Lillian Spender

Lillian Spender (née Headland; 22 February 1835 – 4 May 1895) was an English novelist.

Biography

Lillian (Lily) Spender, usually known as Mrs. John Kent Spender was born on 22 February 1835, and was the daughter of Edward Headland, a well-known physician of Portland Place, London, by his wife, daughter of Ferdinand de Medina, a Spaniard. Miss Headland was educated at Queen's College, Harley Street. In 1858 she married Mr. John Kent Spender, physician to the Mineral Water Hospital, Bath.

After her marriage Mrs. Spender turned her attention to literature. She contributed to the London Quarterly Review, the English Woman's Journal, the Dublin University Review, the British Quarterly Review, and to a magazine called Meliora; but after 1869 she chiefly confined herself to novel-writing. She was active in educational and social work in Bath until her health failed.

She died at Bath on 4 May 1895. Of Mrs. Spender's eight children, seven survived her. Two of her sons, J. A. Spender and Harold Spender, were well-known London journalists.

Works

• Brothers-in-Law (1869)
• Her Own Fault (1871)
• Parted Lives (1873)
• Jocelyn's Mistake (1875)
• Mark Eylmer's Revenge (1876)
• Both in the Wrong (1878)
• Godwyn's Ordeal (1879)
• Till Death Us Do Part (1881)
• Gabrielle de Bourdaine (1882)
• Mr. Nobody (1884)
• The Recollections of a Country Doctor (1885)
• Trust Me: A Novel (1886)
• Her Brother's Keeper: A Novel (1887)
• Kept Secret (1888)
• Lady Hazelton's Confession (1890)
• A Waking (1892)
• A Strange Temptation (1893)
• A Modern Quixote (1894)