Author profile
Rhoda Broughton
1840 - 1920
Best known work
- Cometh Up as a Flower, 1867
Other well known work(s)
- Not Wisely, But Too Well, 1867
Genres
- Fiction - Novels
- Fiction - Short Stories
Nom de plume
None
Social class
Upper class
Parental background
Father was a clergyman. Broughton was brought up in a manor house and well-educated.
At publication of best known work
- Age: 27
- Marital status: Unmarried
- Number of children: 0
Physical description
The North American quotes (somewhat vaguely) from an unknown Oxford letter that Broughton is known as "the snippy lady with the girlish figure" (Jan 17, 1895). In 1889 she was described as "hard-featured, highly intelligent-looking woman, with a rare fund of humour" (Answers to Correspondents on Every Subject under the Sun, May 11, 1889). Even less flattering is the Milwaukee Daily Sentinel's description of her as "thin and has hatchet features" (June 3, 1886). There is a consensus that she is always well-dressed and a rather more complimentary description in a memorial piece "Rhoda Broughton as I Knew Her" in the Fortnightly Review describes Broughton in her "early forties, with greying hair, largely concealed ... by a cap of old lace; a thin, somewhat sharp-featured face, with a keen aquiline nose, and decidedly truculent chin, ... large, prominent 'noticeable' grey eyes, with humorous lines about the corners; a somewhat large mouth ... the head small and carried erect ... and the most beautiful neck and shoulders I ever saw upon a woman" (Vol 108, Aug 1920).
Did you know?
Irish novelist Sheridan Le Fanu was Broughton's uncle, having married her maternal aunt. Broughton was a very prolific writer and could produce a complete novel in around 6 weeks (Kate Flint, ODNB).
Additional information
A short bio is available on the Victorian Secrets site at and there is an interesting account of her life, centred around her time living in Headington, Oxfordshire.