Louisa Parr

Louisa Sarah Ann Parr (née Taylor; c. 1848 – 2 November 1903) was a British writer who published some of her work under the name Mrs Olinthus Lobb.

Early years

Louisa Sarah Ann Taylor was born in London in about 1848. She was brought up in Plymouth, as her father was a naval officer.

Career

Her first published writing was a success. It was published in English in 1868 in the evangelical magazine Good Words as "How it all happened", and the story was soon reprinted in French and later in German. The English version was also printed as an American pamphlet. The story was issued under the pen name of Mrs Olinthus Lobb, but for most of her work she used her own name.

On 16 November 1869 she married a surgeon and collector named George Parr and they lived in Kensington. The following year Dorothy Fox, her first novel, was published. The story of Quaker life was another success and an American publisher paid her an advance of £300 against her next novel. Her next two novels were published in 1874 and 1875 but neither was very successful. Her next novel, Adam and Eve, was another success in 1880. This novel recalled her nautical childhood; it was set in Cornwall, where the protagonist Adam lives and smuggles. The Eve in the book's title is Adam's cousin who lives in London. The stories in this novel were based on fact, as she reused situations recorded in the History of Polperro, written by Jonathan Couch in 1871. The dialect used in the novel was used as a source for Cornish English by Joseph Wright in his English Dialect Dictionary.