Bertha Jane Grundy

Bertha Jane Grundy (1837–1912) was an English novelist born at Moss-side, Lancashire. She also wrote as Mrs. Leith-Adams and Mrs. R. S. de Courcey Laffan.[1] Later in life, her work spread to poetry, drama and practical lectures to women writers.

Private life

Bertha Jane was born on 24 August 1837 as the eldest daughter of Frederick Grundy, a solicitor, and Jane, née Beardoe. She was first married on 26 October 1859 to Andrew Leith Adams and moved with him to Malta, where the older of her two sons, the writer Francis Adams, was born.

Adams died in 1882, but nine years later, Grundy married Rev. Robert Stuart de Courcy Laffan, who became Headmaster of King Edward VI School, Stratford-upon-Avon (1885–1895), Principal of Cheltenham College, Cheltenham (1895–1899) and Rector of St Stephen Walbrook, London (1899–1927). Both her sons died young: the younger of tuberculosis in Queensland in 1892, and the older, also tubercular, by committing suicide in Margate in 1893.[2]

Grundy's other interests, apart from her writing, included playing the piano and keeping dogs.

Bertha Jane Grundy died at her home in Eccleston Square, Pimlico, London, on 5 September 1912.[2]

Work

Grundy's first publication, a short story entitled "Keane Malcombe's Pupil", appeared in 1876 in All the Year Round,[2] where she was on the staff from 1895. Her most successful work was Geoffrey Stirling (1883), "which described a wife's revenge on the man who killed her husband."[3]

Turning later to poetry (two volumes), drama and non-fiction, she wrote several practical lectures addressed to other women writers, urging them, for instance, "to do nothing without being paid."[2]

Bibliography
  • Nancy's Work, 1876
  • Winstowe, 3 vols, 1877
  • Madelon Lemoine, 3 vols, 1879
  • My Land Of Beulah, 3 vols, 1880
  • Aunt Hepsy's Foundling, 3 vols., 1881
  • Cosmo Gordon, 3 vols, 1882
  • Expiated, 1882
  • Lady Deane, 1882
  • Geoffrey Stirling, 3 vols, 1883
  • My Brother Sol, 3 vols, 1883
  • A Song Of Jubilee, 1887
  • "Mathilde", a short story in All the Year Round, third series, summer extra, 1889
  • Louis Draycott, 1890; serialised in All the Year Round, third series, vols 1 and 2, 1889
  • Bonnie Kate, 1891
  • The Peyton Romance, 1892
  • A Garrison Romance, 1892
  • The Cruise Of 'The Tomahawk', 1892
  • Colour Sergeant, No 1 Company, 2 vols, 1894
  • The Old Pastures, 1895[4]
  • The Prince's Feathers, 1899
  • Accessory After The Fact, 1899
  • Cruel Calumny, 1901
  • The Dream Of Her Life, 1902
  • What Hector Had To Say, 1902
  • The Vicar Of Dale End, 1906
  • Poems, 1907
  • Dreams Made Verity, 1910
  • The Story Of The Brotherhood Of Hero Dogs, 1910
  • A Book Of Short Plays And A Memory, 1912

References
  1. ALA Internet Archive Retrieved 5 April 2018.
  2. Ellen Miller Casey: "Adams [née Grundy; other married name de Courcy Laffan], Bertha Jane Leith", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, UK, OUP), 2004 Retrieved 5 April 2018. Pay-walled.
  3. Jarndyce Booksellers' catalogue Women Writers 1795–1927 Part I: A–F (London, Summer 2017).
  4. "Review of The Old Pastures by Mrs. Leith Adams". The Athenaeum (3560): 82. 18 January 1896.
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