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At the Circulating Library

A Database of Victorian Fiction, 1837–1901

A Database of Victorian Fiction, 1837–1901

Author: Mayne Lindsay

Author: Mayne Lindsay (1873–1955)

Alternate Name(s): (pseudonym); Rosina Margaret Hopkins (maiden name); Clarke (married name)

Biography: Rosina Margaret Hopkins was born in 1873 in London, the daughter of David Hopkins, a British Consul in Africa. She began writing stories for newspapers when she was a schoolgirl to "earn pocket-money" as she called it. At a teenager, she accompanied her brother to India where he served as a judge. She spent three years in northwest India occasionally contributing to local newspapers then spent a year on a sheep station in Australia. In late 1895, she returned to London and turned her experiences into fiction for magazines such as The Windsor Magazine under the pseudonym "Mayne Lindsay." Her stories were collected in The Valley of Sapphires (1899) and she followed with six more volumes of fiction. In 1897, Hopkins married ship captain Arthur Wellesley Clarke (1857–1932) and the couple had two children. Her husband, a well-respected seaman, was elected Elder Brother of Trinity House in 1898, served as an assessor to the Titanic disaster, and was knighted. In later years, Rosina concentrated on social work in Bethnal Green where she managed schools and children's charities. She died in 1955.

References: Times (29 January 1932, 5 May 1955); Windsor Magazine (February 1897)

Fiction Titles:

  1. The Valley of Sapphires.  1 vol.  London: Ward and Lock, 1899.
  2. The Whirligig.  1 vol.  London: Ward and Lock, 1901.
  3. Prophet Peter: A Study in Delusions.  1 vol.  London: Ward and Lock, 1902.