Annie Hall Cudlip

Annie Hall Cudlip (née Thomas; born 25 October 1838 – 24 November 1918), known by her pen name Mrs. Pender Cudlip, was a British writer, novelist and short story writer. She was the editor of Ours: A Holiday Quarterly and a regular contributor to All the Year Round, Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly, and other magazines in both Great Britain and the United States between 1876 and 1884.

The wife of theology author Rev. Pender Hodge Cudlip, she was considered one of the most prolific writers of romantic fiction during the Victorian era and published well over 100 novels and short stories from 1862 until the start of the 20th century.^[1] Among her best known works include Theo Leigh (1865), A Passion in Tatters (1872), He Cometh Not, She Said (1873) and Allerton Towers (1882).^[2][3][4]

Biography

Annie Hall Cudlip was born Annie Hall Thomas, the only daughter of George Thomas, in Aldeburgh, Suffolk, on 25 October 1838. Her father, a well-known and respected gentleman officer from County Cork, was a lieutenant in the British Royal Navy and commanded the local Coastguard station;^{[1][2][3][5][6][7][8]} he was also the nephew and protégé of Sir Jerry Coghlan. Her mother was the daughter of Captain Alexander Mackey, a Royal Navy cadet of the house of Lord Reay, of Reay Forest.^[9]

Her family then moved to Morston in Norfolk, where her father served until the year before his death in Greenwich Hospital.^[2] Primarily educated at home, Cudlip took up writing around this time and successfully submitted an article, "A Stroll in the Park", for the first issue of London Society. She published her first novel, The Cross of Honor, in 1863 at age 24. She followed this with her first 3-volume novel Sir Victor's Choice and Barry O'Byrne three months later. Following up on these successful novels, publisher William Tinsley published Denis Donne and Theo Leigh while Chapman & Hall released a series of her 3-volume novels including On Guard, Played Out, Walter Goring, Called to Account, The Dower House, A Passion in Tatters, Blotted Out, A Narrow Escape and Mrs. Cardigan.^[2][3][7][9] Many of her earliest novels were considered highly controversial and dealt with subjects such as the sexuality of young girls and illegitimate pregnancy.^[5] Her writing was often compared to that of Florence Marryat; the two were close childhood friends as their fathers were old colleagues and neighbours.^[6]

She was closely associated with William Tinsley throughout her literary career. Tinsley remarked in 1865, after her first two novels had been published by John Maxwell, that she was "a light-hearted girl, and a writer of bright, easy-reading fiction, of which she could write almost acres in a short time. But when she found time to write so much was often a puzzle to me, for she seemed always to be out and about. She was in a bright and merry set at the time, many of whom had 'at homes,' dinner parties, dances, and merry meetings of different kinds, including some theatre going." He further claimed that Cudlip could easily put out one of her 3-volume "triple-decker" novels in a mere six weeks.^[5][6][7]

After refusing an offer of marriage from W. S. Gilbert in 1866,^[10] she married Rev. Pender Hodge Cudlip on 10 July 1867;^[2][3][4][8] they had six children.^[9] Rev. Cudlip was a High Church clergyman and amateur theological author.^[5] The two lived in Devon for most of their married life.^[6]

In 1873, she and her husband moved to Paddington, London, where they lived for eight years. She was involved in animal rights groups and wrote about animal cruelty in London during the period. Her favorite Stella setter had contracted hydrophobia and eventually had to be destroyed. A large greyhound, Cavac, had been her constant companion for ten years and was one of the many dogs killed in the infamous London dog poisonings in 1876; she had included him as a character in her 1867 novel Called to Account.^[5] Two of her elder sons died in March of that year, and another son in February 1879.^[9] Of her three surviving children, one of her daughters married Major William Price Drury, a Royal Marine, who wrote some nautical novels at the end of the 20th century.^[5]

Cudlip was the editor of Ours: A Holiday Quarterly^[6] and a regular contributor to All the Year Round, Appleton's Journal, the Broadway,^[8] Frank Leslie’s Popular Monthly and other magazines in both Great Britain and the United States between 1876 and 1884. She also wrote serial novels for The Ladies' Pictorial and a group of other provincial journals.^[9]

She and her husband returned to Devon in 1884, where Pender Cudlip served was vicar of Sparkwell for the next 25 years.^[1][3] She continued writing single-volume novels for such publishers as Chatto & Windus around the start of the 20th century.^[7] However, she began experiencing financial problems within a few years and applied to the Royal Literary Fund in 1907 and 1908. In the latter year she claimed that the highest offer she had received for her latest novel was £15.^[6] Her husband died in 1911 and Annie Cudlip died seven years later on 24 November 1918.

Bibliography

References

Notes

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Cousin, John William (1910). A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. London: J. M. Dent & Sons. Wikisource 

Further reading

• McGowan, Marjorie E. Annie Thomas Cudlip, 1838-1918: A Bio-Bibliography. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1968.

External links

• Works by or about Annie Hall Cudlip at Internet Archive
• Works by Pender/Annie Cudlip at Google Books (scanned books)