Isabella Eleanor Aylmer
Born1840 Edit this on Wikidata
Bellshill Edit this on Wikidata
Died27 December 1908 Edit this on Wikidata
SpouseFenton John Aylmer Edit this on Wikidata
Children4, including Sir Fenton Aylmer, 13th Baronet

Isabella Eleanor Darling Aylmer 1840 – 27 December 1908 was a British novelist and poet who published under the names I. D. Fenton and Isabella D. Fenton.

Isabella Eleanor Darling was born in 1840 in Bellshill, Northumberland, the daughter of George Darling. In 1857, she married Captain Fenton John Aylmer, son of Sir Arthur Percy Aylmer, 11th Baronet and a Crimean War veteran. They had four children, including future Victoria Cross recipient Sir Fenton Aylmer, 13th Baronet, before he died in 1862.[1][2]

Her novel Adventures of Mrs. Colonel Somerset in Caffraria, During the War (1858) is about a woman, Helen Somerset, who is shipwrecked off southern Africa and is held captive by the Xhosa, but later chooses to remain with them. The novel is sympathetic to the Xhosa and critical of colonialism.[3]

Her novel Distant Homes: Or the Graham Family in New Zealand (1862) has been described as "the second New Zealand novel", after Taranaki: A Tale of the War (1861) by Henry Butler Stoney. Aylmer, however, never visited New Zealand, relying on correspondence with another Isabella Aylmer, the wife of Rev. William Joseph Aylmer, the first minister in Akaroa. The novel has been derided by critics as cliched, sentimental, inaccurate, and implausible.[4][5][6]

Aylmer died on 27 December 1908.[2]

Bibliography

  • Adventures of Mrs. Colonel Somerset in Caffraria, During the War.  1 vol.  London: Hope, 1858.
  • Memoirs of a Lady in Waiting.  2 vol.  London: Saunders and Otley, 1860.
  • Distant Homes: Or the Graham Family in New Zealand, 1862.
  • Alec Tomlin: or, Choose Wisely.  1 vol.  London: Frederick Warne, 1873.

References

  1. ↑ "Author: Isabella Eleanor Aylmer". At the Circulating Library: A Database of Victorian Fiction, 1837–1901. Retrieved 2022-10-30.
  2. 1 2 Mosley, Charles, editor. Burke's Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage, 107th edition, 3 volumes. Wilmington, Delaware, U.S.A.: Burke's Peerage (Genealogical Books) Ltd, 2003. volume 1, page 202
  3. ↑ Glenn, Ian (2019-09-18). "Captivity Novels as Critique of South African Colonialism". English in Africa. 46 (2): 67. doi:10.4314/eia.v46i2.4. ISSN 0376-8902.
  4. ↑ Wilkes, G. A. (Gerald Alfred) (1970). Australia and New Zealand. Internet Archive. University Park : Pennsylvania State University Press. ISBN 978-0-271-00128-9.
  5. ↑ The Illustrated encyclopedia of New Zealand. Auckland, New Zealand: D. Bateman. 1989. ISBN 978-1-86953-007-5.
  6. ↑ Wattie, Nelson. "Aylmer, Mrs J. E.." The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature. : Oxford University Press, . Oxford Reference.
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