Emma Marshall

Emma Marshall (1830–1899) was an English children's author who wrote more than 200 novels.

Life She was the youngest daughter of Simon Martin, a partner in Gurney's Norwich bank, who was married, at St Michael-at-Plea, Norwich, in 1809, Hannah (Ransome), a quakeress. She was born at Northrepps Hill House, near Cromer, in 1830. The family soon moved to Norwich. Miss Martin has depicted her early childhood very faithfully in one of her first stories, The Dawn of Life (1867). She was educated at a private school until the age of sixteen.

The proximity of Norwich Cathedral and its precincts strongly influenced her subsequent line of thought. When as a girl she read Longfellow's Evangeline, she was very impressed with it that she wrote to the poet, and thus began a correspondence that lasted until her death. In 1849, she left Norwich with her mother to live at Clifton, Bristol, where acquaintance with Dr. Addington Symonds gave them a passport to the society of the place.

Her last book, The Parson's Daughter, was finished by her daughter Beatrice after her mother's death, and published in 1899.

All her tales have a high moral and religious tone.

Many have been translated; several were included in the Tauchnitz Library.

John Nichol and J. A. Symonds, among others, were warm in their praises of them.

Canon Ainger, when advocating that a memorial, which ultimately took the form of a brass, with an inscription by him, should be placed in Bristol Cathedral, spoke of 'the high and pure quality of her literary work,' and declared that her stories 'have been the means of awakening and cultivating a taste for history and literature throughout the English-speaking world.' The early years of her married life were spent at Wells, Exeter, and Gloucester; and Longfellow, in reference to the continual flitting from one cathedral town to another, called her 'Queen of Summer, temple-haunting Martlet.' There were three sons and four daughters of the marriage.

Emma and Hugh had nine daughters, the youngest daughter Christabel Marshall was a campaigner for women's suffrage, a playwright and author.