Violet Fane

24 February 1843 - 13 October 1905

Writing under her pseudonym of VF , Mary Montgomerie Singleton (later Mary Montgomerie Currie) produced during the later nineteenth and very early twentieth century five collections of poetry, a verse novel, a drama, three prose novels, a volume of essays and stories, and a translation, as well as numerous periodical publications. Her poems were collected twice in her lifetime. Her several years living abroad, in or near Constantinople and Rome, influenced her later works. She was also known for her satirical writings, many poking fun at the British upper class (of which she was a member) or at her own love life.

Milestones

24 February 1843

Mary Montgomerie Lamb (who later wrote poetry as VF ) was born at Littlehampton in Sussex, the eldest of four children.

Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

1872

Mary Montgomerie Singleton published a volume of poems, From Dawn to Noon. She used the pseudonym Violet Fane, supposedly to avoid parental disapproval.

In their introduction to a recent facsimile reproduction of Denzil Place, Terence Allan Hoagwood and Nicole Stewart suggest that because Fane came from a literary family, the belief that she adopted her pseudonym to avoid parental censure is unfounded.

Hoagwood, Terence Allan et al. “Introduction”. Denzil Place, Scholar’s Facsimiles and Reprints, pp. 3-11.

4n2

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.

By 31 July 1875

VF published her verse novel Denzil Place.

Athenæum. J. Lection.

2492 (1875): 142

October 1904

A year before her death VF placed another essay in the Nineteenth Century: Are Remarkable People Remarkable-Looking? (An Extravaganza), also signed with her married name.

Fane, Violet. “Are Remarkable People Remarkable-Looking? (An Extravaganza)”. Nineteenth Century, pp. 622-42.

622

13 October 1905

VF (Mary Montgomerie, Lady Currie) died at the age of sixty-two of heart failure at the Grand Hotel in the spa town of Harrogate.

Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

Biography

Birth and Family

24 February 1843

Mary Montgomerie Lamb (who later wrote poetry as VF ) was born at Littlehampton in Sussex, the eldest of four children.

Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.