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At the Circulating Library

A Database of Victorian Fiction, 1837–1901

A Database of Victorian Fiction, 1837–1901

Author: Alison Charles Carmichael

Author: Alison Charles Carmichael (1791–1885)

Alternate Name(s): Stuart (or Stewart) (maiden name)

Biography: Alison Charles Carmichael was born in 1792 in Scotland, the youngest daughter of Charles Stuart of Dunearn and Mary Erskine. Her father trained as a minister before turning to medicine, earning an M.D. and eventually serving as president of the Royal College of Physicians of Scotland. Her brother James Stuart was a notable Scottish politician and travel writer. In 1816, she married Captain John Wilson Carmichael, an army officer and colonial landowner in St. Vincent and Trinidad, and the couple lived in the West Indies for five years. After her return to Europe, she wrote Domestic Manners and Social Customs of the White, Coloured, and Negro Population of the West Indies (1833). She followed this with the collection Tales of a Grandmother (1841), a story that is partially set in Scotland and the West Indies. Capt. Carmichael died in 1850. Thereafter, she and her two daughters lived in England and Guernsey where she died in 1885.

Author Tags:

References: Burke; Karina Williamson, "Mrs. Carmichael: A Scotswoman in the West Indies, 1820-1826," International Journal of Scottish Literature (2008)

Fiction Titles:

  1. Tales of a Grandmother.  1 vol.  London: Bentley, 1841.