Barbara Hofland

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In forty years of writing BH produced nearly seventy titles, not all discussed here (besides doubtful attributions). They include books for children or young adults and adult novels, with some poems, plays, guidebooks, and handbooks on artistic topics. More than 300,000 copies were sold in Britain and as many, proportionately to population, in the USA. Many were translated, covering most European languages.
Ramsay, Thomas. The Life and Literary Remains of Barbara Hofland. W. J. Cleaver, 1849.
viii
Though her titles fall naturally into groups, named (in later parlance branded) from family relationships (notably widows as struggling, successful single mothers), or virtues, or boys' careers in the expanding British empire, BH always varies her formulas. Her novels for the adult market are independent in their attitudes, expressing an original and thinking mind.
  • BirthName: Barbara Wreaks
  • Married: Hoole; Hofland
  • Pseudonyms: An Old-Fashioned Englishman; Benjamin Blunderhead, Esq.; The Author of an Officer's Widow and her Young Family
    BH used many more versions of this allusive identity, sometimes giving long lists of her previous works on her title-pages.
    ; The Author of Says She to Her Neighbour, What?
Black and white photograph of a stipple engraving, published 1823 (National Portrait Gallery), of a painting of Barbara Hofland, shown from the waist up, wearing a simple dark dress with a light lace-trimmed shawl around her shoulders. Her dark curly hair is covered with a turban-style bonnet. Underneath in italic script is written "Mrs. Hofland / Author of The Son of a Genius - Integrity, a tale, &c, &c."

Milestones

Shortly before 16 February 1770

Barbara Wreaks (later BH ) was born in Sheffield, the elder of at least two surviving children.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Butts, Dennis. Mistress of our Tears, A Literary and Bibliographical Study of Barbara Hofland. Scolar Press, 1992.
2

Late 1812

BH published The Son of a Genius, dedicated to her thirteen-year-old son, quoting the book of Proverbs on the title-page.
Butts, Dennis. Mistress of our Tears, A Literary and Bibliographical Study of Barbara Hofland. Scolar Press, 1992.
60-1

4 November 1844

BH died at Richmond in Surrey, of erysipelas exacerbated by the effects of a fall when going upstairs after her usual late-night shift of writing.
Her first biographer, Thomas Ramsay , gives the date as 9 November.
Ramsay, Thomas. The Life and Literary Remains of Barbara Hofland. W. J. Cleaver, 1849.
222
Butts, Dennis. Mistress of our Tears, A Literary and Bibliographical Study of Barbara Hofland. Scolar Press, 1992.
6
Ramsay, Thomas. The Life and Literary Remains of Barbara Hofland. W. J. Cleaver, 1849.
208, 218

By 21 November 1846

BH 's Daniel Dennison; or, The Autobiography of A Country Apothecary (inspired by George Crabbe 's Annals of the Parish) and The Cumberland Statesman were posthumously published together as Daniel Dennison; and, The Cumberland Statesman.
The Athenaeum Index of Reviews and Reviewers: 1830-1870. http://replay.web.archive.org/20070714065452/http://www.soi.city.ac.uk/~asp/v2/home.html.
British Library Catalogue. http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?dscnt=0&tab=local_tab&dstmp=1489778087340&vid=BLVU1&mode=Basic&fromLo.
Butts, Dennis. Mistress of our Tears, A Literary and Bibliographical Study of Barbara Hofland. Scolar Press, 1992.
94-5

Biography

Birth and Background

Shortly before 16 February 1770

Barbara Wreaks (later BH ) was born in Sheffield, the elder of at least two surviving children.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Butts, Dennis. Mistress of our Tears, A Literary and Bibliographical Study of Barbara Hofland. Scolar Press, 1992.
2

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