Matilda Betham-Edwards

Matilda Betham-Edwards
Matilda Betham-Edwards
	Matilda Betham-Edwards c. 1893
Born	March 4, 1836; Westerfield, Ipswich
Died	January 4, 1919 (Aged 82); Hastings, Sussex
Nationality	English
Known for	Novels, travel writing, Francophilia

Matilda Betham-Edwards (4 March 1836, in Westerfield, Ipswich – 4 January 1919, in Hastings) was an English novelist, travel writer and Francophile, and a prolific poet, who corresponded with several well-known English male poets of the day. In addition, she wrote a number of children's books.

Biography

Betham-Edwards was the fourth daughter of a farmer, Edward Edwards (c. 1808–1864) and his wife Barbara (1806–1848), daughter of William Betham (1749–1839), an antiquary and cleric. She was educated in Ipswich and as a governess-pupil at a school in London.^[1]

Her first novel, The White House by the Sea (1857) was an immediate success, reprinted several times, pirated in the United States, and in print for forty years.^[2] Matilda studied French and German abroad and then settled with her sister in Suffolk to manage the farm which had belonged to her father. Not content, however, with purely rural occupations, she contributed from time to time to Household Words, having the advantage at this time of the friendship of Charles Dickens and an early association with Charles and Mary Lamb, friends of her mother.

On her sister's death, she moved to London and wrote a number of novels of French life based on her frequent visits to France and her intimate knowledge of provincial French homes, as well as children's books, and non-fiction books about France. She was published by George and Richard Bentley.^[3] She stayed in Algeria with the feminist educationalist Barbara Bodichon and visited France and Spain with her.^[2]

Of Huguenot descent, she considered France her second native land and made it her mission to bring about better understanding and sympathy between the two countries which shared her allegiance. In this way, she did much to promote a better understanding between English and French people. The French government made her an Officier de l’Instruction Publique de France in recognition of her untiring efforts towards the establishment of a genuine and lasting entente cordiale. She was awarded a medal at the Franco-British Exhibition (1908).^[1]

Betham-Edwards is often cited in anthologies of lesbian poetry. She died in Hastings, Sussex in 1919. Professor Joan Rees has written the only biography of Matilda Betham-Edwards, in 2006 (see below).

Works by Matilda Betham-Edwards

The White House by the Sea, 1857
Holidays Among the Mountains (or Scenes and Stories of Wales), 1860
Little Bird Red and Little Bird Blue (verse drama), 1861
John and I, 1862
Doctor Jacob, 1864
A Winter with the Swallows, 1867
Through Spain to the Sahara, 1868
Kitty, 1869
The Sylvestres, 1871
Felicia, 1875
Bridget, 1877
Brother Gabriel, 1878
Six Life Stories of Famous Women, 1880
Forestalled, 1880
Pearla, 1883
Half-Way, 1886
Next of Kin Wanted, 1887
The Parting of the Ways, 1888
For One and the World, 1889
A Romance of the Wire, 1891
Edition of Arthur Young’s Travels in France, 1892
Romance of a French Parsonage, 1892
France of To-Day, 1892
The Curb of Honour, 1893
A Romance of Dijon, 1894
The Golden Bee and other Recitations, 1895
Autobiography of Arthur Young, 1898
The Lord of the Harvest, 1899
Anglo-French Reminiscences, 1900
A Suffolk Courtship, 1900
Mock Beggars’ Hall, 1902
Barham Brocklebank, 1903
A Humble Lover, 1903
Home Life in France, 1905
Martha Rose, 1906
Poems, 1907
A Close Ring, 1907
Literary Rambles in France, 1907
Friendly Faces of Three Nationalities, 1911
In French Africa, 1912
From an Islington Window, 1914
Hearts of Alsace, 1916
Twentieth Century France, 1917
French Fireside Poetry, 1919
Mid-Victorian Memories, 1919

References

^ ^a ^b Joan Thirsk, "Edwards, Matilda Barbara Betham (1836–1919)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 retrieved 4 April 2015
^ ^a ^b The Feminist Companion to Literature in English, eds Virginia Blain, Patricia Clements and Isobel Grundy (London: Batsford, 1990), p. 90.
^ Women in the Literary Marketplace http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/womenLit/getting_into_print/Betham_Edwards_L.htm