At the Circulating Library

Author: Harriet Ward

Author: Harriet Ward (1808–1873)

Alternate Name(s): Tidy (maiden name)

Biography: Harriet Ward was born in 1808 in Barbados, West Indies, the daughter of Col. Francis Skelly Tidy (1776–1835) who commanded a battalion at Waterloo. In 1831, she married Capt. John Ward, an Irish army officer (he would later rise to lieutenant colonel in the army). The couple were posted to Graham's Town in South Africa from 1842 until 1847—while there, Capt. Ward participated in a war and Harriet reported on it for the United Service Magazine. On her return to England, Ward wrote a novel Helen Charteris (1848) about a West Indian creole woman. Her South African experience led to another novel Jasper Lyle: A Tale of Kafirland (1851) and a travel book Five Years in Kaffirland (1848). She followed these with a memoir of her father published in 1849 and three more novels. Ward died in 1873.

Author Tags:

• South African Authors
• West Indian Authors

References: British Census (1851, 1871); Burke

Fiction Titles:

1. Helen Charteris: A Novel.  3 vol.  London: Bentley, 1848.
2. Jasper Lyle: A Tale of Kafirland.  1 vol.  London: Routledge, 1851.
3. Lizzy Dorian, the Soldier's Wife.  1 vol.  London: John Henry Jackson, 1854.
4. Hester Fleming: The Good Seed and its Certain Fruit.  1 vol.  London: John Henry Jackson, 1854.
5. Hardy and Hunter: A Boy's Own Story.  1 vol.  London: Routledge, 1858.