Maude Gertrude Annesley Webster-Wedderburn Hadden Rider Brownlow (11 January 1871 – 6 November 1930) was a British novelist who published under the name Maude Annesley.
She was born Maude Gertrude Annesley Webster-Wedderburn on 11 January 1871 in
Newcastle-under-Lyme
Newcastle-under-Lyme ( RP: , ) is a market town and the administrative centre of the Borough of Newcastle-under-Lyme in Staffordshire, England. The 2011 census population of the town was 75,082, whilst the wider borough had a population of 1 ...
, the daughter of Major George Gordon Trophime-Gérard de Lally-Tollendal Webster-Wedderburn, son of
James Webster-Wedderburn, and Caroline Teresa Dixon.
[Mosley, Charles, editor. ''Burke's Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage, 107th edition, 3 volumes''. Wilmington, Delaware, U.S.A.: Burke's Peerage (Genealogical Books) Ltd, 2003, volume 2, page 2984.]
She married Henry Alexander Hadden, a
solicitor
A solicitor is a legal practitioner who traditionally deals with most of the legal matters in some jurisdictions. A person must have legally-defined qualifications, which vary from one jurisdiction to another, to be described as a solicitor and ...
, in 1892. Still married to Hadden, Annesley moved to Paris with William Henry Rider, a publisher, in 1902. The ensuing divorce was a public scandal.
Annesley was a contributor to ''
The Fortnightly Review
''The Fortnightly Review'' was one of the most prominent and influential magazines in nineteenth-century England. It was founded in 1865 by Anthony Trollope, Frederic Harrison, Edward Spencer Beesly, and six others with an investment of £9,000; ...
'', ''
The Westminster Gazette
''The Westminster Gazette'' was an influential Liberal newspaper based in London. It was known for publishing sketches and short stories, including early works by Raymond Chandler, Anthony Hope, D. H. Lawrence, Katherine Mansfield, and Saki, ...
'', and other publications. She published a number of novels mainly featuring, in the words of
Sandra Kemp, "restless daughters and wives." Some of them featured supernatural elements, like the
clairvoyant
Clairvoyance (; ) is the magical ability to gain information about an object, person, location, or physical event through extrasensory perception. Any person who is claimed to have such ability is said to be a clairvoyant () ("one who sees cl ...
protagonist of ''The Door of Darkness'' (1909) or the sinister
hypnotist of ''Shadow-Shapes'' (1911). Two of her novels were adapted for film: ''Wind Along the Waste'' (1910) as ''
Shattered Dreams'' (1922) and ''The Wine of Life'' (1907) as the
1924 film of the same name.
According to her great-grandson John Stewart, Rider introduced Annesley to "the world of the occult, the
Golden Dawn,
Swinburne
Algernon Charles Swinburne (5 April 1837 – 10 April 1909) was an English poet, playwright, novelist, and critic. He wrote several novels and collections of poetry such as ''Poems and Ballads'', and contributed to the famous Eleventh Edition ...
,
MacGregor Mather, drugs and orgies," which eventually took their toll on her. Her third husband had her institutionalized at Camberwell House Lunatic Asylum in
Peckham
Peckham () is a district in southeast London, within the London Borough of Southwark. It is south-east of Charing Cross. At the United Kingdom Census 2001, 2001 Census the Peckham ward had a population of 14,720.
History
"Peckham" is a Saxon p ...
.
Maude Annesley died on 6 November 1930.
Personal life
Maude Annesley was married three times:
* Henry Alexander Hadden, in 1892. They had a daughter, Betty Valentia Hadden Stewart (1893-1978)
* William Henry Rider, in 1902.
* Major Harry Blaikie Brownlow, in 1915.
Bibliography
* ''The Wine of Life'' (1907)
* ''The Door of Darkness'' (1909)
* ''This Day's Madness'' (1909)
* ''Wind Along the Waste'' (1910)
* ''All Awry'' (1911)
* ''Shadow-Shapes'' (1911)
* ''Nights and Days'' (1912)
* ''The Sphinx in the Labyrinth'' (1913)
* ''My Parisian Year: A Woman's Point of View'' (1914)
* ''Blind Understanding'' (1915)
* ''The Player'' (1922)
* ''Where I Made One'' (1923)
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Annesley, Maude
Created via preloaddraft
1871 births
1930 deaths
British women novelists