Author: Fraser, Susan
Biography:
FRASER, Susan (fl 1809-24)
She published first as "an officer's wife" and later as "Mrs. Fraser," but in the absence of addresses and other information, no reliable facts have been discovered about her birth, family, marriage, or death. She was almost certainly a Scot. Her husband was an officer with the 42nd Regiment, also known as the "Royal Highlanders" or "Black Watch." They saw action in the Napoleonic Wars, notably on the Iberian Peninsula. Internal evidence in the poetry indicates that the Frasers had spent time in Egypt, Spain, and Gibraltar. They appear to have returned to Britain in 1802 and he may have been injured: the preface to Camilla de Florian reveals that the subscription edition of 1809 was published in part to "administer to the comforts of a sick husband." The subscription list is star-studded, including four royal dukes and high-ranking military personnel; the book is dedicated to the Duchess of York. At the time of publication they were living in London but they later moved to Edinburgh. A series of tales and novels by "Honoria Scott" issued by Mrs. Fraser's publisher J. Dick (of London and then Edinburgh) between 1810 and 1813 has been convincingly attributed to her: Amatory Tales, The Vale of Clyde, A Winter in Edinburgh, and Strathmay, or Scenes in the North. An announcement in the Scots Magazine in July 1824 promises two new works (neither materialized) by "Mrs. Frazer" aka Honoria Scott as "nearly ready for the press," namely "Sweden, or the Counts of Rosenvien," to be dedicated to the Duke of Cambridge, and "The Hermit in Scotland"--not to be confused with a rival's Hermit in Edinburgh. After that nothing more is heard of her, though she might have been the "Mrs. Fraser" who contributed prose tales to Edinburgh periodicals in the 1830s and was anthologized in Edinburgh Tales edited by Christian Isobel Johnstone (3 vols. 1845-6). (findmypast.com 7 Nov. 2021; RPW; EN2; Scots Magazine 1 Jul. 1824; Susan Valladares, "British Women Writers of Peninsular Fiction," Spain in British Romanticism: 1800-1840, ed. Diego Saglia and Ian Haywood [2007] 195-213)
Other Names:
- Mrs. [Susan] Fraser