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: Louisa Blake

Author: Louisa Blake (1806–1881)

Alternate Name(s): Lady Blake (alternate name); Pilkington (maiden name); Dawson (first married name)

Biography: Louisa Blake was born in 1806 in Sandal, Yorkshire, the daughter of Sir Thomas Pilkington and his wife Elizabeth Anne Tufnell. In 1830, she married the Rev. George Augustus Dawson and the couple had one son. After her husband's death in January 1848, she married Sir Henry Charles Blake on 15 February 1849. Rather late in life, she wrote a novel The Family on the Lea (1862) published anonymously. Her second husband died in 1880 and she died on 28 December 1881 in Bury St. Edmund after a fall down a flight of stairs. Note: the copy of the novel owned by Princeton University contains an inscription establishing authorship.

References: British Census (1841, 1881); Burke; Bury and Norwich Post (3 January 1882)

Fiction Titles:

  1. The Family at the Lea: A Tale of Home.  2 vol.  London: Saunders and Otley, 1862.