Mabel E. Wotton Explained

Mabel Elizabeth Emily Wotton (1863-1927) was an English writer.^[1]

Life

Mabel E. Wotton was born in London to Frances Emily and John Stirling Wilmot Wotton, a civil servant.^{[1] [2]} (Note that her Times death notice gives her father's name as Henry Stirling Wotton.) Her older brother Thomas wrote plays, and her younger sister Edith was a publisher's reader.^[1]

In 1895, through the actress Irene Vanbrugh, Wotton met Israel Zangwill. Zangwill introduced Wotton's work to the publisher John Lane, who accepted Day-Books for his controversial Keynotes series.^[3] Wotton and Zangwill kept up a friendship and correspondence until at least 1920.^[4] Zangwill based the character Margaret Engelborne in The Mantle of Elijah on Wotton.^[3] Her correspondence with Zangwill shows her connections to London's literary world. She knew George Egerton and Dion Boucicault, and dedicated her story collection Day-Books to Alice Meynell in "gratitute for tenderness".^[5] She never married.^[2]

Wotton is best known for her New Woman fiction.^{[2] [6]} As well as her adult novels and short stories, Wotton wrote several books for children. She also contributed non-fiction to the Cornhill Magazine, and wrote an appreciation of the actor H. B. Irving.

She died in London on 3 March 1927.^[7]

Works

• Word Portraits of Famous Writers. London: R. Bentley & Son, 1887.
• A Pretty Radical and Other Stories. London: D. Stott, 1890.
• A Girl Diplomatist. London: Chapman and Hall, 1892.
• A Nursery Idyll. London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1892.
• A Mannerless Monkey. London: A. D. Innes & Co., 1893. Illustrated by Edith Ellison.
• Day-Books. London: John Lane, 1896.
• On Music's Wings. London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1898.
• The Little Browns. London : Blackie & Son, Ltd., 1900. Illustrated by H. M. Brock.
• H. B. Irving: An Appreciation. London: Cassell, 1911.

Notes and References

1. Troy J. Bassett, Author Information: Mabel E. Wotton, At the Circulating Library, Accessed 7 April 2020.
2. Book: Carolyn Christensen Nelson. A New Woman Reader: Fiction, Articles and Drama of the 1890s. 2000. Broadview Press. 978-1-55111-295-4. 101.
3. Book: Meri-Jane Rochelson. A Jew in the Public Arena: The Career of Israel Zangwill. 2010. Wayne State University Press. 978-0-8143-4083-7. 22.
4. Meri-Jane. Rochelson. The Friendship of Israel Zangwill and Mabel E. Wotton. English Literature in Transition, 1880–1920. 48. 3. 2005. 305–23.
5. Book: Sigrid Anderson Cordell. Fictions of Dissent: Reclaiming Authority in Transatlantic Women's Writing of the Late Nineteenth Century. 2015. Routledge. 978-1-317-32407-2. 24.
6. Book: Randall. Bryony. Claire Westall. Rena Kim. Cross-Gendered Literary Voices: Appropriating, Resisting, Embracing. 2012. Palgrave Macmillan UK. 978-1-137-02075-8. 36–. 'Everything depend[s] on the fashion of narration': Women Writing Women Writers in Short Stories of the Fin de Siècle.
7. 'Deaths', The Times, 5 March 1927, p. 1.