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1840-1920
Novelist. Born near Denbigh, Wales, the daughter of the Rev. Delves Broughton who came from an old Staffordshire family, from the village of that name in the county. While Rhoda was a child, the family moved to Staffordshire so that her father could take up the living of the church. Rhoda was the youngest member of the family and she had two sisters and a brother. They lived in Broughton Hall, a fine Elizabethan mansion and this became a great source of inspiration for her later writings about country house life. Rhoda developed a taste for literature, especially poetry, encouraged by her father. Like her heroine in A beginner (1893) Rhoda wrote in secret and her work was published anonymously through the assistance of her uncle, Sheridan Le Fanu, himself a best-selling author. He was the owner of the Dublin University magazine and her first novel originally appeared serially within its pages.
Rhoda's father outlived his wife, and when he died in 1863, Rhoda went to live with her two sisters at Surbiton, Surrey and from there to Ruthin, Denbighshire. In London she became friends with a range of literary figures of the day, including Matthew Arnold and Henry James. On the recommendation of the former, she settled with her sister in Oxford, from 1878, but the rather stuffy university town did not take too kindly to this author with a reputation for being rather racey. Her final years were spent at Headlington Hill, near Oxford.
In 1867, her first two novels were published in book form and they were an immediate success. Not wisely, but too well and Cometh up as a flower stood out from other contemporary novels by their fresh style and emotional intensity. Her style became somewhat diluted and less daring in her later works and her popularity waned. She is quoted as saying that she "began life as Zola and finished it as Miss Yonge", the latter being a prolific writer of gentle middle-class stories. In addition to around 25 novels she wrote many short stories, Behold it was a dream!, published in The Temple Bar, November 1872, being one of the more popular.
Not wisely, but too well (1867)
Cometh up as a flower
(1867)
Red as a rose is she (1870)
Good-bye, sweetheart! (1872)
Tales for Christmas Eve (1872) [re-issued as Twilight
stories from 1879]
Nancy (1873)
Joan (1876)
Second thoughts (1880)
Belinda (1883)
Betty's visions and Mrs. Smith of Longmains (1886)
Doctor Cupid (1886)
Alas! (1890)
A widower indeed (1891)
Mrs. Bligh (1892)
A beginner
(1893)
Scylla or Charybdis? (1895)
Dear Faustina (1897)
The game and the candle (1899)
Foes in law (1899)
Lavinia (1902)
A waif's progress (1905)
Mamma (1908)
The devil and the deep sea (1910)
Between two stools (1912)
Concerning a vow (1914)
Thorn in the flesh (1917)
A fool in her folly (1920)
Tales for Christmas Eve contains the following stories, originally published in The Temple Bar magazine, as indicated:-
Many of the novels of Rhoda Broughton have now been digitised. The Minor Classic Novels website has a list with links to where they may be found.
You may read online here introductions to two of Rhoda Broughton's novels, A beginner and Cometh up as a flower. There are also complete e-texts of these novels.
The first book-length profile of Rhoda Broughton was Marilyn Wood's Rhoda Broughton; profile of a novelist, published by Paul Watkins, Stamford in 1993. A copy is held in the West Midlands Creative Literature Collection. It contains excellent bibliographies of the works of Rhoda Broughton and other sources of information.
Page created 2 September 2001 and last
updated 5 September 2011
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