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Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler (9 April 1860 – 22 June 1929) was an English author of popular romances, and a poet and children's writer. She was a keen Methodist.

Family and status

The elder daughter of Henry Hartley Fowler, 1st Viscount Wolverhampton, a Wesleyan MP, and his wife Ellen Thorneycroft, Ellen was born at Chapel Ash, Wolverhampton, on 9 April 1860. Her younger sister, Edith Henrietta Fowler (16 February 1865 – 18 November 1944), also wrote novels and a biography of her father.^[1]

On 16 April 1903, Ellen married Alfred Felkin, a senior teacher at the Royal Naval School at Mottingham near Eltham.^[2] She died on 22 June 1929 in Westbourne, Dorset.^[3]

Fowler became a member of the Writers' Club and the Women's Athenaeum Club. She was appointed a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.^[1]

Verse and romances

Fowler's earliest volumes were Verses Grave and Gay (1891) and Verses Wise and Otherwise (1895), which were followed by a volume of short stories.^[3] Further poetry came in Love's Argument and Other Poems (1905). Of her romances, a present-day commentator has noted, "Fowler unusually combined Methodism with high society..., which proved popular despite leaving the critics cold."^[4] Fame came first with Concerning Isabel Carnaby (1898), then A Double Thread (1899), The Farringdons (1900), Fuel of Fire (1902), Place and Power (1903), Kate of Kate Hall (1904), In Subjection (1906),^[4] Miss Fallowfield's Fortune (1908), The Wisdom of Folly (1910), Her Ladyship's Conscience (1913),^[5] Ten Degrees Backward (1915), Beauty and Bands (1920) The Lower Pool (1923) and Signs and Wonders (1926).^[3]^[6]

Edith Henrietta Fowler

Fowler's sister, Edith Henrietta Fowler, wrote two successful novels for children: The Young Pretenders (1895) and The Professor's Children (1897), and also The Man with Transparent Legs – Twenty six ideal stories for girls (1899).

The first of these was republished in London by Persephone Books in 2007,^[7]^[8] in view of its "sophistication, humour and ironies" of interest to both children and adults.^[3]^[9]

References

^ ^a ^b Virginia Blain, Patricia Clements and Isobel Grundy, eds, The Feminist Companion to Literature in English (Batsford: London), 1990, p. 390.
^ Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler profile Archived 24 October 2017 at the Wayback Machine, WolverhamptonHistory.org.uk; accessed 5 April 2016.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Literary Heritage West Midlands Retrieved 7 July 2018.
^ ^a ^b Jarndyce Booksellers' catalogue Women Writers 1795–1927 Part I: A–F (London, Summer 2017).
^ "What conscience will do". The Independent. 6 July 1914. Retrieved 28 July 2012.
^ One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Reynolds, Francis J., ed. (1921). "Fowler, Ellen Thorneycroft" . Collier's New Encyclopedia. New York: P. F. Collier & Son Company.
^ Edith Henrietta Fowler (1865-1944) profile Archived 2012-02-04 at the Wayback Machine, shropshire-cc.gov.uk Retrieved 5 April 2016.]
^ "Edith Henrietta Fowler profile Retrieved 5 April 2016". Archived from the original on 14 April 2016. Retrieved 5 April 2016.
^ "Aunt Eleanor put on a tea-gown, and threw herself down on the sofa. 'I feel so wretchedly ill!' she exclaimed petulantly. 'These hot days give me such a headache!' 'Do you fink you'll get better or die?' asked Babs with interest. 'She is the most unfeeling child I ever saw!' thought her aunt – but aloud she said snappishly: 'Of course I shall get better!' 'I'm so glad!'" The Young Pretenders Retrieved 8 October 2018.