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At the Circulating Library

A Database of Victorian Fiction, 1837–1901

A Database of Victorian Fiction, 1837–1901

Author: Elizabeth P. Ramsay

Author: Elizabeth P. Ramsay (1832–1932)

Alternate Name(s): Ramsay-Laye (married name); Isabel Massary (pseudonym)

Biography: Elizabeth Patricia Ramsay was born in 1832 in Scotland, the daughter of Robert Ramsay and Margaret Cruikshank. From 1853 to 1861, she lived in Australia. On her return to England, she produced a memoir of her time in the colony Social Life and Manners in Australia (1861) and two novels under the pseudonym "Isabel Massary." The three-volume novel Hearts and Diamonds (1870) appeared under her own name. In 1877, she married Major Francis Fenwick Laye as his third wife. The marriage was short-lived as Laye died in 1881. Thereafter, Ramsay lived as a widow in London and continued writing memoir and occasional fiction into the next century. She died in 1932 in London in her hundredth year.

Author Tags:

References: British Census (1881, 1901); Times (25 January 1932, 21 April 1932)

Fiction Titles:

  1. Social Life in Sydney: or, Colonial Experience. An Australian Tale.  1 vol.  Edinburgh: R. Grant and Son, 1866.
  2. Our Cousins in Australia: or, Reminiscences of Sarah Norris.  1 vol.  Edinburgh: W. P. Nimmo, 1867.
  3. Hearts and Diamonds: or, Was it an Error? A Novel.  3 vol.  London: Tinsley Brothers, 1870.
  4. Girl Life in Australia: A Description of Colonial Life. By a Resident.  1 vol.  Liverpool: Rowland A. Elliott, 1876.