Ellen Wood (author) explained

Ellen Wood
Birth Name:	Ellen Price
Birth Date:	1814 1, df=yes
Birth Place:	Worcester, United Kingdom
Death Place:	London, United Kingdom
Notableworks:	East Lynne (1861)
Signature:	Signature of Ellen Wood.jpg

Ellen Price (17 January 1814 – 10 February 1887) was an English novelist better known as Mrs. Henry Wood. She is best remembered for her 1861 novel East Lynne. Many of her books sold well internationally and were widely read in the United States. In her time, she surpassed Charles Dickens in fame in Australia.^[1]

Life

Ellen Price was born in Worcester, on 17 January 1814. In 1836 she married Henry Wood, who worked in the banking and shipping trade in Dauphiné in the South of France, where they lived for 20 years.^[2] On the failure of Wood's business, the family (including four children) returned to England and settled in Upper Norwood near London, where Ellen Wood turned to writing. This supported the family. Henry Wood died in 1866. She wrote over 30 novels, many of which (especially East Lynne) enjoyed remarkable popularity. Among the best known are Danesbury House, Oswald Cray, Mrs. Halliburton's Troubles, The Channings, Lord Oakburn's Daughters and The Shadow of Ashlydyat. Her writing tone would be described as "conservative and Christian,"^[3] occasionally expressing religious rhetoric.^[4]

In 1867, Wood purchased the English magazine Argosy, which had been founded by Alexander Strahan in 1865.^[5] She wrote much of the magazine herself, but other contributors included Hesba Stretton, Julia Kavanagh, Christina Rossetti, Sarah Doudney and Rosa Nouchette Carey. Wood continued as its editor until her death in 1887, when her son Charles Wood took over.^[6]

Wood's works were translated into many languages, including French and Russian.^[7] Leo Tolstoy, in a 9 March 1872 letter to his older brother Sergei, noted that he was "reading Mrs. Wood's wonderful novel In the Maze".^{[8] [9]}

Wood wrote several works of supernatural fiction, including "The Ghost" (1867) and the oft-anthologized "Reality or Delusion?" (1868).^{[10] [11]}

She died of bronchitis.^[12]

Works

These are the first published UK editions as catalogued by the British Library, with supplementary information from a specialist booksellers' catalogue.^[13]

Further reading

• Malcolm Elwin. Victorian Wallflowers, Jonathan Cape, 1934. (chapter 7)
• Jennifer Phegley (2005), "Domesticating the Sensation Novelist: Ellen Price Wood as Author and Editor of the 'Argosy Magazine'," Victorian Periodicals Review, Vol. XXXVIII, No. 2, pp. 180–198
• Thomas Seecombe (1900), "Wood, Ellen (1814–1887)," Dictionary of National Biography: Williamson-Worden, Vol. LXII, pp. 355–357
• Adeline Sergeant (1897), "Mrs. Henry Wood". In: Women Novelists of Queen Victoria's Reign, London: Hurst & Blackett, pp. 174–192
• Charles W. Wood (1887), "Mrs. Henry Wood. In Memorian," The Argosy, Vol. XLIII, pp. 251, 334 and 442

External links

• • • • Works by Mrs. Henry Wood at Hathi Trust
    • Mrs. Henry Wood website
  • Mrs Henry Wood Bibliography Of Contributions To Periodicals

Notes and References

1. Dinah Birch and Katy Hooper, The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. Oxford University Press. p. 783.
2. Web site: The Literary Encyclopedia . Mrs Henry Wood . 22 December 2008.
3. Dinah Birch, Katy Hooper. "The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature". Oxford University Press. p. 783.
4. Palmer, B. (1 February 2011). Ellen Wood, Religious Feeling, and Sensation. In Women's Authorship and Editorship in Victorian Culture: Sensational Strategies. : Oxford University Press. .
5. Web site: The Ellen Wood Website . A Biographical Sketch . 22 December 2008 .
6. Web site: An Index to Periodical Literature . The Argosy . 22 December 2008.

   ODNB entry: oxforddnb.com Retrieved 31 May 2011.

7. Harper, Kenneth E., and Bradford A. Booth (1953). "Russian Translations of Nineteenth-Century English Fiction," Nineteenth-Century Fiction, Vol. 8, No. 3, pp. 188–97.
8. Complete Works of Tolstoy, PSS, 61:276.
9. Denis Goubert (1980), "Did Tolstoy Read East Lynne?," The Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 58, No. 1, pp. 22–39.
10. R. A. Gilbert, Michael Cox The Oxford Book of Victorian Ghost Stories. Oxford University Press, 2003. p. xvi.
11. J. L. Campbell Sr., "Mrs. Henry Wood", in E. F. Bleiler, ed., Supernatural Fiction Writers. New York: Scribner's, 1985. pp.279–286.
12. Web site: The Ellen Wood Website . Obituaries . 22 December 2008 .
13. Women Writers R–Z (London: Jarndyce, 2012)