Small image of a man handing a book to a women across a counter.

At the Circulating Library

A Database of Victorian Fiction, 1837–1901

A Database of Victorian Fiction, 1837–1901

Author: Bessie Pullen Burry

Author: Bessie Pullen Burry (1858–1937)

Biography: Bessie Pullen Burry (later Pullen-Burry) was born in 1858 in Sompting, Sussex, the daughter of market gardner John Pullen Burry. Her brother was the doctor and occultist Henry Pullen Burry. In the Victorian period, she wrote three undistinguished novels before turning to travel and anthropology. Pullen-Burry wrote books about Jamaica, New Britain, Canada, and Palestine. She advocated women's rights, including suffrage, and began a "Geographical Circle" for women explorers which led to her election to the Royal Geographical Society in 1913. She lectured widely. Her latter years are marked by anti-semetic, anti-immigrant, and eventually fascist views. She never married and died in 1937 in Hindhead.

References: British Census (1901); Innes M. Keighren, Bringing Geography to Book (2010); Times (23 September 1937)

Fiction Titles:

  1. Nobly Won: A Novel.  2 vol.  London: Remington, 1888.
  2. Eleanor Lewknor.  2 vol.  London: Remington, 1889.
  3. Blotted Out.  1 vol.  London: Roxburghe Press, 1897.