Rhoda Broughton

Rhoda Broughton (29 November 1840 – 5 June 1920) was a Welsh novelist and short story writer. Her early novels earned a reputation for sensationalism, so that her later, stronger work tended to be neglected by critics, although she was called a queen of the circulating libraries. Her novel Dear Faustina (1897) has been noted for its homoeroticism. Her novel Lavinia (1902) depicts a seemingly "unmanly" young man, who wishes he had been born as a woman. Broughton descended from the Broughton baronets, as a granddaughter of the 8th baronet. She was a niece of Sheridan le Fanu, who helped her to start her literary career. She was a long-time friend of fellow writer Henry James and was noted for her adversarial relationship with both Lewis Carroll and Oscar Wilde. Life Rhoda Broughton was born in Denbigh in North Wales on 29 November 1840, the daughter of the Rev. Delves Broughton, youngest son of the Rev. Sir Henry Delves-Broughton, 8th baronet, and Jane Bennett, daughter of a leading Irish barrister, George Bennett. Her aunt, Susanna Bennett, married the well-known fiction writer Sheridan le Fanu. Rhoda Broughton developed a taste for literature as a young girl, especially poetry. She was influenced by William Shakespeare, as frequent quotations and allusions throughout her works show. Presumably, after reading The Story of Elizabeth by Anne Isabella Thackeray Ritchie, she had the idea of trying her own talent. She 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 also introduced her to the publisher Richard Bentley, who refused her first novel on the grounds of it being improper material, but accepted the second. Broughton in turn introduced Mary Cholmondeley to her publishers in about 1887. Broughton's writing style was to influence other writers like Mary Cecil Hay, who is thought to have a similar style of dialogue. Bentley also published a novel of hers which he had initially rejected. She made an effort to employ the popular three-decker form and adapt it to the assumed taste of Bentley's readers. Their professional relationship lasted until the Bentley publishing house was taken over by Macmillan in the late 1890s. By then Broughton had published 14 novels over a period of 30 years.