Camilla Dufour Crosland

Camilla Dufour Crosland, name before marriage Camilla Dufour Toulmin, also known as Mrs. Newton Crosland (1812–1895) was an English writer.

Life

She was born on 9 June 1812 at Aldermanbury, London, where her father, William Toulmin, practised as a solicitor; her grandfather, Dr. William Toulmin, was a physician of repute. She was a precocious girl. Her father, who had money troubles, died when Camilla was eight, and his widow and daughter were not provided for.[1]

Camilla Toulmin began to write full-time from 1838. In 1854, then Mrs. Crosland, she became involved in investigation of spiritualism, in which she became a believer.[1] She was also involved in editorial work, for the annuals The Keepsake, on behalf of Marguerite Power, and Friendship's Offering, as deputy to Leitch Ritchie.[2]

After living for nearly 38 years in Blackheath, Camilla Crosland moved in 1886 to 29 Ondine Road, East Dulwich, where she died on 16 February 1895. A memorial window has been placed to her memory in St Alban's Cathedral.[1]

Works

She contributed poems, stories illustrating the condition of the poor, essays, biographical and historical sketches to periodicals such as the People's Journal, the London Journal, Bentley's Miscellany, the Old Monthly Magazine, the Illustrated London News, Douglas Jerrold's Magazine, Ainsworth's Magazine, and the annuals. For more than 50 years she was a regular contributor to Chambers's Journal, and at the time of her death she was the oldest of its writers.[1]

She published Light in the Valley: My Experiences of Spiritualism (1857), a credulous record, which was received badly by the public. In 1865 she published a three-volume novel, Mrs. Blake; in 1871 the Diamond Wedding, and other Poems; and in 1873 a second novel, Hubert Freeth's Prosperity. Among her later productions were translations of Victor Hugo's plays, Hernani and Ruy Blas, with some of his poems, which appeared in Bohn's Library. In 1893 there was issued her final work, Landmarks of a Literary Life.[1]

She wrote also:[1]

Family

On 22 July 1848 Camilla Toulmin married Newton Crosland, a London wine merchant with literary and scientific tastes, who wrote treatises and essays.[1]

Notes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6  Lee, Sidney, ed. (1899). "Toulmin, Camilla Dufour". Dictionary of National Biography 57. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
  2. ↑ Alison Adburgham (15 May 2012). Women in Print: Writing Women and Women's Magazines from the Restoration to the Accession of Victoria. Faber & Faber. pp. 261–2. ISBN 978-0-571-29525-8.
Attribution

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Lee, Sidney, ed. (1899). "Toulmin, Camilla Dufour". Dictionary of National Biography 57. London: Smith, Elder & Co.

External links