Lifespan: 1832-1906
Nationality: Irish
Genres: Social fiction; Ghost Stories
Types of Work: Novels, short stories
Contemporaries:
Other Names: F.G. Trafford
Style: Used her native Ireland as the setting of many of her novels.
Bio: Charlotte was the youngest daughter of James Cowan, High Sheriff of Antrim Co, Ireland, and Ellen Kilshaw. She grew up in Carrickfergus. Bu the age of 15, she had written her first story. When Charlotte was 21, her father died, and the family, left financially reduced, was forced to leave their home and move to the village of Dundonald in Count Down. She used this setting for her novel Berna Boyle.
Charlotte moved London in 1853 where her mother died of cancer the following year. Determined to make her living from writing, she published her first novel, Zuriel's Grandchild.
At the age of 25, she married Joseph Riddell, a civil engineer for the city of London. He began to deal in questionable business ventures and lost great sums of money. Charlotte used the proceeds from her writing to pay his debt. He died in 1880
In the latter part of the 1860's, she became quite influential and sought after in the literary world.
She developed cancer in 1889, and died on September 24, 1906 in Isleworth. She was buried in Heston churchyard.
Novels:
The Haunted House at Latchford (aka Fairy Water) (1872)
The Uninhabited House (1875)
The Haunted River (1877)
The Disappearance of Jeremiah Redworth (1878)
The Nun's Curse (1888)
Maxwell Drewitt (1879)
The Earl’s Promise (1873)