Ouida

Definition

Ouida was the pseudonym of Marie Louise Ramé (1839–1908), a prolific Anglo-French novelist in the London literary scene. It is difficult to categorize her fiction, although her popularity was due in large part to the sensuality of her writing. Her politics have not found favor in much current scholarship, which has made her recovery as a popular Victorian novelist slower than that of some of her contemporaries.

Introduction

Ouida was the pseudonym of Marie Louise Ramé (1839–1908), a prolific novelist of Anglo-French parentage (she later affected the title de la Ramée), who emerged onto the London literary scene at the same time as her chief rival, Mary E. Braddon – indeed, it was Braddon’s publishers, the Tinsley Brothers, who brought out Ouida’s first full-length work, Held in Bondage (1864), a combination of the silver fork novel and the muscular Christian male romance made popular by George Alfred Lawrence, with sensational elements thrown in. It is, like Lady Audley’s...