Rita

Born Elizabeth Margaret Jane Humphreys and later known as Eliza Humphreys, she was a Scottish novelist who wrote under the pseudonym "Rita." She published a remarkable number of books, along with plays and essays, and became a familiar name to readers of popular fiction in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Her novels often mixed romance, social observation, and dramatic secrets, which helped make her work widely read in its time. She was also active beyond her fiction, and is noted for founding the Writers’ Club for Women.

Some older book listings identify "Rita" as born in 1860, but reliable biographical sources place her birth in 1850 and her death in 1938. That makes her an especially interesting figure for modern readers: an author once hugely productive and successful, whose work now offers a window into the tastes and tensions of her era.