Mary Latimer

July 26, 1822 (age 81)

London, England

The education of travel compensated for defects in formal study, and was of the greatest advantage to her in her career as a writer. Mary Elizabeth attended the funeral of William IV and saw Victoria enter Westminster Abbey for her coronation. She witnessed the funeral of Napoleon when his remains were brought to Paris from St. Helena, and made her début at the balls of Louis Philippe. A young man named William Makepeace Thackeray was one of the friends whom the family knew in Paris. The winter of 1842 she spent in Boston. where the families of George Ticknor, William H. Prescott, and Julia (Ward) Howe were among her friends and encouraged her to begin writing. Her first printed work was the translation of a Mexican poem for the appendix of Prescott's History of the Conquest of Mexico (pt. 2, vol. III, 1844). Not long after its publication the family removed permanently to the United States and thenceforth resided in Boston and in Newport, Rhode Island. In 1852 her father died and in the same year her first novel, Amabel, was published in London and New York. In 1856 she published Our Cousin Veronica. For twenty years thereafter she devoted herself to the cares of a home and children. During the Civil War she took part in the nursing of soldiers. In 1876 she resumed writing, with the determination to make it her chief work. Though her eyes were never strong, she read and wrote indefatigably, and between 1880 and 1903 produced a large number of volumes. Her stories are not noteworthy; her best work is to be found in her series of popular histories: France in the Nineteenth Century (1892), and similar volumes dealing with Russia and Turkey (1893), England (1894), Europe in Africa (1895), Spain (1897); Italy in the Nineteenth Century and the Making of Austro-Hungary and Germany (1896); My Scrap Book of the French Revolution (1898); Judea from Cyrus to Titus; 537 B. C. -70 A. D. (1899); and The Last Years of the Nineteenth Century (1900). She was engaged upon a history of Germany in the nineteenth century when her own failing health permanently ended her work. In addition to original writing, she published the following translations: A History of the People of Israel (1888 - 1896), in collaboration with J. H. Allen from the French of Ernest Renan; The Steel Hammer (1888) and For Fifteen Years (1888), from Louis Ulbach; Nanon (1890), from George Sand; The Italian Republics (1901), by J. C. L. de Sismondi; The Love Letters of Victor Hugo, 1820-22 (1901); Talks of Napoleon at St. Helena with General Baron Gourgaud (1903). She died at her home in Baltimore and was buried in Greenmount Cemetery.

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Works

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Talks of Napoleon at St. Helena: With General Gourgaud; Together With the Journal Kept by Gourgaud on Their Journey From Waterloo to St. Helena (Classic Reprint)

(Excerpt from Talks of Napoleon at St. Helena: With Genera...)

Amabel; Or the Victory of Love A Novel.

(Title: Amabel; or the victory of love a novel. Publisher...)

France in the Nineteenth Century (Illustrated)

Russia and Turkey in the Nineteenth Century

(Latimer was a late 19th century historian who wrote sever...)

Spain in the Nineteenth Century (Classic Reprint)

(Excerpt from Spain in the Nineteenth Century Century ser...)

Italy in the Nineteenth Century, and the Making of Austro-Hungary (Classic Reprint)

(Stated, I think, several times in this book why the histo...)

Recollections of Ralph Randolph Wormeley

(Leopold is delighted to publish this classic book as part...)

Judea from Cyrus to Titus, 537 B.C.-70 A.D.

(This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)

England in the Nineteenth Century

(Elizabeth Latimer’s England in the Nineteenth Century is ...)

Europe In Africa In The Nineteenth Century

( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)

Mary Elizabeth Latimer Edit Profile

also known as Wormeley

translator author

Background

Mary Elizabeth Wormeley Latimer, the daughter of Rear Admiral Ralph Randolph Wormeley of the British navy and Caroline (Preble) Wormeley, was born in London, England. Her father was sixth in descent from Ralphe Wormeley, who received a grant of land in Virginia in 1649, and fourth from Ralph Wormeley of "Rosegill, " Middlesex County, Virginia, one of the first trustees of the College of William and Mary. He was taken to England in childhood and became a British citizen. His wife was the daughter of a Boston East-India merchant and a niece of Commodore Edward Preble, who won distinction in the early American navy. The childhood of the four Wormeley children was not monotonous. The family vibrated from London to Paris, to Boston, to Newport, to Virginia.

Education

Mary Elizabeth's studies were conducted in a desultory way by tutors, and she was for a time a "parlor boarder" in the school of Mrs. Cockle of Ipswich, Massachussets.

Career

The education of travel compensated for defects in formal study, and was of the greatest advantage to her in her career as a writer. Mary Elizabeth attended the funeral of William IV and saw Victoria enter Westminster Abbey for her coronation. She witnessed the funeral of Napoleon when his remains were brought to Paris from St. Helena, and made her début at the balls of Louis Philippe. A young man named William Makepeace Thackeray was one of the friends whom the family knew in Paris. The winter of 1842 she spent in Boston. where the families of George Ticknor, William H. Prescott, and Julia (Ward) Howe were among her friends and encouraged her to begin writing.

Her first printed work was the translation of a Mexican poem for the appendix of Prescott's History of the Conquest of Mexico (pt. 2, vol. III, 1844). Not long after its publication the family removed permanently to the United States and thenceforth resided in Boston and in Newport, Rhode Island. In 1852 her father died and in the same year her first novel, Amabel, was published in London and New York. In 1856 she published Our Cousin Veronica. For twenty years thereafter she devoted herself to the cares of a home and children.

During the Civil War she took part in the nursing of soldiers. In 1876 she resumed writing, with the determination to make it her chief work. Though her eyes were never strong, she read and wrote indefatigably, and between 1880 and 1903 produced a large number of volumes. Her stories are not noteworthy; her best work is to be found in her series of popular histories: France in the Nineteenth Century (1892), and similar volumes dealing with Russia and Turkey (1893), England (1894), Europe in Africa (1895), Spain (1897); Italy in the Nineteenth Century and the Making of Austro-Hungary and Germany (1896); My Scrap Book of the French Revolution (1898); Judea from Cyrus to Titus; 537 B. C. -70 A. D. (1899); and The Last Years of the Nineteenth Century (1900). She was engaged upon a history of Germany in the nineteenth century when her own failing health permanently ended her work.

In addition to original writing, she published the following translations: A History of the People of Israel (1888 - 1896), in collaboration with J. H. Allen from the French of Ernest Renan; The Steel Hammer (1888) and For Fifteen Years (1888), from Louis Ulbach; Nanon (1890), from George Sand; The Italian Republics (1901), by J. C. L. de Sismondi; The Love Letters of Victor Hugo, 1820-22 (1901); Talks of Napoleon at St. Helena with General Baron Gourgaud (1903). She died at her home in Baltimore and was buried in Greenmount Cemetery.

Achievements

A number of her notable works were the books about contemporary European history. These books revealed much study and considerable understanding of national and world development. They abounded in anecdotes and were written in a vivacious style. During her productive years, Mary Latimer translated a wide variety of books. Her miscellaneous works also included essays on Shakespeare's comedies, stories, ballads and articles for "Putnam's Magazine, " "Harper's Magazine, " and other standard periodicals.