Background
Rhoda Broughton was born on November 29, 1840, at Segrwyd Hall, near Denbigh, England. She was the daughter of Delves, a clergyman, and Jane (Bennet) Broughton.
(Ghosts, curses and ghastly murders - what could be better...)
Ghosts, curses and ghastly murders - what could be better for a long winter's night? Rhoda Broughton's collection of macabre tales was published in time for Christmas 1872.
https://www.amazon.com/Tales-Christmas-Gothic-Sensation-Supernatural-ebook/dp/B00PKUIYJE/?tag=2022091-20
1873
(A collection of short ghost stories by Victorian writer R...)
A collection of short ghost stories by Victorian writer Rhoda Broughton. Includes: 'The Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing But the Truth', 'The Man with the Nose', 'Behold, it was a Dream!', 'Poor Pretty Bobby', and 'Under the Cloak'.
https://www.amazon.com/Twilight-Stories-Annotated-Rhoda-Broughton-ebook/dp/B0057Q0RU0/?tag=2022091-20
1879
(Miss Broughton's story 'Belinda' is admirably told, with ...)
Miss Broughton's story 'Belinda' is admirably told, with the happiest humor, the closest and clearest character-sketching. Sarah is a gem - one of the truest, liveliest, and most amusing persons of modern fiction.
https://www.amazon.com/Belinda-Novel-Rhoda-Broughton/dp/1796874876/?tag=2022091-20
1883
(The novel displays all the author's power of humorous cha...)
The novel displays all the author's power of humorous characterization, her amused sense of the comedy of life. It contains enchanting open-air word-pictures; delightful chatter of children; vivacious dialogue; it throbs with actuality and animal spirits; it is, in short, a characteristic specimen of her work.
https://www.amazon.com/Beginner-Rhoda-Broughton/dp/1796664715/?tag=2022091-20
1893
(Miss Broughton indicates with great skill how the limitat...)
Miss Broughton indicates with great skill how the limitations, the prejudices, and the stupidity of an average family circle may easily impel a generous nature to find vent for its altruistic energies in the field of philanthropical endeavour.
https://www.amazon.com/Dear-Faustina-Rhoda-Broughton/dp/1797604953/?tag=2022091-20
1897
(Are you a fan of Victorian and Edwardian novels? Here's a...)
Are you a fan of Victorian and Edwardian novels? Here's a pretty good one. The heroine is wealthy, self-satisfied, naive, and very judgmental. She has mistakes to make and lessons to learn before she earns a chance at happiness with a good and handsome man. And it all happens in just one volume.
https://www.amazon.com/Foes-law-Rhoda-Broughton/dp/1797696149/?tag=2022091-20
1900
Rhoda Broughton was born on November 29, 1840, at Segrwyd Hall, near Denbigh, England. She was the daughter of Delves, a clergyman, and Jane (Bennet) Broughton.
Rhoda was educated at home by her father.
Rhoda grew up with all the comforts and privileges of her status, and was no doubt expected to make a respectably conventional marriage upon reaching the appropriate age. However, Broughton’s love of language and of writing was not to be ignored. In the mid-1860s she enlisted the aid of her uncle, Sheridan Le Fanu, in publishing Not Wisely but Too Well and Cometh Up as a Flower, through the agency of publisher George Bentley. These novels were but the first two of an impressively long list of romances that were deemed particularly racy for the Victorian sensibilities of her time. These first two books were published anonymously, but later works would be brought out under her own name.
With her first books published, Broughton devoted herself to a literary life, and Bentley soon became accustomed to receiving a new manuscript every two years - a pattern Broughton would keep to fairly strictly for the rest of her life. Most of her books first saw publication in serial form, in Temple Bar; this strategy guaranteed a ready public when the complete texts were released in book form. The final list of Broughton’s total published works reaches twenty-five book titles, nearly all of which can be described as “sensational romances.”
Broughton was also interested in the short-story form, and here she frequently indulged the urge to relate ghost stories, popular in her day. Her first, published in Temple Bar in 1868, is entitled “The Truth, The Whole Truth, and Nothing but the Truth” which Mike Ashley describes in the St. James Guide to Horror, Ghost, & Gothic Writers as “remarkable in that it takes the form of an exchange of six letters between ladies.” Using this device, Broughton was able to create a fine sense of foreboding and suspense without the need for graphic descriptions of the ghastly ghost who forms the centerpiece of the tale. She regularly submitted short fiction in this genre to Temple Bar until 1872, and the short tales were later collected and published in a volume entitled Tales for a Christmas Eve.
Although Broughton continued to write her semiannual romances, she did return to the ghost-story genre from time to time. The year 1886 saw the publication of two novelettes, issued in a single volume entitled Betty’s Visions and Mrs. Smith of Longmuins. These two novelettes stand independently, but both treat the theme of clairvoyant visions.
Toward the end of her life, she moved to London, where she remained until her death in 1920.
(Miss Broughton indicates with great skill how the limitat...)
1897(Ghosts, curses and ghastly murders - what could be better...)
1873(Miss Broughton's story 'Belinda' is admirably told, with ...)
1883(The novel displays all the author's power of humorous cha...)
1893(Are you a fan of Victorian and Edwardian novels? Here's a...)
1900(A collection of short ghost stories by Victorian writer R...)
1879(Volume III)
1890(Volume 3)
1872(Volume I)
1886An important feature in all Broughton's novels is criticism of woman's role and position in society. Very often Broughton's women are strong characters and with them she manages to subvert traditional images of femininity.
No doubt the undeniably racy nature of Broughton’s works go far to explain the consistently popular reception of her novels, but they are not the central virtue of her books for today’s readers. Current critics of her work focus instead upon her psychological analyses of the interior states of her heroines. Unfortunately, her books are best in the unfolding, not in the conclusion - she, like the other writers of her time, was bound by certain storytelling conventions that tended to require her to close her narratives with morally appropriate resolutions. Thus, her heroines, so vibrant in the body of the books, generally end up paying for their saucy ways, or giving them up entirely and submitting to conventional marriages.
Broughton's ghost-stories display the author’s engaging sense of humor that comes through in many incidental episodes. Broughton’s ghost tales are not minor deviations from the true body of her work, but true classics.
In 1892, at the age of 52, Broughton and her sister arrived in Oxford, where she quickly became known for her wit and her conversational skill. Among the many literary admirers was Henry James, with whom she maintained a 25-year friendship.
Broughton did not standalone as a female author of romantic fiction. Writing at about the same time were such successful authors as Charlotte Yonge, Ouida, and Marie Corelli - the latter two being known, like Broughton, for featuring wicked women and lusty men. But though there were others working in her genre, few remain as readable as Broughton is today. Her shrewd eye for the telling details of life in the Victorian household and of the social interactions between men and women of a certain class make her books valuable not only as entertainment but also as a socio-cultural record of her age.
Quotes from others about the person
"Broughton clearly enjoyed shocking the straightlaced with a succession of tales about precocious young girls surrendering to disastrous love affairs or caught up in loveless marriages.” - R. C. Terry
Rhoda Broughton never married.