Rhoda Broughton
| Rhoda Broughton | |
|---|---|
Rhoda Broughton c. 1870
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| Born |
November 29, 1840 Denbigh, North Wales |
| Died | June 5, 1920 (aged 79) Headington Hill, Oxfordshire |
| Nationality | British |
| Occupation | Author |
Rhoda Broughton (29 November 1840 – 5 June 1920) was a Welsh novelist and short story writer. Her early novels earned her a reputation for sensationalism which caused her later and stronger work to be neglected by serious critics, though she was described as a queen of the circulating libraries.
Rhoda Broughton was born in Denbigh in North Wales on 29 November 1840. She was the daughter of the Rev. Delves Broughton, youngest son of the Rev. Sir Henry Delves-Broughton, 8th baronet. She developed a taste for literature, especially poetry, as a young girl. She was heavily influenced by William Shakespeare, as the frequent quotations and allusions throughout her works indicate. Presumably after reading The Story of Elizabeth by Anne Isabella Thackeray Ritchie, she had the idea of trying her own talent and produced her first work within six weeks. Parts of this novel she took with her on a visit to her uncle Sheridan le Fanu, himself a successful author, who was highly pleased with it and assisted her in having it published. Her first two novels appeared in 1867 in his Dublin University Magazine. Le Fanu was also the one who introduced her to publisher Richard Bentley, who refused her first novel on the grounds of it being improper material, but accepted the second. She in turn introduced to her publishers, Mary Cholmondeley in about 1887. Broughton writing style was to influence other writers like Mary Cecil Hay who is thought to have a similar style of dialogue.
Later, Broughton having made her first effort to employ the popular three-decker form and adapt it to the assumed taste of his readers, Bentley also published the one novel of hers, which he had initially rejected. Their professional relationship would last until the end of the Bentley publishing house, which was taken over by Macmillan in the late 1890s. By then Broughton had published 14 novels over a period of 30 years. Ten of these were of the three-volume form, which she so disliked and found hard to comply with. After the commercial failure of Alas!, for which she received her highest ever payment, being at the height of her career, she decided to abandon the three-decker and write one-volume novels. This was the form used in her finest works. However, she never shed her reputation for creating fast heroines with easy morals, which was true of her early novels, and so suffered from the idea that her work was merely slight and sensational.
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