Frances Minto Elliot

Frances Minto Elliot (1820–1898) was a prolific English writer, primarily of non-fiction works on the social history of Italy, Spain, and France and travelogues. She also wrote three novels and published art criticism and gossipy, sometimes scandalous, sketches for The Art Journal, Bentley's Miscellany, and The New Monthly Magazine, often under the pseudonym, "Florentia". Largely forgotten now, she was very popular in her day, with multiple re-printings of her books in both Europe and the United States. Elliot had a wide circle of literary friends including Charles Dickens, Anthony Trollope and Wilkie Collins. Collins dedicated his 1872 novel, Poor Miss Finch, to her, and much of the content in Marian Holcolmbe's conversations in The Woman in White is said to be based on her.

Frances Elliot was born Frances Vickriss Dickinson at Farley Hill Court in the Berkshire village of Swallowfield on 6 March 1820, the only child from Catherine Allingham's marriage to Charles Dickinson of Queen Charlton Manor,Somerset. She was an 18-year-old heiress when her life began to take its somewhat complicated path. On 8 October 1838, she married John Edward Geils from Glasgow in the Swallowfield church. The couple then departed for Scotland, but the marriage proved to be a disaster. After seven years, she left her husband and returned to Farley Hill Court, alleging his adultery with two of their maids, and violence towards her. He, in turn, tried to deny her access to their four daughters and sued her for the "restitution of his conjugal rights". In 1855 she was finally able to obtain a divorce in the Scottish courts and regain custody of the children, although the case had been fought all the way to the House of Lords before it was finalised. Despite the fact that she was the innocent party in the divorce, she found herself socially ostracised from the upper-class circles in which she had once moved and travelled to Italy, where she was eventually to spend a large part of her life. According to the 1896 edition of her book, Roman Gossip, one of the daughters from her first marriage (also named Frances) later married the Italian archaeologist and art historian, Marchese Chigi.

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