Sarah Grand

Sensational Sarah: the story of an Ulster-born woman who shocked the world.

By Terry Eakin

Few people in Ireland will have read the books of Victorian novelist Sarah Grand. Sadly her name is now almost forgotten; yet one hundred years ago Sarah was regarded as a woman of genius. Perhaps more than any other woman novelist she has influenced life in the western world, yet today you will find few of her books in our libraries. Who was this amazing woman?

Sarah was born Frances Elizabeth Bellenden Clarke, in Donaghadee, on 10 June 1854. Her father was a coastguard commander who lived in a spacious mansion called Rosebank on the town’s Millisle Road. This house remains today as one of Donaghadee’s oldest inhabited buildings. The semi-authographical Beth Book, published in 1897, gives a fascinating insight into Sarah’s early life. She writes about childhood memories of playing in the gardens of the nearby Manor House, climbing the town Moat to watch passing ships and listening to dark tales of murderers who stalked the narrow streets near Donaghadee’s harbour. At the age of six, Sarah moved with her family to Ballycastle in County Mayo and eventually, after her father’s death, to England.

It was marriage to Magherafelt-born army surgeon David McFall which really began to shape Sarah’s future life. David already had two sons from a previous marriage and their new mother was a mere six years older than her eldest step-son. The family travelled widely in the Far East and for a time Sarah enjoyed the glamour and excitement of life abroad. However, after returning to England, Sarah quickly became disillusioned with her now domineering husband and his general moral decline. Excessive drinking and time spent with lewd women were some of Lieutenant Colonel McFall’s more printable bad habits!

Sarah turned to writing and proceeds from her novel Ideala, published anonymously in 1888, gave her enough money to leave her husband and start to plan her own life. Sarah Grand, as she now renamed herself, quickly adopted unconventional dress and ideas. She publicly attacked double standards in marriage and coined the now familiar phrase – new woman.

Her next book, The Heavenly Twins, took a long time to publish. Its unusual style and frank views on Victorian sexuality scared off many publishers. Sarah was told, amongst other things, to bury the manuscript deep in her back garden! However, despite numerous rejections, she never gave up and eventually, in 1893, the book was published. Immediately, The Heavenly Twins was a sensation. Its story cantered around the antics of two impish children but the not-very-well-hidden plot was one of conflict between human perception and human practice within relationships. This subject was to dominate the remainder of Sarah’s life. The novel outraged Victorian society - especially the men. The Times and other journals are said to have refused to review the book but suddenly The Heavenly Twins started to exceed all sales predictions. It sold over 140, 000 copies in England and America and had to be reprinted eight times during its first year of publication. Sarah Grand had suddenly become a very famous person.

Success opened many doors to Sarah. She travelled to America, staying with Mark Twain, and embarked upon a lecture tour which attracted thousands of people and ran for many years. She was acknowledged as one of the great revolutionary figures of the day – George Bernard Shaw linked her name with Ibsen and Wagner.

The intensity of Sarah’s relationship with another great literary figure – Thomas Hardy – is still unknown. She did visit his home and influenced his last novel Jude the Obscure. Most mysterious of all is Hardy’s enigmatic poem Donaghadee, a place that Hardy never visited; this suggests a strange fascination for the name of the town which was Sarah’s childhood home. We might never discover how closely he was involved with sensational Sarah Grand.

[She lived in London for a while and then for 20 years in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, during which time she took an active part in the local women's suffrage societies, as well as travelling extensively, particularly to the United States. In 1920 she moved to Bath and was for several years Lady Mayoress alongside Mayor Cedric Chivers. She died at her home at The Grange in Calne, Wiltshire, on 12 May 1943].

Terry Eakin
1995