Frances Mary Peard

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FMP published more than forty books between 1867 and 1909, mostly domestic novels and short-story volumes. Much of her fiction is historical and much is set abroad; some is specifically aimed at younger readers. Many of her letters, like her exotic fiction, have the qualities of good travel writing. She wrote poetry only during her adolescence, except on a few private occasions.

Milestones

16 May 1835

FMP was born at Exminster in Devon, into a family of five (of whom two died young). She had a much older sister and a brother.
Harris, Mary J. Y. Memoirs of Frances Mary Peard. W. H. Smith.
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1880

FMP published a hit among her children's novels, the historical Mother Molly (reprinted in 1914 in the The Queen's Treasures Series with illustrations by M. V. Wheelhouse ).
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.
Harris, Mary J. Y. Memoirs of Frances Mary Peard. W. H. Smith.
63

1919

FMP returned to the genre of her youth to pen a poem entitled Old Age, which she sent in a letter to a friend.
Harris, Mary J. Y. Memoirs of Frances Mary Peard. W. H. Smith.
95-6

Shortly before 5 October 1923

FMP died in Devon in her late eighties; it was said that she had outlived her fame.
Harris implies that she died, as she had lived, at Torquay.
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.
Harris, Mary J. Y. Memoirs of Frances Mary Peard. W. H. Smith.
5, 96

Biography

Birth and Family

16 May 1835

FMP was born at Exminster in Devon, into a family of five (of whom two died young). She had a much older sister and a brother.
Harris, Mary J. Y. Memoirs of Frances Mary Peard. W. H. Smith.
5