Lifespan: -1895
Nationality: English
Types of Work: Novels, Biography, poetry
Other Names: Miss R.M. Kettle
Style: Descriptive settings
Bio:
Mary Rosa Stuart Kettle was born at Overseale, Leicestershire to John Kettle and his wife, Clara Joanna Mackenzie.
Her early works were encouraged by her sister, Harriet, by whom she had been mostly educated. Rosa later dropped her middle names "Rosa Stuart" and took up her mother's maiden name "Mackenzie".
Rosa published numerous novels and poems over almost fifty years. Her works were mostly well received and she was quite popular during her time. She loved the country, and many of her works feature vivid descriptions of the scenery and countryside's of their settings, usually Scotland, Cornwall, and the English South Coast. Some of her earliest novels were initially published anonymously.
One of her most popular novels was Smugglers and Foresters, published in 1851. She also wrote a biography of the poet Charles Boner in 1871.
She died at Callander, Scotland on 14 March, 1895.
Sources:
The Biograph and Review, Volume 3
Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Volume 29
Novels:
Max Wentworth (1839)
Smugglers and Foresters (1851)
Fabian's Tower (1852)
Sir Frederick Derwent (1853)
Lewell Pastures (1854)
The Wreckers (1857)
The Earl's Cedars (1860)
La Belle marie (1862)
The Mistress of Langdale Hall (1872)
Hillesden on the Moors (1873)
Over the Furze (1874)
Under the Grand Old Hills (1879)
My Home in the Shires (1876)
The Sea and the Moor; or, Homeward Bound (1877)
The Ranger's Lodge (1878)
Lord Muskelyne's Daughter: a Story of the Northern Border (1880)
Autumn Leaves from the Leny Pass (1880)
The Falls of Loder: a Romance of Dartmoor (1881)
The Carding-Mill Valley: a Romance of the Shropshire Highlands (1882)
On Leithay's Banks: A Highland Story (1884)
The Tenants of Beldornie: a Romance of the South Coast (1885)
The Last MacKenzie of Redcastle (1888)
The Sisters of Ombersleigh, or, Under the South Downs (1888)
The Light on the Sandhills: a Story of Parkstone Beach
My Coastguard Station at West Lavington
The Oaks of Fairholme