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At the Circulating Library

A Database of Victorian Fiction, 1837–1901

A Database of Victorian Fiction, 1837–1901

Author: Edith Lister

Author: Edith Lister (1859–1938)

Alternate Name(s): Noel Ainslie (pseudonym)

Biography: Edith Georginana Lister was born in 1859 in Doncaster, Yorkshire, the daughter of doctor John Lister and his wife Frances Mary (née Moore). Not much is known of her early life. In the 1890s, she wrote three novels under the pseudonym "Noel Ainslie." Around the same time, she met and befriended George Gissing. Later, after his death, she wrote a memoir about him. In the twentieth century, she lived with her sister Alys in Stratford. The publisher A. H. Bullen lived with them (some suspect Alys was his mistress). She died in 1938 in Stratford.

References: British Census (1881, 1891, 1901); The Collected Letters of W. B. Yeats, Volume 4 (2005); Pierre Coustillas, "Noel Ainslie Identified," Gissing Newsletter 14.2 (1978)

Fiction Titles:

  1. An Erring Pilgrimage.  1 vol.  London: Lawrence and Bullen, 1896.
  2. Among Thorns: A Novel.  1 vol.  London: Lawrence and Bullen, 1898.
  3. The Salvation Seekers.  1 vol.  London: Methuen, 1901.