Florence Montgomery

Florence Montgomery (1843–1923) was an English novelist and children's writer. Her 1869 novel Misunderstood was enjoyed by Lewis Carroll and George du Maurier, and by Vladimir Nabokov as a child. Her writings are pious in tone and set in fashionable society.

Early life and family

She was born Florence Harriet Montgomery in Chelsea, London, on 17 January 1843, the second of the seven surviving children of Admiral Alexander Leslie Montgomery (1807–1888) and his wife Caroline Rose Campbell (1818–1909) of Hampton Court, Middlesex. Her father was also an MP. He succeeded to a baronetcy in 1878. He was a cousin of the novelist Baroness von Tautphoeus (1807–1893). Her cousin, Sibyl Montgomery (died 1935), was the first wife of the Marquess of Queensberry and mother of Lord Alfred Douglas.

Florence Montgomery's story-telling abilities were first tried on younger brothers and sisters, but the novelist G. J. Whyte-Melville saw a story of hers printed for a charity bazaar, about a golden-haired girl whose mother dies of scarlet fever, and advised that it should be published. "A Very Simple Story" appeared commercially in 1867 with illustrations by Sibyl Montgomery.

Personal life

Montgomery never married, and had no children. She lived her whole life in the family home in Belgravia, London, along with two likewise unmarried sisters.

Death

Montgomery died of breast cancer on 8 October 1923.