Matilda Betham-Edwards

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Standard Name: Betham-Edwards, Matilda
Birth Name: Matilda Barbara Edwards
Pseudonym: M. B. E.
Self-constructed Name: Matilda Barbara Betham-Edwards
Self-constructed Name: M. Betham-Edwards
Used Form: Miss Betham-Edwards
Used Form: the author of John and I
Over the course of a career spanning the later nineteenth century and the opening decades of the twentieth, MBE maintained a phenomenally high publishing output and covered most viable genres. She was best known for her novels and her travel-books about France, but she also wrote poetry and children's books, and edited and introduced the works of others. As a travel writer she is unusually sensitive to the conditions of peasant life on the land; as a novelist she draws heavily on actual experience, whether lived or observed.
Oval photograph of Matilda Betham-Edwards, c. 1893, looking straight forward with a dreamy smile. She is wearing a high collared dress with a pendant cross, and her hair, grey in front, is arranged tightly on top of her head. Her signature is reproduced below: "Yours truly, M. Betham-Edwards".

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Birth Amelia B. Edwards
ABE was born in or near Colebrook Row, Islington, London, the only child in her family.
Matilda Betham-Edwards says near Colebrook Row; the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography says in it. The street-name...
Family and Intimate relationships Mary Matilda Betham
The prolific writer Matilda Betham-Edwards was her niece and god-daughter, the child of her much younger sister Barbara.
Family and Intimate relationships Amelia B. Edwards
Matilda Betham-Edwards (who was born Matilda Edwards but adopted her mother's name as well, and who also became a writer) was ABE 's cousin. The two were close friends, and before she was grown-up, Matilda...
Friends, Associates Herbert Spencer
His broad social circle included several other women writers. Frances Power Cobbe , Eliza Lynn Linton , Matilda Betham-Edwards , and sisters Maria Grey and Emily Shirreff , were all his acquaintances. Later in life...
Friends, Associates Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon
In 1867-8 Matilda Betham-Edwards travelled with her across Europe to spend the winter in Algeria, and wrote later with gusto about the dangers encountered and surmounted on the journey. She also wrote enthusiastically about Bodichon's...
Friends, Associates Frances Power Cobbe
FPC was a friend of Emily Faithfull , Geraldine Jewsbury , and Rosa Bonheur , and she knew Josephine Butler , Augusta Webster , Lady Battersea , Emily Pfeiffer , Anne Thackeray Ritchie , Helen Taylor
Health Amelia B. Edwards
Her cousin Matilda Betham-Edwards believed that ABE never fully recovered from the broken arm she sustained in the USA.
Betham-Edwards, Matilda. Reminiscences. G. Redway, 1898, p. vi, 354 pp.
132
Literary responses George Eliot
Barbara Bodichon , encountering excerpts from the novel in Algiers, was immediately convinced it was the work of her friend—there is her great big head and heart and her wise wide views
Eliot, George. The George Eliot Letters. Editor Haight, Gordon S., Yale University Press, 1954–1978, 9 vols.
3: 56-7
Literary responses Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon
Matthew Davenport Hill (a lawyer, member of parliament, and friend of BLSB , who had also advised in her composition of the pamphlet), brought it to the attention of the Law Amendment Society and they...
Occupation Amelia B. Edwards
According to ABE 's cousin Matilda Betham-Edwards , Amelia began life as a professional musician, with the post of organist at Wood Green, Hornsey (not yet part of London, but in the country).
Betham-Edwards, Matilda. Reminiscences. G. Redway, 1898, p. vi, 354 pp.
126
Occupation Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon
Matilda Betham-Edwards later wrote that her brilliant sketches were admired by Ruskin ,
Betham-Edwards, Matilda. Reminiscences. G. Redway, 1898, p. vi, 354 pp.
270
and that her great artistic gifts were sacrificed to purely philanthropic ends.
Betham-Edwards, Matilda. Reminiscences. G. Redway, 1898, p. vi, 354 pp.
269
Occupation Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon
It began with half a dozen students. Although Bodichon donated time and money to the cause since 1867, she did not officially become a member of the committee until 1869. Her donation of a thousand...
Textual Features Christina Rossetti
The internal monologue The Iniquity of the Fathers Upon the Children occupied a bridging position in this volume between the first section of secular poems, and the final shorter section of devotional pieces. Its scriptural...
Textual Production Celia Fiennes
The title seems to place the work in a tradition of intrepid Englishwoman abroad, including Emma Roberts , Matilda Betham-Edwards , Isabella Bird , Mabel Sharman Crawford , and others. Beatrice and Sidney Webb consulted...
Textual Production Mary Matilda Betham
Her niece Matilda Betham-Edwards recorded that at fourteen she sat down to answer and refute Tom Paine 's political arguments.
Betham-Edwards, Matilda. Six Life Studies of Famous Women. Griffith and Farran, 1880.
234

