Introduction

Biography

Parr ne­ver mar­ried, and worked in­i­tial­ly as a gov­ern­ess be­fore suc­ceed­ing as a writ­er with her first book, Maude Tal­bot.

From then un­til 1883, she pro­duced ap­prox­i­mate­ly one no­vel a year, all pub­lished by the Lon­don firm of Smith, El­der & Com­pa­ny, under the pen name Holme Lee.

Charles Dick­ens, hav­ing en­joyed one of Parr’s ear­ly books, pur­chased three sto­ries from her for the Christ­mas num­bers of his week­ly ma­ga­zines. Her hymn Hear Our Pray­er, O Heav’n­ly Fa­ther was one of these, ap­pear­ing in the ar­ti­cle The Wreck of the Gold­en Ma­ry.

Parr al­so wrote se­ver­al vol­umes of fairy tales for child­ren, plus some works of non-fiction, most of the lat­ter un­der her real name.

Parr lived in Shank­lin, Isle of Wight, for ma­ny years, where re­cords list her as an au­thor­ess, no­vel­ist, and es­say­ist.

Works

• Maude Tal­bot, 1854
• Gilbert Mas­sen­ger, 1855
• The Poor Pen­sion­er, in House­hold Words, 1855
• Sylvan Holt’s Daugh­ter, 1858
• Against Wind and Tide, 1859
• Hawksview, 1859
• Legends from Fai­ry Land, 1860
• The Wor­tle­bank Di­a­ry, 1860
• The Club-Night (with Charles Dick­ens, Charles Al­ston Coll­ins, Ro­bert Bu­chan­an, Hen­ry F. Chorley & Ame­lia B. Ed­wards), in All the Year Round, 1860
• Warp and Woof, 1861
• The Won­der­ful Ad­ven­tures of Tuf­long­bo and His El­fin Com­pa­ny, 1861
• Tuflongbo’s Jour­ney in Search of Ogres, 1862
• Annis War­leigh’s For­tunes, 1863
• In the Sil­ver Age, 1864
• The Life and Death of Jeanne d’Arc, 1866
• Mr. Wyn­yard’s Ward, 1867
• Basil God­frey’s Ca­price, 1868
• Holme Lee’s Fai­ry Tales (Lon­don & New York, 1868)
• For Rich­er, for Poor­er, 1870
• Maurice and Eu­gé­nie de Guér­in, 1870
• The Beau­ti­ful Miss Bar­ring­ton, 1871
• Country Stories, Old and New, 1872
• Echoes of a Fa­mous Year, 1872
• Katherine’s Tri­al (Leip­zig, Ger­ma­ny: 1873; New York: 1881)
• The Vi­cis­si­tudes of Bes­sie Fair­fax, 1874
• This Work-a-Day World, 1875
• Ben Mil­ner’s Woo­ing, 1876
• Straightforward, 1878
• Mrs. De­nys of Cote, 1879–80
• A Poor Squire, 1882
• Loving and Serv­ing, 1883
• Legends from Fai­ry Land