A POPULAR AUTHORESS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7808, 12 September 1903, Page 3

A POPULAR AUTHORESS.

Mrs L. T. Meade. (M.A.P.) When she was fifteen Mrs Meade—l call her by the namO she is best known by, although in reality she is Mrs Toulmm Smith —told her father that she would like to earn some money. May one confess to a sneaking sympathy with the worthy rector's reply -. " I hope you will never say that sort of thing again. There never yet has been a woman of oub family who earned money." However, the good gentleman was slightly mollified when he learned that this "progressive" daughter proposed to earn money by writing, and admitted that that would not be " quite so disgraceful.'' Terapora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis. , Still, when it was digcovered that the girl was devoting most of her school time to scribbling, stern measures were taken, and the use of paper was denied her, but, nevertheless, she continued to write novelettes on the margins of newspapers. By the way, why is it thait ladies have ?uch a passion for writing on any odd bits of paper? Helen Mathers, as I onoe recorded, writes on any odd scraps, and then buys pins by the pound to pin them together, and quite recently a young lady asked me to read a story she had written. I have not finished it yet, but so far I have perused four paper bags, seven envelopes of various sizes, one sheet of whitey-brown -paper, and the back of a thin cardboard box. Poignant sorrow for the loss of a dtear girl friend led Mrs Meade to write her first book— that is, the that was published. It was called "Ashton Morton,' and in it she sought to\ tribute to the memory of her friend. From an autobiographical article Mrs Meade wrote some years ago in "The Girl's Realm," I tate the following pretty account of the arrival of the precious volumes from the publisher, Mr Newby, by the way. "It (the great, bulky paroel) was put on the dining-room fable, and my father and mother (my father, had now got over his dislike of a woman publishing books) and my brothers and sisters clustered round to get a first sight of my first book. My father himself cub the cordis, the paper parcel was unfolded, and the books, badly bound and badly printed, but, oh! so fascinating to me — my first 'children, truly— -Appeared in view. : I seized the volume, and, trembling with delight, .went into a distant corner and, sat down to read." Probably, "Ashton Morton" was not a good book, for Mrs Meade was only seventeen when it was published, and had never been away from the home-nest, but.it was written straight from her sensitive, emotional Irish heart, and so it could not have been wholly bad. Mrs Meade did not write much for some years after the publication of her first book — by which, be it said, she cleared ten pounds — but there came a time when she determined to quit the parental, roof and fight for her own hand in London'. It, was a momentous decision, especially in those days, and her friends were both alarmed and indignant, one sapient and candid lady going so far as to remark, "Mark my words, L. T. Meade will never make a half a sovereign by her writings." And so Mrs Meade came to London, and a hard, anxious time began for her. She had a little income, but -not enough to keep her, and it was a case of sink or swim with the book she was engaged upon., Often her courage gave' way at the thought that perhaps sh© would have to go back to those who had prophesied her failure. - However, to cut a long story short, she plodded on, and eventually Messrs Shaw accepted and published " Great St Benedict's." the decided success of whioh was soon eclipsed by that of "Scamp and I"—, to this day a very popular book. Since then something like two hundred novels have flowed from Mrs Meade's, pen, or rather — as she has for many years past dictated every word — from her lips. As readers of Mrs Meade's works are aware, sbe has written a great many medical and sensational stories in collaboration with Robert Eustace, the name which veils the identity of a clever young doctor, who, naturally, is responsible for the accuracy of the medioal details.