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At the Circulating Library

A Database of Victorian Fiction, 1837–1901

A Database of Victorian Fiction, 1837–1901

Author: Edward Ralph Blackett

Author: Edward Ralph Blackett (1835–1893)

Biography: Edward Ralph Blackett was born in 1835 in Stokesley, Yorkshire, the son of John Blackett and Elizabeth Stephens. He was apprenticed as a surgeon and served as an assistant surgeon in the Indian army. When he returned to Europe, he attended Queens University, Ireland, and earned an M.D. He practiced medicine for the majority of his life in Southwold and Wangford, Suffolk. He married twice: first in 1864 to Agnes Gwyn (d. 1873), the youngest daughter of Commander William Gwyn, R.N.; and second in 1875 to Laura Jane Grey, the daughter of Charles Samuel Grey and Laura Mary Elton. Blackett had seven children. G. Milner Gibson Cullum attributes the roman à clef Shingleborough Society (1874) to the "late Dr. Blackett." The anonymous novel satirized many of the inhabitants of East Anglia and caused a local stir. Blackett died in 1893 in Wangford.

Author Tags:

References: British Census (1881); G. Milner Gibson Cullum, "East Anglia in Fiction," East Anglian: or, Notes and Queries (1895–96): 117; Ipswich Journal (18 September 1875, 24 June 1893)

Fiction Titles:

  1. Shingleborough Society: A Novel.  3 vol.  London: Samuel Tinsley, 1874.