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At the Circulating Library

A Database of Victorian Fiction, 1837–1901

A Database of Victorian Fiction, 1837–1901

Author: Charlotte Louisa Hawkins Dempster

Author: Charlotte Louisa Hawkins Dempster (1835–1913)

Biography: Charlotte Louisa Hawkins Dempster was born in 1835 in Dunniehen, Forfarshire, Scotland, the daughter of James Whitslee Hawkins Dempster. She spent her early life in the highlands of Scotland. By the 1860s, she was contributing to periodicals, including the Edinburgh Review. Dempster moved to France in midlife and became a long-time resident of Cannes. Her first novel The Hôtel du Petit St. Jean: A Gascon Story (1869) reflects her knowledge of France as do her subsequent novels. Besides fiction, she wrote a travel book on the maritime Alps, several Catholic devotional works (she was a convert to Rome), and many contributions to the Folklore Society's journal. She never married and died in 1913 in Cannes. Her friend Alice Knox edited her autobiography (published 1920).

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References: Allibone; Times (15 May 1913); Wellesley

Fiction Titles:

  1. The Hôtel du Petit St. Jean: A Gascon Story.  1 vol.  London: Smith, Elder, 1869.
  2. Véra.  1 vol.  London: Smith, Elder, 1871.
  3. Iseulte.  1 vol.  London: Smith, Elder, 1875.
  4. Blue Roses: or, Helen Malinofska's Marriage.  2 vol.  London: Henry S. King, 1877.
  5. Within Sound of the Sea.  2 vol.  London: Kegan Paul, 1878.
  6. Ninette: An Idyll of Provence.  1 vol.  London: Hurst and Blackett, 1888.
  7. Marjory's Husband.  1 vol.  London: S. P. C. K., 1888.
  8. The Dance of the Hours.  1 vol.  London: Methuen, 1893.