Ellen Wood

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Standard Name: Wood, Ellen
Birth Name: Ellen Price
Married Name: Mrs Henry Wood
Pseudonym: Johnny Ludlow
Pseudonym: Ensign Thomas Pepper
In a writing career spanning most of the second half of the nineteenth century, EW produced a prodigious body of work (often writing two triple-deckers per year), including sketches, novels, and a series of interconnected Johnny Ludlow tales involving a character of that name, that were published over a twenty-year period. While much of her fiction takes the form of moralistic domestic dramas, EW could also be fascinated by the grotesque, and many of her works have sensational and supernatural themes. Her reputation today rests almost exclusively on the phenomenally popular East Lynne, 1861, possibly the best seller among novels of the Victorian period and the only one of her works that has remained generally available.
Photo of a painting of Ellen Wood by Sydney Hodges. Wood is seated on a red chair gazing straight at the viewer. Her left hand holds a book; she is wearing a blue dress with lace trim around the sleeves and neck, and a lighter blue bow around the collar. Her cap has a broad, sheer ribbon running down from it. She wears a necklace, and a ring on her right index finger. A window behind her opens on a mountain landscape.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Education Elma Napier
In spite of the fact that her family did not value literature as much as games, and that her mother had specific ideas about what girls should read, EN devoured every book she could get...
Family and Intimate relationships Annie S. Swan
Annie later said that her mother, Euphemia Brown, was wise, practical, and common-sensical. Although proud of Annie's writing, she felt that domestic training was still essential for her, as for all her daughters.
Black, Helen C. Pen, Pencil, Baton and Mask: Biographical Sketches. Spottiswoode, 1896.
340
Annie...
Family and Intimate relationships Hesba Stretton
HS had a close relationship with Charles Wood , son of the writer Ellen Wood (better known as Mrs Henry Wood).
Cutt, Margaret Nancy. Ministering Angels: A Study of Nineteenth-Century Evangelical Writing for Children. Five Owls Press, 1979.
126-7
Friends, Associates Sarah Tytler
ST 's literary friends by now included Dora Greenwell , Ellen (Mrs Henry) Wood , Anna Maria (Mrs S. C.) Hall , and George MacDonald .
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, 1990.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Friends, Associates Rosa Nouchette Carey
After Blind , Carey counted among her friends the novelist Ellen Wood . Her life seems to have been quite retired, and centred on her family. From about 1875 she lived with another friend, a...
Intertextuality and Influence Mrs Showes
This conclusion strikingly anticipates that of Ellen Wood 's East Lynne: it is not, however, known that Wood ever read Statira.
Intertextuality and Influence Rose Allatini
But the manuscript never reaches a publisher, for Olive gives it to her mother, aunt, and sister to read, with fearful results. To her aunt it is indecent and impossible; to her mother it is...
Intertextuality and Influence Anna Atkins
Though AA 's preface concedes the the talent, the ingenuity, the very clever writing of sensation-authors,
Atkins, Anna. A Page from the Peerage. T. Cautley Newby, 1863, 2 vols.
i
it also hints that they are in it for the money, and expresses outrage at what it sees...
Intertextuality and Influence Sarah Waters
Nance is almost a colourless character apart from her capacity for passion. (In an apparently non-literary book, a tradition of steamy fiction is evoked when her desire to make Kitty sorry makes her think of...
Literary responses Rosa Nouchette Carey
Elaine Hartnell argues that the reception of RNC 's work was tied somewhat to its modes and places of publication, notably her serialisation in journals edited by Ellen Wood , Charlotte Yonge , and Annie S. Swan
Literary responses Ouida
In a Book Buyer article of January 1897, American novelist and short story writer Stephen Crane called this novel Ouida's Masterpiece and a song of the brave. He particularly liked the character Cigarette, a figure...
Literary responses Anne Marsh
In 1851 the Athenæum reviewer of Ravenscliffe still thought of The Admiral's Daughter as having heralded a remarkable addition to the phalanx of English authoresses.
Athenæum. J. Lection.
1255 (1851): 1198
The preface writer for the cheap reprint...
Literary responses Charlotte Yonge
During her lifetime CY was ranked as a serious novelist with Austen , Trollope , Balzac , and Zola . Contemporaries like Louisa Alcott , Margaret Oliphant , Ellen Wood , and Rhoda Broughton made...
Literary responses Mary Elizabeth Braddon
In 1951 Canadian novelist Robertson Davies made this book the centre of a fictional anecdote: a distinguished professor bequeaths to his grand-daughter a box of battered old books (Lady Audley's Secret, Mrs Henry Wood
Occupation Naomi Jacob
After the First World War she became a performer herself, a character woman. She relates an anecdote of foiling an attempt to get her services for nine pounds a week when she had been...

Timeline

1823: William Huskisson, as MP for Liverpool and...

