[Mrs. W. K. Clifford]. English novelist and relict of the late Prof. W. K. Clifford, one of the most brilliant mathematicians of the century. She comes of a family once notable in Barbados, where her grandfather, John Brandford Lane, was sometime speaker of the house of assembly. At the age of fifteen Mrs. Clifford began to write stories, which in time gradually found their way into print in various magazines, and exhibited considerable talent. In 1875 she married, and four years later lost her eminent husband, when she turned her thoughts to literary work again, and published three volumes for children. She first became known to fame, in 1885, as the author of Mrs. Keith’s Crime, a novel much talked of in its day, but since eclipsed by the popularity of her Aunt Anne. Besides these two powerful character-stories, and a third novel, entitled A Flash of Summer, which first appeared in the Illustrated London News, she has written a number of stories of slighter bulk, notably A Wild Proxy; Love Letters of a Worldly Woman; The Last Touches; and Mere Stories. “The main themes of her ablest writing, Mrs. Clifford always finds in her hatred of dowdyism, especially in mind, of ugly prosperity, of smugness, and of injustice.”
