Author: Emily Harriet Comyn
Author: Emily Harriet Comyn (1819–1897)
Alternate Name(s): Smith (maiden name)
Biography: Emily Harriet Comyn was born on 16 June 1819 in London, the daughter of tea merchant Paul Kneller Smith and his wife Charlotte (née Cook). In 1842, she married physician Stephen Edward Comyn and the couple had eight children. Somehow, she found time to write the novel Rose Morrison (1857). In 1859, her husband sued for divorce based on her adultery with Cheltenham headmaster Edward Rupert Humphreys. The scandal along with his financial difficulties forced Humphreys to flee to America and Comyn briefly join him there. The following year, the divorce was granted and Comyn went on to live quietly in southern England. She died on 31 January 1897 in Weston-super-Mare.
References: British Census (1851); West Somerset Free Press (22 December 1860)
Fiction Titles:
- Rose Morrison: or, Sketches of Home-Happiness. 1 vol. London: Sampson Low, 1857.