The Understudy: Twists abound in this fast paced love story set during the run of a hit play

third of eight children. Her father was appointed rector in 1874 in succession to his father. Much of

the first 30 years of her life was taken up with helping her sickly mother run the household and her

father with parish work, and she herself suffered with asthma.

Mary began writing with in her teens. She wrote in her journal in 1877, "What a pleasure and

interest it would be to me in life to write book...