Jessie Bedford

Jessie Bedford (1853–1918) was a British novelist who wrote about ten novels under the name of Elizabeth Godfrey. She wrote about the Stuarts, German history and a biography of the German philosopher Elisabeth of the Palatinate.

Life Bedford was born in 1853 near Winchester in the village of Twyford. Her mother was Emma (born Poulden) who was the second wife of Revd James Gover Bedford who had children from his first marriage. Her early writing was for Temple Bar and Macmillan's Magazine in the early 1890s. In 1895 she a book which was like one by Thomas Hardy when she published a "pleasant piece of work". It was called Cornish Diamonds in which a contemporary heroine has to choose between following her talents or her love. Her next book was a "musical novel" titled Poor Human Nature in 1898 which concerned opera singers in a German town. In the following year she published A Stolen Idea: A Novel. This book is about a woman who marries a writer she admires and has plagiarised. Bedford's last book was about the New Forest where she lived.

Bedford lived in Bournemouth and previously Brockenhurst and she died in a nursing home in Southampton.