author
Elizabeth Sara Sheppard
1830–1862
A gifted Victorian novelist with a musician’s ear, she is best remembered for Charles Auchester, a once-popular novel inspired by the world of classical music. Her life was short, but her work won admirers for its feeling, learning, and unusual literary ambition.
2 Audiobooks
Charles Auchester, Volume 1 (of 2)
by Elizabeth Sara Sheppard
Charles Auchester, Volume 2 (of 2)
by Elizabeth Sara Sheppard
About the author
Born at Blackheath in 1830, Elizabeth Sara Sheppard grew up in difficult circumstances after her father died early. Contemporary reference works describe her as remarkably well educated, with strong abilities in languages and music, and those talents shaped the tone and subjects of her writing.
She began her best-known novel, Charles Auchester, while still very young. Published in 1853, it drew on musical life and on figures associated with the great European concert tradition; later accounts note that Benjamin Disraeli encouraged her work, and the book remained the title most closely linked with her reputation.
Sheppard also wrote other fiction and literary studies, but her career was brief. She died on March 13, 1862, leaving behind a small body of work that still interests readers drawn to nineteenth-century fiction, music, and overlooked women writers.