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At the Circulating Library

A Database of Victorian Fiction, 1837–1901

A Database of Victorian Fiction, 1837–1901

Author: Catherine Simpson Wynne

Author: Catherine Simpson Wynne (1817–1905)

Alternate Name(s): Jessopp (maiden name)

Biography: Catherine Simpson Wynne was born in 1817 in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, the daughter of John Sympson Jessopp (1779–1851), a barrister-at-law, deputy lieutenant, and justice of the peace. She married Robert Wynne, a partner in a firm of Liverpool shipbuilders. Late in life, she wrote half-a-dozen novels. In one, Margaret's Engagement (1867), Swinburne identified a thinly-disguised portrait of himself. By 1881, Wynne was a widow living with an unmarried younger sister. She died in 1905.

References: British Census (1881); Cecil Y. Lang, The Yale Edition of the Swinburne Letters (Yale, 1959)

Fiction Titles:

  1. A Life in a Love: A Novel.  2 vol.  London: Bentley, 1865.
  2. Margaret's Engagement: A Novel.  3 vol.  London: Bentley, 1867.
  3. My Insect Queen: A Novel.  3 vol.  London: Bentley, 1869.
  4. Sister May: A Novel.  3 vol.  London: Bentley, 1871.
  5. A Horrid Girl: A Novel.  3 vol.  London: Bentley, 1876.
  6. The Story of a Kiss.  3 vol.  London: Bentley, 1887.