Alice King

Alice King (28 March 1839 – 26 April 1894) was a British writer, teacher, and public speaker. Blind since the age of seven, she published over a dozen novels.

Life King was born on 28 March 1839 in Cutcombe, Somerset, the youngest child of the Rev. John Myers King, Vicar of Cutcombe and a translator of Virgil. Born with poor and deteriorating eyesight, she went completely blind at age seven. Though she never learned Braille, she learned seven additional languages – French, German, Italian, Spanish, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin – by ear. She wrote with a typewriter (then a fairly new invention) with tactile keys.

She said that she published her first work when she was twelve helped by her father. Her early writing was done with the help of a local school child who would transcribe her words. She noted that they had a poor understanding of grammar and composition so she found it necessary to compose half a page or so in her head so that she could instruct her amenuensis. at her residence at Minehead. She was taken ill the day before a planned visit to Clifton with her sister, but died several days later.