Lily Watson (October 11, 1849 – 1932) was an English novelist. Her best-selling novel The Vicar of Langthwaite was admired by William Ewart Gladstone, who wrote the foreword.
Lily Watson | |
|---|---|
 Photo of Lily Watson | |
| Born | October 11, 1849[1] Taunton, Somerset |
| Died | 1932 (aged 82–83)[1] |
| Relatives | Kate Mosse, great-granddaughter; Pamela Wynne, daughter |
Biography
editMartha Louisa "Lily" Watson was born on 11 Oct 1849 in Taunton, Somerset. Her father was a Baptist minister Samuel Gosnell Green (1822–1905) who subsequently moved to teach classics and mathematics at the Horton Baptist Academy[2] Watson's father joined the Religious Tract Society in 1876, and she wrote a number of works of fiction for them.[3]
In 1873 she married Samuel Watson, a lawyer who lived in Streatham.
Her daughter Winnie also became a writer under the name Pamela Wynne.
Watson was largely forgotten in the second half of the 20th century. Interest in her was revived[failed verification] when novelist Kate Mosse found that Watson was her great-grandmother, which inspired her to write her 2022 book Warrior Queens & Quiet Revolutionaries.[2]
Works
editHer works include:[4]
- The Mountain Path (1888)
- Within Sight of the Snow: A Story of a Swiss Holiday, and A Surrey Idyll (1890)
- In the Days of Mozart: The Story of a Young Musician (1891)
- The Hill of Angels (1892)
- The Vicar of Langthwaite (3 volumes, 1893)
- A Fortunate Exile (1896)
- A Child of Genius (1898)
Within Sight of the Snow and A Child of Genius were also serialised in The Girl's Own Paper,[3] a periodical to which she made over 90 contributions[5]
References
edit- ^ a b Hughes, Linda K. (14 March 2019). The Cambridge Companion to Victorian Women's Poetry. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107-18247-9.
- ^ a b Warrior Queens & Quiet Revolutionaries
- ^ a b "Author: Lily Watson". www.victorianresearch.org. Retrieved 9 November 2023.
- ^ Bassett, Troy J. "Author: Lily Watson." At the Circulating Library: A Database of Victorian Fiction, 1837—1901, 5 September 2023
- ^ "The Girl's Own Paper Index". The Girl's Own Paper Index. Retrieved 2023-12-21.