Small image of a man handing a book to a women across a counter.

At the Circulating Library

A Database of Victorian Fiction, 1837–1901

A Database of Victorian Fiction, 1837–1901

Author: Mrs. Charles Henry Burton

Author: Mrs. Charles Henry Burton (1823–1877)

Alternate Name(s): L. H. B. (pseudonym); Lydia Helen Rothwell (maiden name)

Biography: Lydia Helen Burton was born in 1823 in Manchester, the daughter of Richard Rothwell. In 1841, she married clergyman Charles Henry Burton who at the time was the curate of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, Liverpool. He would go on to hold a number of positions in Lancaster, Yorkshire, and Buckinghamshire. The couple would have seven children. Burton found time to author two novels: Bertha Darley (1858) and Abbot's Thorpe (1864). The former novel includes scenes of working class life in Yorkshire and one reviewer compared it favorably to Brontë's Shirley. She died in 1877 in Aylesbury.

References: British Census (1851, 1861, 1871); Gentleman's Magazine (April 1842); pers inf (Matthew Wells)

Fiction Titles:

  1. Bertha Darley: or, Life in her Husband's Curacies.  1 vol.  London: James Blackwood, 1858.
  2. Abbot's Thorpe: or, The Two Wills.  2 vol.  London: Arthur Hall, 1864.