I’ve been going through birthdates of authors and just discovered an author who might be a very interesting project for me. Violet Hunt. Here’s what wikipedia has on her:
Isobel Violet Hunt (September 28 1862 – January 16, 1942) was a British writer, now best known for her supernatural fiction. Her father was the artist Alfred William Hunt. Her younger sister Venetia married the designer William Arthur Smith Benson (1854-1924).
She was born in Durham; the family moved to London in 1865. She was brought up in the Pre-Raphaelite group, knowing John Ruskin and William Morris. There is a story that Oscar Wilde, a friend and correspondent, proposed to her in Dublin in 1879; its significance requires naturally her age at the time, and the correct birth date 1862 (not 1866 as often given).
She wrote many novels. Her biography of Elizabeth Siddall is considered unreliable, with animus against Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
She lived with the married Ford Madox Hueffer from about 1910 to 1918 as his mistress, at South Lodge on Campden Hill (a period including his brief 1911 imprisonment). Other relationships were with H. G. Wells and Somerset Maugham; Maugham portrayed her as Nora Nesbit in Of Human Bondage.
Anyway, none of her literary works are on Project Gutenberg, even though almost everything she wrote is pre-1923. Apparently she cowrote a novel with F.M. Ford called Zeppelin nights,: A London entertainment, and she was his mistress at the time.
I have no idea the degree of her talent, but certainly some of what she’s written is worth preserving. So why hasn’t anyone done it yet? If not, let me be the first! If anyone is googling Violet Hunt and wants to help out, contact me: idiotprogrammer at fastmailbox.net. I have a feeling I’ll have to create a new blog category for Violet Hunt.