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At the Circulating Library

A Database of Victorian Fiction, 1837–1901

A Database of Victorian Fiction, 1837–1901

Author: Hon. Emily Anna Acland

Author: Hon. Emily Anna Acland (1859–1942)

Alternate Name(s): Smith (maiden name); Lady Acland (title); Evelyn Stone (pseudonym)

Biography: Emily Anna Acland was born in 1859 in London, the eldest daughter of the Right Hon. W.H. Smith (1825–1891) and Emily Danvers (later Viscountess Hambleden). Her father was the famous bookseller, Member of Parliament, and First Lord of the Admiralty (gently parodied in Gilbert and Sullivan's H.M.S. Pinafore). She published her first novel Hugh Moore (a love story about a young Irish soldier in Corfu) in 1885 under the pseudonym "Evelyn Stone." In 1887 she married Admiral William Dyke Acland (1847–1924), the son of the physician Sir Henry Wentworth Dyke Acland, Bt. (1815–1900). Her husband occupied a number of posts, including superintendent of the Gilbraltar dockyard. Acland wrote two more novels under her own name: Love in a Life (1893), a love story amid diplomatic life, and The Lost Key (1901), about a diplomatic scandal in Malta. When William succeeded his father as baronet, Emily became Lady Acland. She died in 1942 in London.

References: Burke; DNB (W.H. Smith); Times (30 January 1942)

Fiction Titles:

  1. Hugh Moore: or, What is Honour?.  2 vol.  Edinburgh: Blackwood, 1885.
  2. Love in a Life: A Novel.  2 vol.  London: Kegan Paul, 1893.
  3. The Lost Key: An International Episode.  1 vol.  London: John Macqueen, 1901.