Building item

1823

William Huskisson , as MP for Liverpool and President of the Board of Trade , secured the equalization of customs duties in Britain and Ireland, a big step on the road towards free trade.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
under Huskisson

4 November 1836: Richard Bentley (1794-1871) signed an agreement...

Writing climate item

4 November 1836

Richard Bentley (1794-1871) signed an agreement with Dickens to edit his new monthly periodical, Bentley's Miscellany.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
under Richard Bentley, 1794-1871
Sutherland, John, b. 1938. The Stanford Companion to Victorian Fiction. Stanford University Press, 1989.
Drabble, Margaret, editor. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 5th ed., Oxford University Press, 1985.

April 1863: Henry Mansel in the Quarterly Review attacked...

Writing climate item

April 1863

Henry Mansel in the Quarterly Review attacked sensation novels as preaching to the nerves and as indications of a wide-spread corruption, of which they are in part both the effect and the cause; called into...

December 1865: Alexander Strahan launched The Argosy, a...

Writing climate item

December 1865

Alexander Strahan launched The Argosy, a monthly literary and travel magazine, with Isa Craig as its first editor, and Charles Reade 's Griffith Gaunt as its lead serial.
Sutherland, John, b. 1938. The Stanford Companion to Victorian Fiction. Stanford University Press, 1989.

December 1868: With sales of the once-popular Bentley's...

Writing climate item

December 1868

With sales of the once-popular Bentley's Miscellany at an all-time low, the owner, Richard Bentley , ended its publication.
Houghton, Walter E., and Jean Harris Slingerland, editors. The Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals 1824-1900. University of Toronto Press, 1966–1989, 5 vols.
4: 12-13, 113

1874: Mary Cecil Hay published Old Myddleton's...

Women writers item

1874

Mary Cecil Hay published Old Myddleton's Money, an early detective story combining sensation fiction with small-town satire.
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.
Maunder, Andrew, and Sally Mitchell, editors. Varieties of Women’s Sensation Fiction, 1855-1880. Vol. 6 vols., Pickering and Chatto.
5: prelims

1898: The publishing firm of Richard Bentley and...

Writing climate item

1898

The publishing firm of Richard Bentley and Son , dating from 1 September 1832, was sold for eight thousand pounds to Macmillan .
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
under Macmillan family

1920: The number of Miners' Institutes (which included...

Writing climate item

1920

The number of Miners' Institutes (which included Miners' Libraries ) increased following the decision regularly to supplement the levy financing them from the national Miners' Welfare Fund .
Collini, Stefan. “The Cookson Story”. London Review of Books, 13 Dec. 2001, pp. 33-5.
34

Texts

Wood, Ellen. A Life’s Secret. Charles W. Wood, 1867, 2 vols.
Palmer, T. A., and Ellen Wood. “Appendix J: Extracts from T. A. Palmers adaptation of East LynneEast Lynne, edited by Andrew Maunder and Andrew Maunder, Broadview, 2000, pp. 741-76.
Wood, Ellen. Ashley, and Other Stories. R. Bentley and Sons, 1897.
Wood, Ellen. Danesbury House. Scottish Temperance League, 1860.
Wood, Ellen. East Lynne. R. Bentley, 1861, 3 vols.
Wood, Ellen, and Sally Mitchell. East Lynne. Rutgers University Press, 1984.
Wood, Ellen. Edina. R. Bentley, 1876, 3 vols.
Wood, Ellen. Edina. R. Bentley and Son, 1889.
Wood, Ellen. Elster’s Folly. Tinsley Brothers, 1866, 3 vols.
Wood, Ellen. “Introduction”. East Lynne, edited by Andrew Maunder, Broadview, 2000, pp. 9-38.
Wood, Ellen. Johnny Ludlow. R. Bentley, 1874, 3 vols.
Wood, Ellen. Johnny Ludlow, Second Series. R. Bentley and Son, 1889.
Wood, Ellen. Lady Grace, and Other Stories. R. Bentley and Son, 1887, 3 vols.
Wood, Ellen. Mildred Arkell. Tinsley, 1865, 3 vols.
Wood, Ellen. Mrs. Halliburton’s Troubles. R. Bentley, 1862, 3 vols.
Wood, Ellen. Roland Yorke. R. Bentley, 1869, 3 vols.
Wood, Ellen. “Seven Years in the Wedded Life of a Roman Catholic”. The New Monthly Magazine, Vol.
91
, pp. 245-55.
Wood, Ellen. St. Martin’s Eve. Tinsley, 1866, 3 vols.
Craig, Isa et al., editors. The Argosy. R. Bentley and Son.
Wood, Ellen. The Channings. Ward, Lock.
Wood, Ellen. The Channings. R. Bentley, 1862, 3 vols.
Wood, Ellen. The Shadow of Ashlydyat. R. Bentley, 1863, 3 vols.
Wood, Ellen. Verner’s Pride. B. Tauchnitz, 1863, 3 vols.