Helen Mathers

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Helen Mathers won success at a young age in 1875 with her best-selling romance Comin' Thro' the Rye, a semi-autobiographical novel excoriating the destructive impact of Victorian patriarchal sexuality on domestic life. After the failure of her magazine The Burlington, for which she was editor and regular serial contributor, HM continued to write constantly to cope with mounting debt. She published more than thirty-five novels over three decades. Although her celebrity in the press, as a leader of fashion and producer of popular fiction, lasted till the end of the Victorian period, her popularity waned in the first decade of the twentieth century, when her books were repeatedly criticised for being derivative of the works of others.
Black and white oval photograph of Helen Mathers by Stanislaw Walery, 1893. She sits in a high backed carved chair, with her head resting on her hand. She is wearing a low cut light dress in a swirly pattern, with ruffles on the shoulders and dark decorations at the neckline. Her dark hair is arranged in a bun, and she wears a dark bracelet. Her married signature is reproduced under the photo: "yrs ever Helen Reeves."

Milestones

Probably August 1851
Ellen Mathews (who later wrote as HM ) was born in Misterton, near Crewkerne in Somerset, according to the date given in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
Earlier sources (like The Oxford Guide to Women Writers, 1993, by Joanne Shattock ) give her birth-date as 26 August 1853.
Shattock, Joanne. The Oxford Guide to British Women Writers. Oxford University Press, 1993.
288
Showalter, Elaine. A Literature of Their Own. Princeton University Press, 1977.
339
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray, Brian Harrison, and Lawrence Goldman, editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
1869
Ellen Mathews (who later wrote as HM , then aged, it now seems, about eighteen) sent her first poem, The Token of the Silver Lily, to a family friend who knew Dante Gabriel Rossetti .
Black, Helen C. Notable Women Authors of the Day. D. Bryce, 1893.
74
By 3 July 1875
The young Ellen Mathews (who later called herself HM ) anonymously published her best-selling novel or romance Comin' Thro' the Rye in three volumes.
Athenæum. J. Lection.
2488 (1875): 16
Showalter, Elaine. A Literature of Their Own. Princeton University Press, 1977.
175
Mathers, Helen. Comin’ Thro’ The Rye. Richard Bentley and Son, 1875.
titlepage
Late November 1891 to early May 1892
HM collaborated with Florence Marryat , Julia Frankau , Frances Eleanor Trollope , Conan Doyle , Bram Stoker , Justin H. McCarthy , Joseph Hatton , and others in a serial novel, The Fate of Fenella, in The Gentlewoman.
Maunder, Andrew. “Introduction”. The Fate of Fenella, Valancourt Books, 2008, p. vii - xxiii.
vii
Mathers, Helen, Justin Huntly McCarthy, Frances Eleanor Trollope, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, May Crommelin, F. C. Philips, Margaret Humphreys, Joseph Hatton, Caroline Emily Lovett Cameron, Bram Stoker, Florence Marryat, Frank Danby, Mrs Edward Kennard, Richard Dowling, Margaret Hungerford, Arthur A. Beckett, Jean Middlemass, Clement Scott, Clotilde Graves, H. W. Lucy, Adeline Sergeant, G. Manville Fenn, Jessie Courvreur, and F. Anstey. The Fate of Fenella. Cassell, 1892.
titlepage
“Summary of News”. The British Architect, pp. 407 - 8.
408
1912
HM brought out her final collection of short fiction, Man is Fire: Woman is Tow, and Other Stories, three years after she had publicly announced the end of her authorial career.
British Library Catalogue.
11 March 1920
HM died at the age of sixty-seven, almost penniless, at 26 Callcott Road, Kilburn, London (the home of a friend).
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray, Brian Harrison, and Lawrence Goldman, editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
“Death of a Novelist”. The Scotsman, p. 7.
7
Shattock, Joanne. The Oxford Guide to British Women Writers. Oxford University Press, 1993.
288

Biography

Birth and Family

Probably August 1851
Ellen Mathews (who later wrote as HM ) was born in Misterton, near Crewkerne in Somerset, according to the date given in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
Earlier sources (like The Oxford Guide to Women Writers, 1993, by Joanne Shattock ) give her birth-date as 26 August 1853.
Shattock, Joanne. The Oxford Guide to British Women Writers. Oxford University Press, 1993.
288
Showalter, Elaine. A Literature of Their Own. Princeton University Press, 1977.
339
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray, Brian Harrison, and Lawrence Goldman, editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

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