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At the Circulating Library

A Database of Victorian Fiction, 1837–1901

A Database of Victorian Fiction, 1837–1901

Author: Caroline Elizabeth Okeden

Author: Caroline Elizabeth Okeden (1821–1903)

Alternate Name(s): Rhys (maiden name); Mrs. Fitzmaurice Okeken (familiar name)

Biography: Caroline Elizabeth Okeden was born in 1821 in Bath, the daughter of Major Charles Rhys, 53rd Foot, and Harriet Horton. She was the grand-daughter of Sir Watts Horton and the Hon. Lady Horton and grand-niece of the 12th Earl of Derby. In 1846, she married civil engineer George Fitzmaurice Parry Okeden, the nephew of the Earl of Essex. The couple had one daughter. In the 1860s, Okeden wrote two undistinguished novels Felicia's Dowry (1866) and Philip Vaughan's Marriage (1869). The Athenaeum, in particular, wrote a savage review of the former. Her husband died in 1869 and thereafter Okeden gave up writing. She died in 1903 in Bath.

References: Athenaeum (21 July 1866); British Census (1881); Freeman's Journal (3 January 1846); Times (15 October 1903)

Fiction Titles:

  1. Felicia's Dowry.  3 vol.  London: Hurst and Blackett, 1866.
  2. Philip Vaughan's Marriage: A Novel.  2 vol.  London: T. C. Newby, 1869.