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At the Circulating Library

A Database of Victorian Fiction, 1837–1901

A Database of Victorian Fiction, 1837–1901

Author: Lili Kuper

Author: Lili Kuper (1847–1916)

Alternate Name(s): (pseudonym); Elma (pseudonym); Mary Elizabeth Kuper (legal name)

Biography: Mary Elizabeth Kuper was born in 1847 in Copenhagen, Denmark, the daugher of British consul Henry George Kuper and his wife Mary (née White). When Kuper was nine years old, her father, who had become British consul in Baltimore, died in a house fire in 1856. Her mother remarried to Lt.-Col. Thomas Salkeld, a weathly landowner outside Carlisle, and the family moved to Dalston. There, she published an anonymous novel Twixt Wife and Fatherland (1875), though advertisements attributed it to "Lili Kuper." After the death of her step-father in 1878 and her mother in 1885, Kuper moved to the London area and wrote a second novel The Jacksons of Jackgate (1887) under the pseudonym "Elma." In addition, she wrote several articles on Cumberland history. An ardent supporter of suffrage, Kuper was arrested but not charged during a demonstration in 1908. She died on 7 February 1916 in Gloucester.

Author Tags:

References: British Census (1881, 1891, 1901); Probate

Fiction Titles:

  1. Twixt Wife and Fatherland: A Novel.  2 vol.  London: Samuel Tinsley, 1875.
  2. The Jacksons of Jackgate: A Cumberland Story.  1 vol.  London: Remington, 1887.