Jessie Fothergill

Born in Manchester in June 1851, she was an English novelist who spent part of her early life in Cheshire and later drew deeply on northern English settings and people in her fiction. She published several novels in the 1870s and 1880s, writing about family tensions, work, class, and the pressures placed on women.

Her best-known book, The First Violin (1878), became a notable success after publishers had initially rejected it, reportedly worrying that its treatment of adultery would hurt sales. Instead, the novel found a wide readership and helped establish her reputation.

She also spent time in Germany and Switzerland, experiences that informed some of her work, and she died in Bern on July 28, 1891, still relatively young. Though less widely read now than some of her contemporaries, she remains an interesting Victorian novelist with a strong sense of place and character.