Adeline Sergeant (4 July 1851 – 4 December 1904) was a prolific English writer of the Victorian era. She wrote over ninety novels during her lifetime, including Jacobi's Wife.
Early life and education
Born Emily Frances Adeline Sergeant at Ashbourne, Derbyshire, the second daughter of Richard Sergeant and Jane (Hall), Adeline Sergeant was home schooled until the age of thirteen, when she began attending school in Weston-super-Mare. Her mother was a writer of children's literature that she published under the pen names 'Adeline' or 'Adeline Hall.' Apart from her first book, which appeared under her initials, Sergeant's signed work all seems to have appeared under her preferred form of name, Adeline Sergeant. At fifteen a collection of Sergeant's Poems, with a short introduction by her mother, were published in a volume that received positive notice in Wesleyan periodicals. She won a scholarship to attend Queen's College, London. Her father died in 1870, and for several years she worked as a governess at Riverhead, Kent.
Literary career
One of Sergeant's first major published works for an adult audience appears to be a translation of the novel The Chase; a tale of the Southern States, from the French of Jules Lermina (London: J.C. Nimmo & Bain, 1880). In 1882 her novel Jacobi's Wife earned an award of £100, and the work was published serially by The People's Friend (Dundee). It appeared in other newspapers as well, and on the conclusion of the serialisation in London in 1887 as a three volume novel. For the next several years her writings were serialized in this Dundee publication, where she lived from 1885 to 1887.
