Mary Augusta Mrs Humphry Ward 1851-1920 Ward

WARD, MARY AUGUSTA [MRS. HUMPHRY WARD] (1851-1920), British novelist, was born on June I 1 1851, at Hobart, Tasmania, where her father, Thomas Arnold (1824– 1900), was then an inspector of schools. She was brought up mainly at Oxford, and her early associations with a life of scholar ship and religious conflict are deeply marked in her own later literary career. She was brought into close connection during this period with Edward Hartopp Cradock, who was principal of Brasenose college from 1853 till his death in 1886, some of whose characteristics went to the portrait of the "Squire" in Robert Elsmere. In 1872 she married Thomas Humphry Ward (1845-1926), then fellow and tutor of Brasenose, and one of the authors of the Oxford Spectator.

Mrs. Humphry Ward at first devoted herself to Spanish litera ture, and contributed articles on Spanish subjects to the Diction ary of Christian Biography, edited by Dr. William Smith and Dr.

Henry

Wace. In 1881 she published her first book, Milly and 011y, a child's story illustrated by Lady (then Mrs.) Alma Tadema. This was followed in 1884 by a more ambitious, though slight, study of modern life, Miss Bretherton, the story of an actress. In 1885 Mrs. Ward published an admirable translation of the Journal of the Swiss philosopher Amiel, with a critical introduction, which showed her delicate appreciation of the subtleties of speculative thought. In Feb. 1888 appeared Robert Elsmere, a powerful novel, tracing the mental evolution of an English clergyman, of high character and conscience and of in tellectual leanings, constrained to surrender his own orthodoxy to the influence of the "higher criticism." The character of Elsmere

owed much to reminiscences both of T. H. Green, the philosopher, and of J. R. Green, the historian. The book was reviewed by W. E. Gladstone in the Nineteenth Century (May 1888, "Robert Elsmere and the Battle of Belief"), and made its author famous.

Mrs. Ward's next novel, David Grieve, was published in 1892. In 1895 appeared the short tragedy, the Story of Bessie Costrell. Mrs. Ward's next long novel, Helbeck of Bannisdale (1898), treated of the clash between the ascetic ideal of Roman Catholicism and modern life. The element of Catholic and humanistic ideals entered also into Eleanor (1900), in which, how ever, the author relied more on the ordinary arts of the novelist. In Lady Rose's Daughter (1903)—dramatized as Agatha in 1905 —and The Marriage of William Ashe (1905), modern tales founded on the stories respectively of Mlle. de Lespinasse and Lady Caroline Lamb, she relied entirely and with success upon social portraiture. Later novels were Fenwick's Career (1906), Diana Mallory (1908), Daphne (1909), Canadian Born (Iwo), The Case of Richard Meynell (191i), Delia Blanch flower (1915), The War and Elizabeth (1918), etc. Mrs. Ward died in London on March 24, 192o.

BIBLIoGRAPHY.—Stephen L. Gwynn, Mrs. Humphry Ward (1917); J. Stuart Walters, Mrs. Humphry Ward; her work and influence (1922) ; Janet P. Trevelyan, The Life of Mrs. Humphry Ward (1923).