Beatrice Harraden was a British writer and suffragette

Suffragette

"Suffragette" is a term coined by the Daily Mail newspaper as a derogatory label for members of the late 19th and early 20th century movement for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom, in particular members of the Women's Social and Political Union...

.

Born in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 on 24 January 1864, Harraden studied in Dresden

Dresden

Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....

, at Cheltenham Ladies’ College

Cheltenham Ladies' College

The Cheltenham Ladies' College is an independent boarding and day school for girls aged 11 to 18 in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England.-History:The school was founded in 1853...

 in Gloucestershire

Gloucestershire

Gloucestershire is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn, and the entire Forest of Dean....

 and at Queen’s College

Queen's College, London

Queen's College is an independent school for girls aged 11–18. It is located in central London at numbers 43-49, Harley Street. Founded in 1848 by F. D. Maurice, Professor of English Literature and History at King's College London along with a committee of patrons, the College was the first...

 and Bedford College in London, and received a bachelor’s degree. She travelled extensively in Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

 and the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 and in 1893 found fame with her debut novel

Debut novel

A debut novel is the first novel an author publishes. Debut novels are the author's first opportunity to make an impact on the publishing industry, and thus the success or failure of a debut novel can affect the ability of the author to publish in the future...

, Ships That Pass in the Night, a love story set in a tuberculosis

Tuberculosis

Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...

 sanatorium

Sanatorium

A sanatorium is a medical facility for long-term illness, most typically associated with treatment of tuberculosis before antibiotics...

.

Harraden involved herself greatly with the women’s rights movement, joining the Women's Social and Political Union

Women's Social and Political Union

The Women's Social and Political Union was the leading militant organisation campaigning for Women's suffrage in the United Kingdom...

, the Women Writers' Suffrage League

Women Writers' Suffrage League

The Women Writers' Suffrage League was an organization in the United Kingdom formed in 1908 by Cicely Hamilton and Bessie Hatton.The organization stated that it wanted "to obtain the vote for women on the same terms as it is or may be granted to men. Its methods are those proper to writers - the...

 and Women’s Tax Resistance League

Women's Tax Resistance League

The Women’s Tax Resistance League was a direct action group associated with the Women's Freedom League that used tax resistance to protest the disenfranchisement of women during the British women’s suffrage movement....

 and publishing her work in the suffragette paper Votes for Women. This involvement is reflected in much of her fiction. She also involved herself as a reader for the Oxford English Dictionary

Oxford English Dictionary

The Oxford English Dictionary , published by the Oxford University Press, is the self-styled premier dictionary of the English language. Two fully bound print editions of the OED have been published under its current name, in 1928 and 1989. The first edition was published in twelve volumes , and...

, and this, too is reflected in her fiction: The Scholar’s Daughter (1906) is set among lexicographers.

In 1930, she received a civil list pension for her literary work. She died on 5 May 1936.

Selected bibliography

• Ships That Pass in the Night (1893) http://books.google.com/books?id=DTkICe2YEwYC&source=gbs_navlinks_s
• In Varying Moods (short stories, 1894)
• Hilda Stafford and The Remittance Man (Two Californian Stories) (1897)
• The Fowler (1899)
• The Scholar's Daughter (1906)
• Interplay (1908)
• Out of the Wreck I Rise (1914)
• The Guiding Thread (1916)
• Patuffa (1923)
• Rachel (1926)
• Search Will Find It Out (1928)