Mary Elizabeth Braddon, an English writer of sentimental stories, was born in London in 1837 and died at Richmond-on-Thames February 4, 1915. She wrote poems, short stories, essays, two dramas, and about seventy-five novels, the latter so popular that she is said to have earned nearly a million dollars by her pen. She was married to John Maxwell, one of her publishers, in 1874, and two of her sons, William and Gerald, were also novelists. At one time she edited Belgravia, as well as the "Mistletoe Bough," a Christmas annual. In the Halfpenny Journal, London, she used the pseudonym "Lady Caroline Lascelles."⁽¹⁾

It may be of interest to note that at an auction sale at the Parke-Bernet Galleries, in January, 1941, a copy of the first edition of her "Lady Audley's Secret," 1862, was bought by Charles Scribner's Sons for $750.

REFERENCES: Clive Holland, "Miss Braddon, the Writer and Her Work," The Bookman, London, XLII, 1912, 149-57, with 12 illustrations including portrait; Kunitz and Haycraft, British Authors, 1936, 69; Allibone, Supplement; London Journal, No. 10, December 28, 1918, 37.

Fireside Library. Nos. 7-8, 10, 12-13, 16, 19-20, 24-25, 27-28, 89, 93, 107
Waverley Library (quarto). No. 68

Notes

1	W. Cushing, Initials and Pseudonyms, 1886, 165.