Emma Robinson

-
Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, ER published anonymously a series of historical novels (which she called romances, but which deliberately blur the boundary between history and fiction) and two plays. She also published short stories and a poem. When her first play was banned from production by the censor, she wrote for its published text a satirical self-justification of great verve and energy. Most of her historical fictions are attached by their title to some actual figure with high recognition value, but their romance and adventure elements are often accompanied by social critique and even satire. They sold extremely well both in and beyond England, and were respectfully praised by reviewers who initially supposed them to be the work of a man. ER set some of her later novels in modern London; these contemporary works, too, are characterized by sharp social observation. It is surprising that she has so received so little critical attention in modern times.

Milestones

1814

ER was born in London.
Sutherland, John. The Longman Companion to Victorian Fiction. Longman.

Late 1843

ER published Whitefriars; or, The Days of Charles the Second, her first, anonymous historical romance, bearing the date of 1844; it was praised to the skies in the Athenæum.
A monastery called Whitefriars gave its name to an Elizabethan theatre, to a street which still exists, and to the general area of London between the Strand and the Thames. During the Restoration this was a haunt of criminals and prostitutes, although adjacent to wealthy houses.
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.
844 (30 December 1843): 1159-60

1868

ER 's final novel, The Matrimonial Vanity Fair, once again issued as the author of Whitefriars, etc. was an examination of contemporary social life and what marriage meant for women.
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.

18 December 1890

ER died at Norwood, the London County Lunatic Asylum, at the age of seventy-six.
Formerly Middlesex Lunatic Asylum, it had become one of London's County Asylums in 1889.
“Index of English and Welsh Lunatic Asylums and Mental Hospitals”. Middlesex University: Asylums Index 2001: Index of Lunatic Asylums and Mental Hospitals.
Boase, Frederic. Modern English Biography. F. Cass.

Biography

Birth and Background

1814

ER was born in London.
Sutherland, John. The Longman Companion to Victorian Fiction. Longman.