Sarah Doudney

Sarah Doudney (an inscription signed by Doudney appears beneath the portrait engraving).

Sarah Doudney (15 January 1841, Portsea, Hampshire – 8 December 1926, Oxford^[1]) was an English novelist and poet, best known as a children's writer and hymnwriter.

Doudney's father ran a candle and soap manufacturing business; one of her uncles was the evangelical clergyman David Alfred Doudney, editor of The Gospel Magazine and Old Jonathan.^[1] Doudney was educated at a school for French girls, and started to write poetry and prose as a child. 'The Lesson of the Water-Mill', written when she was fifteen and published in the Anglican Churchman's Family Magazine (1864), became a well known song in Britain and the United States. In the 1881 census Doudney described herself as a "Writer for Monthly Journals".^[2] She contributed poetry and fiction to periodicals including Dickens's All the Year Round, the Churchman's Shilling Magazine,^[1] the Religious Tract Society's Girl's Own Paper, the Sunday Magazine, Good Words and the Quiver ^[2]

Doudney continued to live with her parents near Catherington until she was thirty. She published her first novel, Under Grey Walls, in 1871; by 1891, when she was describing herself in the census as a novelist, she had written around 35 novels,^[2], aimed in most cases at girls, although she also wrote some adult novels.

Doudney's hymns include The Christian's Good Night, set by Ira D. Sankey in 1884 and sung at Charles Spurgeon's funeral.^[2]

Works

• Psalms for Life, 1871. A collection of 60 hymns.
• Under Grey Walls, 1871
• 'Where Swallows Build', Girl's Own Paper, XX, 1898
• Thy Heart's Desire, 1888
• Katherine's Keys, 1896
• The Vanished Hand, 1896

References

1. ^ ^{a b c} Charlotte Mitchell, ‘Doudney, Sarah (1841–1926)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2005, accessed 11 July 2008
2. ^ ^{a b c d} Sarah Doudney (1841-1926)

External links

• Works by Sarah Doudney
• Biography at the Cyber Hymnal
• Works by or about Sarah Doudney in libraries (WorldCat catalog)

Persondata
Name	Doudney, Sarah
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	15 January 1841
Place of birth
Date of death	8 December 1926
Place of death