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At the Circulating Library

A Database of Victorian Fiction, 1837–1901

A Database of Victorian Fiction, 1837–1901

Author: Edith Helen Sichel

Author: Edith Helen Sichel (1862–1914)

Biography: Edith Helen Sichel was born in 1862, the daughter of Michael Sichel. Her older brother was the poet and biographer Walter Sichel (1855–1933). In her twenties, she took an interest in philanthropic work and assisted at the Whitechapel office of the Metropolitan Association for Befriending Young Servants. While there, Sichel met Emily Marion Ritchie (d. 1932), the sister of author Blanche Warre Cornish. The two formed a "great friendship," opened a home for orphans, and shared a cottage together at Hambledon Hurst. In the 1890s, Sichel turned to literary work, contributing to The Times and its literary supplement until her death. She wrote one novel, Worthington Junior (1893), and many historical works including a biography of Montaigne. In the last year of her life, she became an accredited visitor at Holloway Prison. She died in 1914 after a short illness.

References: Alison Light, Mrs. Woolf and the Servants (Bloomsbury Press, 2008); Times (15 August 1914, 10 November 1932)

Fiction Titles:

  1. Worthington Junior: A Story of Contrasts.  3 vol.  London: Swan Sonnenschein, 1893.