(1840-1920)

​

Welsh/Irish author, and niece of Sheridan Le Fanu. Broughton wrote a collection of ghost stories called Twilight Stories (1873, originally published under the title Tales for Christmas Eve), and Betty's Visions (1883), which follows a girl who has visions of others' deaths. 

 

Broughton’s work was often deemed shockingly risqué, with her novels banned from circulating libraries until the 1870s. The novelist Anthony Trollope complained that, in her stories, “she has made her ladies do and say things which ladies would not do and say”.

 

She lived with her sister, and together with their many dogs they hosted literary salons, which were visited by Broughton's close friend and prominent author Henry James. Equipped with a loud and proud voice (literally and metaphorically), sharp wit, and a daring imagination, Broughton carved out a career as an independent and greatly successful author, and was supposedly able to write a full novel in just 6 weeks. 

​

Her story 'The Truth, The Whole Truth, and nothing but the Truth' is collected in the British Library's anthology Into the London Fog: Eerie Tales from the Weird City (one of the many books in their Tales of the Weird  series). A full copy of Twilight Stories was previously published by Victorian Secrets. 

​

You can also read the stories online by clicking the relevant links below. 

​

​