Timeline

July 1889: Women's Suffrage: A Reply appeared in the...

Building item

July 1889

Women's Suffrage: A Reply appeared in the Fortnightly Review to counter Mary Augusta Ward 's Appeal Against Female Suffrage in the previous month's Nineteenth Century.
“Women’s Suffrage: A Reply”. Fortnightly Review, Vol.
52
, July 1889, pp. 123-39.

Texts

Betham-Edwards, Matilda. A Winter with the Swallows. Hurst and Blackett, 1867.
Betham-Edwards, Matilda. Doctor Jacob. Hurst and Blackett, 1864, 3 vols.
Betham-Edwards, Matilda. “East of Paris, 1902”. Project Gutenberg.
Betham-Edwards, Matilda. Felicia. Hurst and Blackett, 1875, 3 vols.
Betham-Edwards, Matilda. French Fireside Poetry. Editor Miall, Bernard, George Allen and Unwin, 1919.
Betham-Edwards, Matilda. Half-Way. Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, and Rivington, 1886, 2 vols.
Betham-Edwards, Matilda. Holidays in Eastern France. Hurst and Blackett, 1879.
Betham-Edwards, Matilda. “Holidays in Eastern France, 1879”. Project Gutenberg.
Betham-Edwards, Matilda. Kitty. Hurst and Blackett, 1869, 3 vols.
Betham-Edwards, Matilda, and Thomas R. Macquoid. Little Bird Red and Little Bird Blue. Sampson Low, 1861.
Betham-Edwards, Matilda. Love and Mirage. Hurst and Blackett, 1885, 2 vols.
Betham-Edwards, Matilda, and Sarah Grand. Mid-Victorian Memories. John Murray, 1919, p. xvi; 165 pp.
Betham-Edwards, Matilda. “Note by the Editor”. French Fireside Poetry, edited by Bernard Miall, George Allen and Unwin, 1919, p. 7.
Betham-Edwards, Matilda. Now or Never. Edmonston and Douglas, 1859.
Marteilhe, Jean. Passages in the Life of a Galley-Slave. Translator Betham-Edwards, Matilda, Blackie and Son, 1895.
Betham-Edwards, Matilda. Reminiscences. G. Redway, 1898, p. vi, 354 pp.
Betham-Edwards, Matilda, and Frederick William Keyl. Scenes and Stories of the Rhine. Griffith and Farran, 1863.
Betham-Edwards, Matilda. Six Life Studies of Famous Women. Griffith and Farran, 1880.
Young, Arthur. The Autobiography of Arthur Young. Editor Betham-Edwards, Matilda, Smith, Elder, 1898.
Betham-Edwards, Matilda. The Flower of Doom. 3rd ed., Ward and Downey, 1885, p. .
Betham-Edwards, Matilda. The Lord of the Harvest. Hurst and Blackett, 1899.
Betham-Edwards, Matilda. The Roof of France. Richard Bentley and Son, 1889.
Betham-Edwards, Matilda. The Sylvesters. London, 1871, 3 vols.
Betham-Edwards, Matilda. The White House by the Sea. Smith, Elder, 1857, 2 vols.
Betham-Edwards, Matilda. The Wild Flower of Ravensworth. 1866, 3 vols.