Best known work

• First Violin, 1878

Other well known work(s)

• Aldyth, 1877
• Healey, 1875
• Kith and Kin, 1881
• Peril, 1884
• Borderland, 1886
• The Wellfields, 1899
• A March in the Ranks, 1890
• Oriole’s Daughter, 1893

Genres

• Fiction - Novels

Nom de plume

None

Social class

Middle class

Parental background

Her father (Thomas Fothergill) was a cotton manufacturer in Manchester. Fothergill was educated in a private school and then boarding-school.

At publication of best known work

• Age: 23
• Marital status: Unmarried
• Number of children: 0

Physical description

Helen C. Black described her as “moderately tall and slight in figure. She is slender, pale and delicate-looking with dark brown curly hair brushed back from her forehead, and fine grey eyes, which have a sparkle of mirth in them and indicate a keen sense of humour” (Notable 186–87). She was frail because she suffered from chronic asthma most of her life.

Did you know?

First Violin was dramatized several times and performed in Boston in 1898 and in Peckham in 1899. It was reprinted in The Library of Famous Literature in 1900. Fothergill was also featured in Helen C. Black’s Notable Women Authors of the Day: Biographical Sketches (1893).

Additional information

The Victorian Fiction Research Guide offers an interesting account of her life and works.