Mrs Henry Wood - Elster’s Folly: Troubles seldom come from the quarter we anticipate them

Ellen Price was born on 17th January 1814 in Worcester.In 1836 she married Henry Wood, whose career in banking and shipping meant living in Dauphine, in the South of France, for two decades. During their time there they had four children.

Henry’s business collapsed and he and Ellen together with their four children returned to England and settled in Upper Norwood near London.

Ellen now turned to writing and with her second book ‘East Lynne’ enjoyed remarkable popularity. This enabled her to support her family and to maintain a literary career.

It was a career in which she would write over 30 novels including ‘Danesbury House’, ‘Oswald Cray’, ‘Mrs. Halliburton’s Troubles’, ‘The Channings’ and ‘The Shadow of Ashlydyat’.

Sadly, her husband, Henry died in 1866.

Ellen though continued to strive on. In 1867, she purchased the magazine ‘Argosy’, founded two years previously by Alexander Strahan. She was a prolific writer and wrote much of the magazine herself although she had some very respected contributors, amongst them Hesba Stretton and Christina Rossetti. Although she would gradually pare down writing for the magazine she continued to write novel after novel. Such was her talent that for a time she was, in Australia, more popular than Charles Dickens.

Apart from novels she was an excellent translator and a writer of short stories. ‘Reality or Delusion?’ is a staple of supernatural anthologies to this day.

Ellen Wood died of bronchitis on 10th February 1887). He estate was valued at a very considerable GBP36,000.

She is buried in Highgate Cemetery, London.

A monument to her in Worcester Cathedral was unveiled in 1916.