Marie Connor Leighton

Born in Bristol on February 4, 1867, Marie Connor Leighton wrote under the name Marie Connor before and after her 1889 marriage to novelist and journalist Robert Leighton. She began publishing young, and her early novels appeared in the 1880s, launching a long career in sensational and melodramatic fiction.

She became known for prolific output, especially serial stories and novels that reached a wide popular audience. Her best-known title is Convict 99, a collaboration with Robert Leighton, and modern reference sources note that her writing income was greater than his, making her a major earning force in the family.

Marie Connor Leighton died in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, on January 28, 1941. She remains an interesting figure in popular fiction of her era: a hardworking, commercially successful novelist whose books helped shape the taste for suspense, romance, and melodrama in late 19th- and early 20th-century Britain.