Alice Somerton

Alice Somerton was a 19th-century novelist whose personal history remains largely untraced. A reliable literary reference notes that her birth and death dates are unknown, and that she was living in Altrincham in 1862.

Her known works include Oeland: A Thread of Life (1856), Ida: or, The Last Struggles of the Welsh for Independence (1858), The Torn Bible (1862), and Layton Croft: or, The Story of a Prodigal (1882). These titles suggest an author interested in both historical subjects and strongly moral, character-driven fiction.

Because so little survives about her biography, Alice Somerton is remembered mainly through her books rather than through a well-documented life story. For many readers, that obscurity is part of the appeal: her work offers a direct glimpse into the values and tastes of Victorian popular fiction.