Mary Eliza Kennard (1850–1936) was an English novelist and writer of non-fiction. Most of her work was published under the name of Mrs Edward Kennard. Kennard specialised in stories of the

English country house An English country house is a large house or mansion in the English countryside. Such houses were often owned by individuals who also owned a town house. This allowed them to spend time in the country and in the city—hence, for these peopl ...

world of hunting, shooting, and fishing, and in her heyday was dubbed "the Diana of fiction", in honour of

Diana Diana most commonly refers to: * Diana (name), a given name (including a list of people with the name) * Diana (mythology), ancient Roman goddess of the hunt and wild animals; later associated with the Moon * Diana, Princess of Wales (1961–1997) ...

, the Roman goddess of hunting.Andrew Maunder
Mary Kennard
at valancourtbooks.com, accessed 5 March 2014

Life

Mary Eliza was born in Sydenham in 1850, the eldest daughter of Samuel and Mary Dickson (Cowan) Laing (1819-1902). Samuel Laing was chairman of the Brighton Railway as well as a noted author. Mary has been wrongly recorded as the daughter of Charles Wilson Faber.Virginia Blain, Patricia Clements, Isobel Grundy, ''The Feminist Companion to Literature in English'' (1990), p. 606: "Kennard, Mary Eliza (Faber), 'Mrs Edward Kennard', d. 1936, sporting novelist, da. of Mary (Beckett) and Charles Wilson F. (not Samuel Laing, as sometimes claimed) of Northaw, Herts. Educ. by governesses (who considered her 'a dunce')". and there is a danger of the error becoming established, details of her birth and baptism are given. The error probably arose because in that period and earlier a 'sister-in-law' was often referred to as simply a 'sister', and Mary Eliza's sister Theresa Uzielli (1857-1943) was married to Walter Vavasour Faber (1857-1928), one of Charles Wilson Faber's (1813-1878) sons. Mary Eliza's parentage and early life are described in a brief contemporary biography, which quotes her as saying "''I fancy that any small love of literature which I may possess is hereditary, since my father, who is now chairman of the Brighton Railway, has written several important books, notably 'Modern Science and Modern Thought', 'Problems of the Future' etc., whilst my grandfather, Mr S. Laing, was also a well-known author in his day.''" Laing is also the sister of artist Florence Laing (1853-1952) who was wife of artist Edward Sherard Kennedy (1837-1900) and afterwards John Gennadius ambassador of Greece to England. Florence, along with John, would establish the Gennadius Library at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens (ASCSA). On 19 April 1870, at Saint Nicholas church, Brighton, Mary Eliza Laing married Edward Kennard (1842-1910), himself once a journalist, who became a landed gentleman by buying the Barn Estate on the borders of

Leicestershire Leicestershire ( ; postal abbreviation Leics.) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East Midlands, England. The county borders Nottinghamshire to the north, Lincolnshire to the north-east, Rutland to the east, Northamptonshire t ...

and Northamptonshire from the 18th Earl of Shrewsbury. This property was centred on a country house called The Barn at Little Bowden, one mile from the town of Market Harborough. Kennard had two sons in the 1870s, Lionel (b. 1872) and Malcolm (1874-1934), and her first stories were written for them and were published in a volume called ''Twilight Tales''. She took up writing in earnest to occupy her mind after her sons went away to school.Helen C. Black, Troy J. Bassett, Catherine Pope, ''Notable Women Authors of the Day'' (2011)
pp. 179–182
/ref> Kennard's novels, beginning with ''The Right Sort'' (1883), are mostly set in her own rural world of hunting, shooting, and fishing. ''Landing a Prize'' (1891) was about salmon-fishing, and was the fruit of several summers spent salmon-fishing in Norway. With

Bram Stoker Abraham Stoker (8 November 1847 – 20 April 1912) was an Irish author who is celebrated for his 1897 Gothic horror novel '' Dracula''. During his lifetime, he was better known as the personal assistant of actor Sir Henry Irving and busine ...

Arthur Conan Doyle Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was a British writer and physician. He created the character Sherlock Holmes in 1887 for ''A Study in Scarlet'', the first of four novels and fifty-six short stories about Ho ...

, and others, she was one of the authors of the collaborative novel '' The Fate of Fenella'' (1892). Kennard and her husband were both keen motorists and each owned an automobile. She bought a

Napier Napier may refer to: People * Napier (surname), including a list of people with that name * Napier baronets, five baronetcies and lists of the title holders Given name * Napier Shaw (1854–1945), British meteorologist * Napier Waller (1893–19 ...

eight horsepower two-cylinder, which she allowed to be entered for a 1,000-mile race by S F Edge with herself as passenger. Kennard wrote kindly of her husband's choice of the Napier, but she preferred herself to drive a De Dion voiturette. Her driving was not without incident, and she turned her car over on the tramlines in Nottingham.Napier
at uniquecarsandparts.com, accessed 6 March 2014 In 1903, she published a novel called ''The Motor Maniac'', based around the subject of automobiles. '' The Spectator'' gave it a poor review, suggesting that people who did not own an automobile would find the details of "belts, speeds, makes of car, &c... exasperating". However, '' The Times'' later called Kennard "a very widely read and prolific author of the mid-eighties" who wrote "rattling good tales".'Mrs. Edward Kennard' in '' The Times'', issue 47318 dated 9 March 1936, p. 8 Widowed in 1910, in 1912 Kennard was living at Leamington.ROOKS, RIDER AND CO., LINCOLN'S INN, collection
at nationalarchives.gov.uk, accessed 5 March 2014: "Release DE3199/4 18 Oct 1912 / Contents: i Mary Eliza Kennard formerly of "The Barn", Lt. Bowden, Northants., now No. 25, Leam Tce., Leamington, wid." By the time of her death in 1936 she was forgotten as a writer. In its obituary, '' The Times'' said of her, "Large sums were earned by her publications; then came complete oblivion, which was viewed by the formerly popular favourite with serene detachment." The same obituary recorded that although she was both blind and crippled by the end of her life, she suffered these problems with "unfailing stoicism". In her old age she took an interest in BBC radio and in the lives of her grandchildren.

Selected books

*''The Right Sort'' (1883) *''Killed in the Open'' (1886) *''The Girl in the Brown Habit'' (1887) *''Glorious Gallop'' (1888) *''A Real Good Thing'' (1888) *''The Mystery of a Woman's Heart'' (1890) *''A Homburg Beauty'' (1890) *''Matron or Maid'' (F. V. White, 1891) *''Straight as a Die'' (Chapman & Hall, 1891) *''Landing a Prize'' (1891) *''That Pretty Little Horse-Breaker'' (1891) *''Our Friends in the Hunting Field'' (1892) *'The Scars Remained', Chapter 13 of ''The Fate of Fenella'' (1892) *''A Hunting Girl'' (1894) *''Wedded to Sport'' (1894) *''Guidebook for Lady Cyclists'' (1896) *''The Sorrows of a Golfer's Wife'' (F. V. White, 1896) *''At the Tail of the Hounds'' (1897) *''A Riverside Romance'' (1898) *''The Golf Lunatic and His Cycling Wife'' (Brentano's, 1902) *''The Motor Maniac'' (Hutchinson's, 1903)

Notes

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Kennard, Mary Eliza 1850 births 1936 deaths Angling writers Fox hunters Fox hunting writers Sportspeople from Hertfordshire Women sportswriters Writers from Hertfordshire Victorian novelists 20th-century English novelists Victorian women writers 20th-century English women writers English women novelists 19th-century English women writers 19th-century British writers People from Northaw