Susan Edmonstoune Ferrier (1782 - 1854)

Ferrier wrote three novels. Marriage was written in 1810 but much revised and came out anonymously only in 1818, when the Edinburgh publisher William Blackwood paid £150 for it. Its success was remarkable, and it appeared in French in 1825. In 1824 Blackwood was prepared to pay £1000 for the second novel, The Inheritance. The third novel, Destiny, was dedicated to Scott, who found that Robert Cadell of Edinburgh was willing to pay £1700 in 1831. The author sold the copyrights in 1841 to Richard Bentley, who reissued them with authorial revisions in an illustrated edition. This was reprinted for the first time in Ferrier's name in 1851. The library edition of 1881 and 1882 included a Memoir. A book-length memoir and correspondence appeared in 1898. Modern critical appraisals have been sparse, but the National Library of Scotland produced a lengthy catalogue for an exhibition in 1982.