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
Occupation George Meredith
GM worked as a journalist for the Ipswich Journal, the Pall Mall Gazette, and the Morning Post (where he was editor from 1867 to 1868). He served as literary critic for the Westminister...
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...
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...
Publishing Jessie Fothergill
The copyright of the novel initially sold for £40 on 26 March 1877. Two months later, Richard Bentley and Son recognized its commercial possibilities and drew up a new contract, increasing the price to £200...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Eva Figes
She considers the drama of ancient Greece and of the Renaissance, setting each in its historical context. After dealing with issues of religious belief, kingship, and the dead, she comes to that of women and...
Textual Production Victoria Cross
In 1915 films of VC 's novels Five Nights and Paula were produced in Britain. Cross stated that she had prepared and practically produced
“Dictionary of Literary Biography online”. Gale Databases: Literature Resource Center-LRC.
197
the former, although Charlotte Mitchell notes that the records do...
Textual Production May Crommelin
MC was a regular contributor to The Idler.
“May Crommelin (Maria Henriette de la Cherois-Crommelin) (1849 - 1930)”. Crommelin Family, The Netherlands.
On 30 January 1895 (as Over the Andes, from Argentine to Chile and Peru began the serialization that ran all year) she contributed A Water Horse...
Textual Production Isa Craig
Its inaugural issues included several signed articles by her. She also enlisted contributions from Bessie Rayner Parkes , including an article she had previously published in the English Woman's Journal. IC also arranged for...
Reception Wilkie Collins
The Woman in White, along with Ellen Wood 's East Lynne,1861, and Mary Elizabeth Braddon 's Lady Audley's Secret, 1862, established the massive popularity of the sensation novel, a genre marked by...
Textual Features Charlotte Chanter
Critic John Sutherland discerns the influence of Wilkie Collins on the novel's plot. Certainly the figure of the mysterious woman in black who aims to avenge herself on her husband's destroyers recalls the description of...
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...
Reception Rosa Nouchette Carey
The Athenæum was lavish with faint praise. It likened Only the Governess to a tranquil backwater out of the main current of the turbid stream of modern fiction.
Athenæum. J. Lection.
3151 (1888): 337
Praising Carey for not...
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
Wealth and Poverty Rhoda Broughton
RB , who published almost exclusively with Bentley throughout her career, preferred to receive a lump sum for her novels rather than to rely on royalites and copyright earnings. In her reminiscence Ethel Arnold suggests...
Textual Features Charlotte Mary Brame
With its presentation of Vivian as both sinful and saintly, Beyond Pardon gives CMB scope for comment on social attitudes to woman and propriety. When Vivian leaves England with Lord Rydal, the scandal is viewed...

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