A waif's progress

Rhoda Broughton was a Welsh novelist and short story writer. Her early novels earned a reputation for sensationalism, so that her later, stronger work tended to be neglected by critics, although she was called a queen of the circulating libraries. Her novel Dear Faustina (1897) has been noted for its homoeroticism. Her novel Lavinia (1902) depicts a seemingly "unmanly" young man, who wishes he had been born as a woman. Broughton descended from the Broughton baronets, as a granddaughter of the 8th baronet. She was a niece of Sheridan le Fanu, who helped her to start her literary career. She was a long-time friend of fellow writer Henry James and was noted for her adversarial relationship with both Lewis Carroll and Oscar Wilde.