Royal Literary Fund

Isabella Fordyce (later IK ) was born in (she said) the ruined castle of Cairnburgh in the Hebrides.

IK , as Catherine Harris, published with Minerva Press an epistolary novel, Edwardina, dedicated to Mrs Souter Johnston .

IK told the Royal Literary Fund that she had written part of a historical novel, but found it hard to complete because of her sense that literary styles had changed.

From the time of her first husband's death, IK lived in poverty. Henrietta Fordyce , whose life she wrote, died without finishing the will in which she intended to leave her a bequest. IK was...

IK told the Royal Literary Fund that she had written ten novels. But it seems she underestimated: in addition to the eleven mentioned below, she listed an untraced title (not listed by OCLC or The...

IK told the Royal Literary Fund in 1832 that she had written an Epitome of General Knowledge, published by subscription by a non-London publisher, a French Grammar, and Literary Information, written for...

George Louis was a schoolboy at six (a weekly boarder). He began publishing in periodicals at about twelve, and made his mark as a prodigy. As he came of age, however, he seems to have...

Her family relationships had always been uneasy. The choice of her daughter's school was apparently to be settled by her husband's despotick will. When their son was twenty-two, Alexander blocked some plan of...

CF turned for help in her dire financial predicament to the recently founded Royal Literary Fund . They paid her ten guineas then, twelve guineas to send her son to Virginia, and further payments.

After months of steadily deepening poverty, ML wrote to Thomas Carlyle , whom she greatly admired, asking him to obtain her financial assistance from the Royal Literary Fund .

Even after the success of The Mummy she found it hard to manage her money, and first applied to the Royal Literary Fund for help in February 1829.

John Claudius Loudon was comfortably off at the time of his marriage, though he had lost a lot of money around 1815 from the mismanagement of a banker. He lost money again with an over-ambitious...

She was buried with her husband in Kensal Green cemetery, where her grave was immediately covered with a sea of floral tributes sent by admirers. Her daughter later set up an urn in her...

HL first appealed for financial help to the Royal Literary Fund in 1895. On 14 February that year Walter Besant wrote a letter on her behalf which emphasized her ill health and friendless condition; Mabel Robinson

KSM was granted a pension on the Civil List when she was seventy. Although it later went up from £50 to £120 she still found it hard to make ends meet, and several times applied...