What's the Name of That Book??? discussion

I remember reading about a female author who wrote a huge amount of work in the 19th century perhaps in the gothic arena in England. Her reason for doing so was to support her family while her husband was ill. The key point here is that I believe she wrote hundreds of novels and was writing constantly. Does anyone know who this woman was? Thanks.

Long shot, but maybe Martha Finley? I don't think she ever married, but I believe she started the Elsie Dinsmore books while she was convalescing.

Margaret Oliphant perhaps?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00mr...

Oooh I like that suggestion -- and the looks of the books -- much better than Finley! (Not meaning to hijack the thread, but) I'll have to try something by Oliphant.

Kris, I believe this is who I was looking for. Thank you.

Possibly? Or probably not Kate Chopin..."She began to write after her husband died of swamp fever in 1883, and she was forced to support herself and her children."

Possibly again...E.D.E.N. Southworth? Her husband absconded, leaving her to support the children, and she began to publish novels prolifically.

Maybe this book could help you...although only if the author is American:

"In All The Happy Endings, a study of 19th-century women novelists, Helen Waite Papashvily noted that "the authors of the domestic novel shared curiously similar backgrounds. Almost all were women of upper-middle-class origin who began very early in life to write, frequently under pressure of sudden poverty.... Most important for many of these women, somewhere, sometime, someplace in her past some man—a father, brother, a husband, a guardian—had proved unworthy of the trust and confidence she placed in him. This traumatic experience, never resolved, grew into a chronic grievance.""

All the Happy Endings: A Study of the Domestic Novel in America, the Women Who Wrote It, the Women Who Read It, in the Nineteenth Century

Oh. Well anyway, in case anyone else is looking for additional impoverished women writers.

You're most welcome.

Could the author be Fanny Trollope the prolific English writer whose son Anthony was also a famous novelist and their descendent Joanna is a current English novelist?