Lifespan: 1799-16 June 1872
Nationality: English
Types of Work: Novels, short stories, essays, reference, children's stories, poetry, educational works
Contemporaries:
Other Names: Mrs. Ellis, Sarah Stickney
Style: Most of her stories illustrate a moral truth for the well-being of society
Bio:
Sarah Stickney Ellis was an English writer who wrote a variety of works including novels, short stories, essays, reference and education works, poetry, and children's stories. Her exact date of birth is unknown. From a short biography prefacing one of her later novels, it is known that she spent her early life entirely in the country, and rather alone on the eastern coast of Yorkshire, as her mother died when she was young. She loved animals and solitary rambles.
Her first published work was a series of simple stories designed to illustrate moral truths she thought of great importance to society. This work was published as Pictures of Private Life, in three novels, each at the interval of about a year.
Sarah became friends with Thomas Pringle, the civil rights activist, and at his home in Highgate, she became acquainted with the literary circle of which he was a part. After the death of Mr. Pringle, Sarah retired from the literary circles of the world and returned to her home in northern England where she penned her favorite work, The Poetry of Life, a series of essays on poetry. After this work, she published a novel entitled Home, or The Iron Rule.
She married Rev. William Ellis, a widower, in 1837. Mr. Ellis had spent ten years as a Christian missionary in the South Sea Islands. Shortly after her marriage, in 1839, she penned her most popular work, The Women of England, a work on her opinions of the roles of women in English society. Despite the popularity of this work, Sarah admitted that this was among her least favorite of her works. On the heels of its popularity, she published similar works, Mothers of England, Daughters of England, and Wives of England.
Shortly after publishing Women of England, she began a series of stories under the title "Family Secrets". These were published monthly, which sold well. They were written to introduce the subject of temperance, of which the Sarah was much interested in forwarding. The idea of temperance was not a popular one among a large part of the population, and it was not well received in all quarters. Despite this, it still sold in high volumes.
In addition to poetry and a travelogue, Summer and Winter in the Pyrenees, Sarah also edited for many years the serials "The Juvenile Scrap-book" and "The Drawing-Room Scrapbook". Sarah also had the superintendence of a girl's school for many years.
Sarah's works tended to emphasize practical and social duties with some moral aim, her own domestic and somewhat isolated nature providing inspiration and material for her literary works. Her style of writing sometimes drew upon her the criticism and censure from some of her readers, but she endured her critics with composure.
Sarah Died within a week of her husband, on 16 June 1872. She was buried in the countryside near the home she and her husband had shared, while her husband was buried in Abney Park Cemetery in London.
References:
Woman's Record, or, Sketches of All Distinguished Women
Novels:
Home, or The Iron Rule (1836)
Family Secrets (1841)
Look to the End, or, The Bennets Abroad (1845)
Pique (1850)
Agatha Beaufort (1852)
My Brother, or The Man of Many Friends (1855)
Hearts and Homes or Social Distinction (1857)
Two Ways to Wedlock: A Novelette (1859)
Somerville Hall: or, Hints to Those who Would Make Home Happy (1842)