Florence Marryat

Florence Marryat

Florence Marryat (9 July 1833 – 27 October 1899) was a British author and actress. The daughter of author Capt. Frederick Marryat and his wife Catherine, she was particularly known for her sensational novels and her involvement with several celebrated spiritual mediums of the late nineteenth century. Her works include There is No Death (1891) and The Spirit World (1894).

Life

Marryat was born in Brighton, Sussex, in 1833, daughter of author and naval Captain Frederick Marryat and his wife, Catherine (nee Shairp). Her parents separated when Marryat was young; her childhood was divided between her parents' residences, where she was privately educated.^[1]

Shortly before her 21st birthday, she wed Thomas Ross Church, an officer in the Madras staff corps of the British Army in India; they spent the first seven years of their married life travelling India extensively before she returned to England in 1860 without her husband, who apparently visited only occasionally. She had eight children with Church, three of them while in India.^[2] She wrote her first novel, Love’s Conflict (1865), while her young children were suffering from scarlet fever, to distract herself from “sad thoughts”. The novel met with modest success and was followed by Too Good for Him and Woman Against Woman in the same year. In all, she wrote at least 70 novels, some of them treating such then-controversial themes as marital cruelty, adultery, spiritualism and alcoholism. In 1872, she wrote a biography of her father, Life and Letters of Captain Marryat. She also contributed to newspapers and magazines and authored some short stories and works for the stage. From 1872 to 1876 she edited the monthly magazine London Society.^[3][1]

By the mid-1870s Marryat was an internationally successful author and was living together with her future husband, Colonel Francis Lean of the Royal Marine Light Infantry. Church eventually sued for divorce in 1878, citing his wife’s adultery as the grounds.^[1] In 1876 to 1877, she collaborated with George Grossmith in writing and performing a comic touring entertainment called Entre Nous. This piece consisted of a series of piano sketches, alternating with scenes and costumed recitations, including a two-person "satirical musical sketch", really a short comic opera, by Grossmith called Cups and Saucers.^[4] Marryat and her husband divorced in 1879; later that year, she wed Colonel Francis Lean, but they then divorced in 1880.^[3]

At the age of 43, in 1881, Marryat returned to the stage, playing the role of Hephzibah Horton in a drama she had written based on her novel Her World Against a Lie. The next year, she joined a D'Oyly Carte Opera Company touring company in Gilbert and Sullivan's Patience, playing the role of Lady Jane. In 1884 she played Queen Altemire in a revival of W. S. Gilbert's fairy comedy The Palace of Truth in London with Herbert Beerbohm Tree. She later appeared in her own one-woman show, Love Letters, and appeared as a lecturer, dramatic reader and public entertainer. She continued performing until 1890, when she played Casandra Doolittle in an operetta called The Dear Departed, and she continued writing for the rest of her life.^[3] In the 1890s, she ran a school of journalism and Literary Art.^[1] Some of her best known books on spiritualism included There Is No Death (1891), The Spirit World (1894) and A Soul on Fire. She wrote a lighthearted book about her travels in the United States called Tom Tiddler's Ground (1886).

Marryat died in 1899 from diabetes and pneumonia^[5] and is buried in Kensal Green Cemetery in London.^[2]

Works

Marryat always used the name Marryat professionally, beginning with her first novel, Love's Conflict (1865), which she wrote to distract herself when her children developed scarlet fever. She published 67 more novels before her death, as well as various non-fiction works such as The Life and Letters of Captain Marryat (1872) and Gup (1868), an account of garrison life in India. There is No Death (1891) and The Spirit World (1894) give accounts of séances she attended.^[2]

Sources

• Fodor, Nandor. "Florence Marryat," An Encyclopaedia of Psychic Science (1934).
• "Florence Marryat." The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume IX. Published. New York: Robert Appleton Company (1910).
•  "Florence Marryat". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. 1913. 

References

1. ^ ^{a b c d} Pope, Catherine. "Florence Marryat: Eminent Victorian". Florencemarryat.org, accessed 19 April 2011
2. ^ ^{a b c} Neisius, Jean G. "Florence Marryat." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
3. ^ ^{a b c} Stone, David. "Florence Marryat". The Gilbert and Sullivan Archive, 27 August 2001, accessed 19 April 2011
4. ^ Grossmith, George (1888). A Society Clown: Reminiscences. Bristol/London: Arrowsmith. http://math.boisestate.edu/gas/books/grossmith/index.html.  Chapter 5.
5. ^ Florence Marryat – Life

External links

• Florence Marryat – Eminent Victorian

Persondata
Name	Marryat, Florence
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1838
Place of birth
Date of death	27 October 1899
Place of death