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1801-1873
Novelist and poet. Born on 24 June 1801 at Brompton Grove, London. Her father was Edmund Wigley of Shakenhurst, Worcestershire and a Member of Parliament for Worcester. The family were wealthy but she had an unhappy childhood and suffered from lameness. Her first collection of poetry was published in 1840 using the pseudonym of "V" (the letter, not the Roman numeral) and received very favourable reviews. The same year she married the Rev. Archer Clive, who was Rector of Solihull from 1838-1852.
They kept diaries on domestic matters and Caroline contributed articles to magazines. Her first novel, Paul Ferroll (1855), was a great success. Other novels followed that questioned some aspects of Victorian morality. Her husband became chancellor of the choir and prebendary of Pyon Parva at Hereford Cathedral and Caroline spent her latter days at Whitfield, Herefordshire where her husband was a landowner and benefactor. After suffering a stroke she became paralysed before dying on 13 July 1873 at her writing table, as a result of a accident when her dress caught alight.
Her novel, Paul Ferroll, has been described as having great power and considerable imagination, a pioneering work in psychological fiction. The hero detests his wife because she has prevented him from marrying another. He murders her and, escaping suspicion, is then able to marry his true love. After many years of happy marriage he is faced with the dilemma of whether he should confess in order to save others wrongly accused of the crime. Ernest Baker, in his The history of the English novel, states:-
It is not melodrama; thoughts, motives, conversations are retailed in the most natural way, with no straining after effect. It is something new, this un-sensational treatment of a provocative theme; it is good sound realism.
Though less successful, her prequel, Why Paul Ferroll killed his wife (1860), attempted to explain the background to the subsequent murder:-
She was his fate; a contemptible, but all powerful agent; a hateful presence which had forced itself upon him, and which held him imprisoned in sight of the felicity he had once grasped, and let go at the false accents of that despicable deceiver...Out of those hours arose a purpose. The reader sees the man, and knows the deed. From the premises laid before him, he need not indeed have concluded that even that man would do that deed; but since it was told, in 1855, that the husband killed the wife, so now, in 1860, it is explained why he killed her.
IX poems by V (1840)
Paul Ferroll (1855). Novel.
Year after year (1858). Novel.
Why Paul Ferroll killed his wife (1860). Novel.
John Greswold (1864). Novel.
The following e-texts are available from the Victorian Women Writers Project webpages at the University of Indiana:-
The history of the English novel by Ernest A Baker, vol VIII. (1937)
From the Diary and Family Papers of Mrs. Archer Clive edited by Mary Clive. London, The Bodley Head, 1939.
Page created 23 August 2003 and last updated
23 August 2003
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