Discovering L.T. Meade: a Forgotten Heroine of Irish Writing

February’s coverage of Irish literature on my Substack newsletter, the Traveller’s Literary Supplicant (TLS), continued from Joyce to consider L.T. Meade- a female author of the Victorian era, who abandoned her home town of Bandon, in Co. Cork, for London where she had a very successful 50-year career in writing.

Meade’s almost 300 published stories and novels ran from children’s stories to mysteries, ghost tales and historical fiction.

Read Part one of my article on L.T. Meade here.

You can also enjoy part two on L.T. Meade here, with a link to some excellent recitation of Meade’s “The Circular Chamber” by Simon Stanhope of the Bitesized Audio Classics channel.

Meade was a remarkable woman, not only for her very prolific writing but also for her editing of magazines and work in education, charity and the feminist movement in late 19th-century and early 20th-century London. In my research, I received amazing assistance from lots of people in Ireland, including in her hometown of Bandon, as well as elsewhere in Co. Cork, Dublin and Limerick.

As it turned out, even these two very detailed installments were only the beginning of what I learned about Meade and her life, including her upbringing, move to England, later life and the fate of her childhood properties. These will be covered in later articles.