Amelia B. Edwards

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ABE sustained a moderately successful authorial career, beginning in the mid-nineteenth century when she made the choice of writing as a profession—something she needed in order to earn a living. She was a periodical contributor (of stories, articles, and reviews of books and of art) and novelist, who also produced biography, translation, songs, anthologies, and travel literature. Her twenty or so novels were popular: their characters and situations are drawn with a broad brush and reflect in slightly cruder form the more fruitful innovations of the most original novelists of her day. She is best remembered, however, for her work in Egyptology. Her books on Egyptian subjects overlap on one side with her travel writing and on the other with her lecturing; she is still regarded as a founder of the discipline.
Black and white portrait photograph of Amelia B. Edwards, signed "Yours very sincerely, Amelia B. Edwards", 1890. She sits facing the viewer, turned slightly to her right. She wears a coat lined with fur, and a scarf over a textured blouse. Her hair is pulled away from her face, and she smiles slightly.

Milestones

30 June 1831

ABE was born in or near Colebrook Row, Islington, London, the only child in her family.
Matilda Betham-Edwards says near Colebrook Row; the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography says in it. The street-name is not now listed on the Streetmap website as a London address.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

Before 26 September 1880

ABE published her final and probably her most popular novel, Lord Brackenbury, set in the English countryside, with illustrations based on her own water-colour sketches.
Dille, Catherine. “‘A Juster View of Johnson’: George Birkbeck Hill, Johnson and Boswell’s Victorian Editor”. New Rambler, pp. 24-35.
28 and n14
Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford.
Shattock, Joanne. The Oxford Guide to British Women Writers. Oxford University Press.

March 1892

The text of ABE 's lectures given in the USA appeared under the title (not her own choice) Pharaohs, Fellahs and Explorers; the title-page says 1891.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

15 April 1892

ABE died from influenza at 31 Royal Terrace, Weston-super-Mare, Somerset.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Todd, Janet, editor. Dictionary of British Women Writers. Routledge.

Biography

Birth and Family

30 June 1831

ABE was born in or near Colebrook Row, Islington, London, the only child in her family.
Matilda Betham-Edwards says near Colebrook Row; the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography says in it. The street-name is not now listed on the Streetmap website as a London address.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

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