Ouida

-
During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Ouida published 44 volumes of fiction, primarily novels, but also novellas and short stories for both children and adults. Often publishing more than one book a year, she was also a prolific essayist who wrote on matters of politics and literature. Her first, three-decker novels, from the 1860s, often centred on the adventures of military men and were characterized as sensation novels. After she moved to Italy in the early 1870s, she wrote a number of novels concerned with the conditions of the government and population (especially the poor) of that country.
  • BirthName: Marie Louise Ramé
  • Self-constructed: Louise de la Ramée
    Although she wrote only under the name Ouida, she also changed her birthname, sometime after her move to London in 1857, to a variant that both suggests her French ancestry was noble and stresses femaleness. Ouida became known as Louise de la Ramée; she was sometimes referred to by this name in reviews and catalogues.
    Jordan, Jane. “Ouida: The Enigma of a Literary Identity”. Princeton University Library Chronicle, Vol.
    57
    , No. 1, 1 Sept.–30 Nov. 1995, pp. 75-105.
    76
    Critic Jane Jordan points out that the addition of the final e to her original surname changed its meaning from a staked and supported plant to untethered living branches forming a natural bower or cover.
    Jordan, Jane. “Ouida: The Enigma of a Literary Identity”. Princeton University Library Chronicle, Vol.
    57
    , No. 1, 1 Sept.–30 Nov. 1995, pp. 75-105.
    76
  • Pseudonym: Ouida
    This, her invariable writing name, is said to have originated as a childish mispronunciation of Louise or Louisa.

Milestones

1 January 1839

Marie Louise Ramé (later Ouida) was born at 1 Union Terrace in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk.
Nadel, Ira Bruce, and William E. Fredeman, editors. Dictionary of Literary Biography 18. Gale Research, 1983.
18: 239
Stephen, Sir Leslie, and Sidney Lee, editors. The Dictionary of National Biography. Smith, Elder, 1908–2025, 22 vols. plus supplements.

By 2 December 1867

After its serialization in the British Army and Navy Review, Ouida published the novel Under Two Flags: A Story of the Household and the Desert, often considered to be her most enduring
Nadel, Ira Bruce, and William E. Fredeman, editors. Dictionary of Literary Biography 18. Gale Research, 1983.
18: 244
work.
Athenæum. J. Lection.
2092 (1867): 737
Gilbert, Pamela K. “Ouida and the other New Woman”. Victorian Women Writers and the Woman Question, edited by Nicola Diane Thompson, Cambridge University Press, 1999, pp. 170-88.
174

March 1903

Ouida was contracted by Macmillan to write her final novel, Helianthus.
Jordan, Jane. “Ouida: The Enigma of a Literary Identity”. Princeton University Library Chronicle, Vol.
57
, No. 1, 1 Sept.–30 Nov. 1995, pp. 75-105.
85-6

16 November 1903

Much of the manuscript for Ouida 's Helianthus was destroyed during her eviction from her home in Sant'Alessio. The novel was never finished, probably as a consequence of this.
Jordan, Jane. “Ouida: The Enigma of a Literary Identity”. Princeton University Library Chronicle, Vol.
57
, No. 1, 1 Sept.–30 Nov. 1995, pp. 75-105.
86

1908

Ouida 's final (and unfinished) novel, Helianthus, was posthumously published in the year of her death.
OCLC WorldCat. 1992–1998, http://www.oclc.org/firstsearch/content/worldcat/. Accessed 1999.

25 January 1908

Ouida , penniless, died of pneumonia at Viareggio in Italy.
Nadel, Ira Bruce, and William E. Fredeman, editors. Dictionary of Literary Biography 18. Gale Research, 1983.
18: 245
qtd. in
Stirling, Monica. The Fine and the Wicked: The Life and Times of Ouida. Coward-McCann, 1958.
212-13

1936

A film based on Ouida 's Under Two Flags was produced, starring Ronald Colman and Claudette Colbert as Cigarette.
The Internet Movie Database (IMDb). http://www.imdb.com.

Biography

Birth and Family

1 January 1839

Marie Louise Ramé (later Ouida) was born at 1 Union Terrace in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk.
Nadel, Ira Bruce, and William E. Fredeman, editors. Dictionary of Literary Biography 18. Gale Research, 1983.
18: 239
Stephen, Sir Leslie, and Sidney Lee, editors. The Dictionary of National Biography. Smith, Elder, 1908–2025, 22 vols. plus supplements.

Please click on login button to check your access and/or enter your credentials. Alternatively if you don’t have access, please click on “Subscribe”.

Log inSubscribe