Matilda Betham-Edwards

Matilda Betham-Edwards (4 March 1836, in Westerfield, Ipswich – 4 January 1919, in Hastings) was an English novelist, travel writer and Francophile, and a prolific poet, who corresponded with several well-known English male poets of the day. In addition, she wrote a number of children's books. Biography Betham-Edwards was the fourth daughter of a farmer, Edward Edwards (c. 1808–1864) and his wife Barbara (1806–1848), daughter of William Betham (1749–1839), an antiquary and cleric. She was educated in Ipswich and as a governess-pupil at a school in London. Her first novel, The White House by the Sea (1857) was an immediate success, reprinted several times, pirated in the United States, and in print for forty years. Matilda studied French and German abroad and then settled with her sister in Suffolk to manage the farm which had belonged to her father. Not content, however, with purely rural occupations, she contributed from time to time to Household Words, having the advantage at this time of the friendship of Charles Dickens and an early association with Charles and Mary Lamb, friends of her mother. On her sister's death, she moved to London and wrote a number of novels of French life based on her frequent visits to France and her intimate knowledge of provincial French homes, as well as children's books, and non-fiction books about France. She was published by George and Richard Bentley. She stayed in Algeria with the feminist educationalist Barbara Bodichon and visited France and Spain with her.