wavy hair.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Education Sheila Kaye-Smith
Her reading habits were those of an intellectual, keeping up with the latest theology and psychology as it came out, whether it was written in English or French.
Stern, G. B. ...And did he stop and speak to you?. Henry Regnery, 1958.
88
She devoured books like Edna Lyall
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...
Fictionalization Winifred Maxwell, Countess of Nithsdale
Extended accounts of WMCN have often been fictional. In Tales of the Peerage and the Peasantry, 1835, written by Arabella Jane Sullivan but edited by Barbarina Brand, Lady Dacre , her life story occupies...
Friends, Associates Agnes Giberne
Almost nothing is known of AG 's adult life, but some of her relationships can be reconstructed from her writings. Her religious fiction brought her acquainted with clergymen such as Flavel Smith Cook , and...
Leisure and Society May Crommelin
MC was a member of the Albemarle Club .
Who Was Who in Literature, 1906-1934. Gale Research, 1979.
vol. 1
She also belonged to the Society of Authors , and acted as a steward (along with over a hundred other luminaries including Walter Besant
Reception Emma Marshall
One of EM 's clerical admirers called this book a particularly strong instance of the way her heroines (if not quite up to Jane Austen 's Anne Elliot or Charlotte Yonge 's Violet in Heartsease...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Maureen Duffy
From Methuen's first-published author, Edna Lyall , she traces the firm's dealings with other progressive activists, with canonical names in many genres including books for children, and with such controversial figures as Ibsen , Wilde , and Lawrence .
Maureen Duffy: Author, poet, playwright.

Timeline

June 1889
Algernon Methuen Marshall Stedman founded Methuen and Company at 19 Bury Street, London.