L. T. Meade (1854-1914)

Life
[Lillie Thomas Meade, nom de plume of Elizabeth Thomasina Toulin Smith]; b. Bandon, Co. Cork, dg. of Rev. R. T. Meade of Nohoval, Co. Cork; moved to England, 1874, working at the British Museum; m. Toulmin Smith 1879; issued some 280 books, mostly girls’ stories often concerning Irish girls entering English society; titles incl. Wild Kitty (1897), The Rebel of the School (1902) and Peggy from Kerry (1912); popularised the girl’s school story still found in Bunty; ed. Atlanta, 1887-1898, a magazine for girls to which H. Rider Haggard and Robert Louis Stevenson contrib.; ‘Brave Poor Thing’ to The Sunday Magazine (Xmas 1899); d. 26 Oct. IF DIW DIL2

[ top ]

Works
Fiction, A World of Girls (London: Cassell 1886); The Medicine Lady (London: Cassell 1901); Drift (London: Methuen 1902) (iv), 348pp., Love Triumphant (London: T. F. Unwin 1904) (vi), 393pp.; Andrew Harvey’s Wife (London: Collins, 1908); The Wild Irish Girl (London; Chambers 1910); Peggy from Kerry (London: Chambers 1912), ill. Miss Anderson; Kitty O’Donovan (London: Chambers 1912), The Passion of Kathleen Duveen (Stanley Paul 1913); At the Back of the World (Hurst & Blackett n.d.).

The Following titles are available electronically at the Many Books website
  • The Arrest of Capt. Vandaleur: How Miss Cusack Discovered His Trick 1894), 15pp.
  • Betty Vivian: A Story of Haddo Court School 1910), 281pp.
  • A Big Temptation and Other Stories, 38pp.
  • The Blood-Red Cross 1902, 24pp.
  • A Bunch of Cherries: A Story of Cherry Court School 1898 , 194pp.
  • The Children of Wilton Chase 1891, 167pp.
  • The Children’s Pilgrimage 1893, 233pp.
  • Daddy’s Girl, 219pp.
  • The Dead Hand, Being the First of the Experiences of The Oracle of Maddox Street 1902, 16pp.
  • Dickory Dock, 34pp.
  • The Face of the Abbot 1902, 25pp.
  • Fingertips: One of the Sensational Experiences of Diana Marburg, the Oracle of Maddox Street 1902 , 19pp.
  • Followed 1903, 23pp.
  • Frances Kane’s Fortune, 165pp.
  • A Girl in Ten Thousand, 158pp.
  • A Girl of the People, 164pp.
  • Girls of the Forest, 267pp.
  • Good Luck 1896, 146pp.
  • Hollyhock: A Spirit of Mischief 1916, 209pp.
  • The Honorable Miss: A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town, 249pp.
    		•
    • Light O’ The Morning: The Story of an Irish Girl, 249pp.
    • A Little Mother to the Others, 215pp.
    • Madame Sara 1902, 27pp.
    • A Master of Mysteries 1898 , 147pp.
    • A Modern Tomboy: A Story for Girls 1904, 262pp.
    • Mr. Bovey’s Unexpected Will 1899, 16pp.
    • Mrs. Reid’s Terror , 13pp.
    • The Palace Beautiful: A Story for Girls , 297pp.
    • The Pearl: A Complete Story, 14pp.
    • Polly: A New-Fashioned Girl 1910 , 234pp.
    • The Rebel of the School, 281pp.
    • Red Rose and Tiger Lily; or, In a Wider World 1894, 228pp.
    • The School Queens 1910 , 251pp.
    • The Secret of Emu Plain 1898 , 19pp.
    • The Sorceress of the Strand 1902, 76pp.
    • Sue, A Little Heroine 1910, 214pp.
    • A Sweet Girl Graduate, 212pp.
    • The Time of Roses, 228pp.
    • Wild Kitty, 214pp.
    • A World of Girls: The Story of a School , 240pp.
    • A Young Mutineer 1905, 153pp.
      [accessed online, 18.02.2009]

    [ top ]

    Criticism
     Beth Rodgers (QUB), ‘“She talks Ireland”: Irishness, Authorship and the Wild Irish Girls of L.T. Meade’ [paper given at Ireland, Modernism & the fin de siècle, a symposium at Mary Immaculate College/Limerick University, 16-17 April 2010.

    [ top ]

    References
    Stephen Brown, Ireland in Fiction (Dublin: Maunsel 1919), bio-data: 1874-1915, b. Bandon; lists The O’Donnells of Inchfawn (Hatchard [n.d.]); The Wild Irish Girl (London: Chambers 1910) [impulsive Patricia runs wild in Ireland and resists conventional restraints of London]; Desborough’s Wife (Digby Long 1911) [title char. marries peasant and persuades her to disappear so that he can remarry to get out of debt]; Peggy from Kerry (Chambers 1912), ill. Miss Anderson [dg. of peasant mother and an officer sent to English boarding school]; Kitty O’Donovan (Chambers 1912), ill. J. Finnemore [pretty heroine from Kerry at select boarding school]; The Passion of Kathleen Duveen (Stanley Paul 1913) [‘Irishwoman forced into crime by his young wife’s family’s need for money’]; At the Back of the World (Hurst & Blackett n.d.) [set in ‘Arranmore’, Co. Cork, in which Sheila O’Connor is sundered from her lover by a suspicion that he murdered her father].

    Eggeley (Catalogue 44) lists Drift (Methuen 1902) (iv), 348pp., novel about doctor drifting into criminal activity; Love Triumphant (T. F. Unwin 1904) (vi), 393pp.; both 1st edns.; bio-dates 1850-1914 [sic] also contrib. ‘Brave Poor Thing’ to The Sunday Magazine, Xmas 1899.

    [ top ]