author

Elizabeth Godfrey

1853–1918

A Victorian novelist writing under a pen name, she turned personal loss into a late-blooming literary career and went on to publish a string of novels in the 1890s. Her work moved through domestic drama, moral conflict, and the emotional pressures of everyday life.

1 Audiobook

The New Forest

The New Forest

by Elizabeth Godfrey

About the author

Writing as Elizabeth Godfrey, Jessie Bedford was an English novelist born in 1853 in Twyford, Hampshire. She was the daughter of the Rev. James Bedford, a clergyman, educator, and author, and was educated at home before spending time in Germany as a young woman.

After her father's death, she began publishing fiction under the name Elizabeth Godfrey, starting with Twixt Wood and Sea in 1892. She went on to write about ten more novels during the 1890s and early 1900s, building a reputation for stories centered on difficult marriages, moral choices, and the complicated realities of ordinary lives.

She was part of a lively literary circle that included writers such as Lucas Malet and Algernon Charles Swinburne. Bedford lived near Bournemouth, never married, and died in 1918.