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At the Circulating Library

A Database of Victorian Fiction, 1837–1901

A Database of Victorian Fiction, 1837–1901

Author: Robert Armitage Sterndale

Author: Robert Armitage Sterndale (1839–1902)

Alternate Name(s): Sir Robert Armitage Sterndale (title)

Biography: Robert Armitage Sterndale was born in 1839 in Derbyshire. At the age of 17, he went to India to work for the East India Company and served as a volunteer officer during the mutiny. Afterwards, he entered the civil service rising to Accountant-General of Bombay then Madras. His life in India furnished the material for a travel book Seonee: or, Camp Life on the Satpura Ridge (1877), a book on the mammals of India, and a novel The Afghan Knife (1879). After he retired from the civil service he returned to service as the governor of St. Helena beginning in 1895 for which he received a knighthood. He was home in England on sick leave when he died in 1902.

References: Geographic Journal (November 1902); E.L. Jackson, St. Helena: The Historic Island (1905)

Fiction Titles:

  1. The Afghan Knife.  3 vol.  London: Sampson Low, 1879.