Florence Marryat (9 July 1833 – 27 October 1899) was an English author and actress. The daughter of author Capt. Frederick Marryat, she was particularly known for her sensational novels and her involvement with several celebrated spiritual mediums of the late 19th century. Her works include Love’s Conflict (1865), Her Father's Name (1876), There is No Death (1891) and The Spirit World (1894), The Dead Man's Message (1894) and The Blood of the Vampire (1897). She was a prolific author, writing around 70 books, as well as newspaper and magazine articles, short stories and works for the stage.
From 1876 to 1890, she had a performing career, at first writing and performing a comic touring piano sketch entertainment, together with George Grossmith and later performing in dramas, comedies, comic opera with a D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, her own one-woman show, and appearing as a lecturer, dramatic reader and public entertainer. During the 1890s, she ran a school of Journalism and Literary Art.
Contents
Early life
Marryat was born in Brighton, Sussex, in 1833, daughter of author and naval Captain Frederick Marryat and his wife, Catherine (née Shairp). Her parents separated when Marryat was young; her childhood was divided between her parents' residences, where she was privately educated.
Shortly before her 21st birthday, in 1854, she wed Thomas Ross Church, an officer in the Madras staff corps of the British Army in India; they spent the first seven years of their married life travelling extensively in India before she returned to England in 1860 with her children but without her husband, who apparently visited only occasionally. She had eight children with Church, three of them while in India.