Charlotte M. Brame

Born in Hinckley, Leicestershire, in 1836, Charlotte Mary Brame grew up in a Catholic family, was educated in convent schools, and worked as a governess before turning to fiction. She married Phillip Edward Brame in 1863 and wrote steadily while raising a large family.

Brame became a remarkably prolific English novelist in the Victorian era, publishing large numbers of romantic and sensational stories for popular weekly papers. Her best-known title is Dora Thorne, and her work was especially successful with readers who loved dramatic plots, strong feelings, and stories shaped by love, class difference, and misunderstanding.

Her books also had a complicated publishing life: in the United States, many appeared under the pseudonym Bertha M. Clay, which helped spread her fame even further. Although literary tastes changed after her death in 1884, her fiction remains a vivid example of the fast-moving, emotional popular literature that captivated nineteenth-century readers.