Lucas Malet

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LM , author of eighteen novels in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, was a great admirer of French fiction. Her books are hard to classify generically, having elements of the sensation novel (adultery, illicit sex, indirect murder, female protagonists who are heartlessly self-seeking), of satire, psychological analysis, and social protest. She breaks the taboos of genteel English fiction by lifting the lid of respectable life to reveal its members as engaged a in cut-throat struggle for status or survival. Her Times obituary stated that her place in literary history was secure.
“The Times Digital Archive 1785-2007”. Thompson Gale: The Times Digital Archive.
(29 October 1931): 14
  • BirthName: Mary St Leger Kingsley
    Both of her given names came from women of achievement in her family.
    Malet, Lucas. “Introduction”. The History of Sir Richard Calmady, edited by Talia Schaffer, University of Birmingham Press, 2003, p. ix - xxxii.
    xi

  • Nickname: Polly
    Colloms, Brenda. Charles Kingsley: The Lion of Eversley. Constable, 1975.
    344

  • Married: Harrison; M. St. L. Harrison
  • Pseudonym: Lucas Malet
    She used her pseudonym, like her baptismal names, to honour remarkable women in her family.

Head-and-shoulders photograph of Lucas Malet, albumen print, c. 1894. She is seen in profile. with strong features and dark wavy hair in a bun on the nape of her neck. She has a dark choker round her neck and a deep frill edging her dress. The oval portrait has a leaf-pattern background with Malet's non-literary name in capitals: "Mary Kingsley Harrison".

Milestones

4 June 1852

LM was born Mary St Leger Kingsley at Eversley Rectory in Eversley, Hampshire, the youngest but one in a family of four..
Chitty, Susan. The Beast and The Monk: A Life of Charles Kingsley. Hodder and Stoughton, 1974.
160
Who Was Who. A. and C. Black, 1897–2025, Many volumes.
3

1882

LM published her first novel, Mrs. Lorimer, a Sketch in Black and White, under a pseudonym to keep her work separate from that of her father or uncle. Her friend and fellow-novelist Emma Marshall much admired this book.
Marshall, Beatrice. Emma Marshall. Seeley, 1900.
208

December 1890

LM published The Wages of Sin. A Novel, set partly around a fishing village called Beera (said to be based on Clovelly in Devon) and partly in fashionable and artistic London.
Malet, Lucas. The Wages of Sin: A Novel. Stereotyped Edition, Swan Sonnenschein, 1895.
prelims
“Contemporary Authors”. Gale Databases: Literature Resource Centre-LRC.
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.

By November 1901

Lucas Malet published another controversial novel: The History of Sir Richard Calmady.
“Contemporary Authors”. Gale Databases: Literature Resource Centre-LRC.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

27 October 1931

LM died of cancer at the age of seventy-nine, at a friend's house: 18 The Norton, Tenby, Pembrokeshire.
Who Was Who. A. and C. Black, 1897–2025, Many volumes.
3
“Contemporary Authors”. Gale Databases: Literature Resource Centre-LRC.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

By 2 August 1932

The Private Life of Mr Justice Syme, the last novel by LM , was posthumously published, completed after her death by Gabrielle Vallings .
“The Times Digital Archive 1785-2007”. Thompson Gale: The Times Digital Archive.
(2 August 1932): 15

Biography

Birth and Family

4 June 1852

LM was born Mary St Leger Kingsley at Eversley Rectory in Eversley, Hampshire, the youngest but one in a family of four..
Chitty, Susan. The Beast and The Monk: A Life of Charles Kingsley. Hodder and Stoughton, 1974.
160
Who Was Who. A. and C. Black, 1897–2025, Many volumes.
3

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