Maude Robinson

Maude Robinson (1859–1950) was a Quaker writer of short stories and a memoir about growing up on a South Downs farm at Saddlescombe in the 1860s. She was the younger sister of the paediatrician Louis Robinson.

Life and works

Maude Robinson described her stories as "simple narratives founded on fact... sketches from real life of men and women who lived and laboured for the spreading of the Truth as it had been revealed to them, and for the help and healing of their fellowmen."

The Time of Her Life is a collection of 12 such stories woven together from letters of Quakers in England from 1682 to 1875. In Wedded in Prison she draws on first-hand written accounts of Quaker experiences, records and traditions of her own ancestors, and oral history. She writes of Quaker courage in the face of religious persecution and the efforts of Quakers to alleviate human suffering in the Irish Famine and the Franco-Prussian War. Contemporary reviewers commented on the wholesomeness, homely fragrance and charm of her stories.