Lifespan: 1825-1891
Nationality: English
Genres: Victorian Literature
Types of Work: Novels, Travel Books, Short Stories
Contemporaries:
Other Names: Addlestone Hill
Style: Predictable romance, interwoven with elements of the sensational, and a slight attention to gender-specific issues, such as seduction.
Bio: Mary Ann McDowell was born in February 19, 1824 at Fitzroy Square, London, the posthumous child of Charles McDowell, who died five months before her birth. Her mother, Eliza, determining that her only child should never be sent away to school, had her educated entirely at home under her own supervision.
Mary Anne married Sir Thomas Duffy Hardy, who held the position Keeper of Her Majesty's Records. The couple had a daughter, Iza, in 1850, who was also a writer. Thomas died in 1879.
Lady Hardy had always been fond of writing, but she did not seriously pursue a literary career until after her marriage. She published her first novel, Savile House: An Historical Romance of the Time of George the First, in 1853. It was published under the pseudonym Addlestone Hill. Her first novel of importance, Paul Wynter's Sacrifice, was published in 1869.
In 1880 and 1880, she travelled to America, and the tour inspired two of her books: Through Cities and Prarie Lands" Sketches of an American Tour and Down South. While there, she and her daughter met Oliver Wendell Holmes and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
In all, Lady Hardy published 14 novels. She died May 19, 1891 in London and was buried at Willesden.
Novels:
Down South
In Sight of Land: A Novel
Madge
Two Catherines
Paul Wynter's Sacrifice
Lizzie
Beryl Fortescue
A Hero's Work
Daisy Nichol
A Dangerous Experiment
War Notes from the Crimea
The Artist's Family: an Historical Romance
A Casual Acquaintance: a Novel founded on Fact
A Woman's Triumph
A Buried Sin
Savile House