Matilda Charlotte Houstoun

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Standard Name: Houstoun, Matilda Charlotte
Birth Name: Matilda Charlotte Jesse
Married Name: Matilda Charlotte Fraser
Married Name: Matilda Charlotte Houstoun
Indexed Name: Mrs Houstoun
Pseudonym: The Author of Recommended to Mercy
Pseudonym: The Author of Taken Upon Trust
Pseudonym: One Who Saved It
MCH produced, and had moderate success with, close to thirty novels, three travel narratives, a biography, several volumes of autobiographical writings, and a short story. She also did some writing for periodicals. Her later writings include strong social protest over the way that women are treated in the criminal courts and in prison. Stylistically, Houstoun is mostly remembered for the anecdotal style that marked her personal narratives.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Friends, Associates Caroline Clive
Lady Byron was another of the Clives' acquaintances. Following a visit in 1843, CC wrote: That is the woman that has been tossed about by such vehement passions, by contact with such a fiery nature...
Textual Features Elizabeth Rigby
The article focuses on works by writers such as Louisa Anne Meredith and Matilda Charlotte Houstoun . ER voices the belief that women's fine observation skills make them well suited for travel writing and notes...

Timeline

April 1863: Henry Mansel in the Quarterly Review attacked...

Writing climate item

April 1863

Henry Mansel in the Quarterly Review attacked sensation novels as preaching to the nerves and as indications of a wide-spread corruption, of which they are in part both the effect and the cause; called into...

28 March 1877: By her own later account Frances Isabella...

Building item

28 March 1877

By her own later account Frances Isabella Stallard left her mother's cottage in a distraught condition with her sickly illegitimate toddler, who then died of exposure; her trial found her guilty of murder.
Houstoun, Matilda Charlotte. Only a Woman’s Life. Spencer Blackett, 1889.
19-21, 1, 99-108

Texts

Houstoun, Matilda Charlotte. "Recommended to Mercy". Saunders, Otley, 1862, 3 vols.
Houstoun, Matilda Charlotte. A Woman’s Memories of World-Known Men. F. V. White, 1883, 2 vols.
Houstoun, Matilda Charlotte. Hesperos. J. W. Parker, 1850, 2 vols.
Houstoun, Matilda Charlotte. His Besetting Sin. F. V. White, 1888, 3 vols.
Houstoun, Matilda Charlotte. “Katerina, The Dwarf of the Jungfernstieg”. Bentley’s Miscellany, Vol.
6
, pp. 561-74.
Houstoun, Matilda Charlotte. Only a Woman’s Life. Spencer Blackett, 1889.
Houstoun, Matilda Charlotte. Recommended to Mercy. Fourth Edition, Tinsley Brothers, 1863.
Houstoun, Matilda Charlotte. Records of a Stormy Life. Hurst and Blackett, 1879, 3 vols.
Houstoun, Matilda Charlotte. Sylvanus Redivivus: the Rev. John Mitford. S. Low, Marston, Searle, and Rivington, 1889.
Houstoun, Matilda Charlotte. Texas and the Gulf of Mexico. J. Murray, 1844, 2 vols.
Houstoun, Matilda Charlotte. Texas and the Gulf of Mexico. G. B. Zieber, 1845.
Houstoun, Matilda Charlotte. The Way She Won Him. F. V. White, 1891, 2 vols.
Houstoun, Matilda Charlotte. Twenty Years in the Wild West. J. Murray, 1879.