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Florence Warden

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Portrait of Florence Warden

Florence Warden (16 May 1857 – 11 May 1929) was an English actress and writer, who wrote many novels under her stage name, her name at birth being Florence Alice Price and her married name Mrs G. E. James.

Life

Warden began life as Florence Alice Price, the daughter of a stockbroker. Born in Hanworth, Middlesex, she was educated in Brighton and France.[1]

In 1877, her first novel, The Wolf at the Door, was published anonymously in Boston, Massachusetts.[2]

From 1880 to 1885, Warden pursued a career as an actress, while she also published stories and novels under her stage name. In 1885, her mystery novel The House on the Marsh (1884) was turned into a play, in which she played the lead.[3] However, Augustus Moore later complained that he had done most of the work of writing the play, but had not been credited, while Charles Percy claimed the plot had been stolen from him.[1]

In 1887, at St Pancras, Warden married George Edward James,[4] an actor.[5] She continued to write novels, but she gave up her acting career.[1] One of her sisters also became a writer, adopting the name Gertrude Warden.[1]

With her husband, Warden had a son, Godfrey Warden James, born at St Pancras in 1888, and two daughters, Leslie Gertrude, born in London in 1890, and Olivia Mary, born in Ramsgate, Kent, in 1891.[5]

Florence Warden became a writer of stories for The Gentlewoman, a new magazine established in 1890, and on 15 December 1891 The Times reported that the Christmas number had

...stories, all illustrated in colours, by Mr Farjeon, Mr Grant Allen, Mr Doyle, Lord Brabourne, Miss Florence Warden, Mrs Campbell Praed, Mr Henry Herman, and Mr A. J. Pask.[6]

In 1911, Warden, her husband, and her two daughters were living together in three rooms in Maida Vale, when G. E. James was described as an actor, Warden as a writer, and their daughters as music students.[5]

In 1920, The House on the Marsh was turned into a silent movie, The House on the Marsh.[1]

After her death in 1929, Warden was buried as Florence James in the Brompton Cemetery.[1]

Children

Warden’s son Godfrey Warden James (1888–1963), was educated at Oxford, trained as a barrister, worked as a schoolmaster and tutor and as an Administrative Officer in Sierre Leone, and was also a novelist, using the name Adam Broome. When he died in 1963, he was living at Woking and left a modest estate valued at £5,342, equivalent to £141,293 in 2023.[7]

Warden’s older daughter Leslie Gertrude died unmarried in Westminster in 1956.[8] Her younger daughter Olivia Mary died, also unmarried, in Chelsea in 1982, aged ninety.[9]

Selected works

  • Anon, The Wolf at the Door (Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1877, in their No Name Series)[2]
  • The White Witch (London: R. Bentley, in three volumes, 1884)
  • A Prince of Darkness (London: Ward & Downey, in three volumes, 1884)
  • The House on the Marsh: A Romance (London: Appleton, 1884)
  • At the World’s Mercy (1884)
  • A Dog With a Bad Name (London, in two volumes, 1885)
  • Deldee; or, The Iron Hand (1885)
  • Scheherazade: A London Night's Entertainment (London: Ward & Downey, 1887; new edition by Creative Media Partners LLC, 2019)
  • Doris's Fortune (1886)
  • A Vagrant Wife (1887)
  • A Woman’s Face (1888)
  • The Fog Princes (1889)
  • St Cuthbert’s Tower (1889)
  • A Witch of the Hills (1890)
  • Pretty Miss Smith (1891)
  • A Modern Sultana: A London Night's Entertainment (London: Phoenix, 1892)
  • Ralph Ryder of Brent: A Novel (in three volumes, 1892)
  • A Passage through Bohemia (1893)
  • A Scarborough Romance (1894)
  • A Shock to Society (1894)
  • A Sensational Case (1894)
  • A Lady in Black (1895)
  • The Mystery of the Inn by the Shore: A Novel (London: R. Bonner’s Sons, 1895)
  • A Spoilt Girl (1895)
  • Kitty's Engagement (1895)
  • Doctor Darch's Wife (1896)
  • Forge And Furnace (1896)
  • Our Widow (1896)
  • Strictly Incog (1896)
  • The Wharf By the Docks (1896)
  • The Mystery of Dudley Horne (1897)
  • Girls Will Be Girls (1898)
  • Joan, the Curate (London: Chatto and Windus, 1898)
  • Little Miss Prim (1898)
  • The Lovely Mrs Pemberton (1901)
  • The Master-key (1901)
  • Something in the City (1902)
  • The Mis-rule of Three (1903)
  • An Outsider's Year (1903)
  • The House by the River (1905)
  • Love and Lordship (1906)
  • Heiress of Densley Wold (1907)
  • The Marriage Broker (1907)
  • My Lady of Whims (1907)
  • A Life's Arrears (1908)
  • The Dazzling Miss Davison (1910)
  • Miss Ferriby's Clients (1910)
  • The Matheson Money (1912)

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e f Florence Warden at xs4all.nl, accessed 21 March 2020
  2. ^ a b The Wolf at the Door at books.google.co.uk, accessed 24 March 2020
  3. ^ Gene D. Phillips, Exiles in Hollywood: Major European Film Directors in America (Lehigh University Press, 1998), p. 288
  4. ^ “Price Florence Alice & James George Edward” in Register of Marriages for Pancras Registration District, vol. 1b (1887), p. 187
  5. ^ a b c 1911 United Kingdom census for 46, Clifton Gardens, Maida Vale, from ancestry.co.uk, accessed 21 March 2020 (subscription required)
  6. ^ ”Christmas Numbers” in The Times, issue 33508 dated 15 December 1891, p. 6
  7. ^ “JAMES Godfrey Warden” in Probate Index for 1963 at probatesearch.service.gov.uk
  8. ^ ”JAMES Leslie Gertrude of 36 Clabon Mews London SW1 died 22 February 1956... Effects £2089” in Probate Index for 1956 at probatesearch.service.gov.uk
  9. ^ ”JAMES Olivia Mary” of Thamesbrook 2 Dovehouse St London SW3 died 9 August 1982... £1265” in Probate Index for 1984 [sic] at probatesearch.service.gov.uk
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