Jessie Fothergill

The First Violin: a Novel, Volume II Jessie Fothergill

Jessie Fothergill (1851-1891) was an English novelist. She was born at Cheetham Hill in Manchester. She was the daughter of John Fothergill who was a cotton merchant. She was educated at a boarding school in Harrogate. Fothergill closely observed the life led by cotton workers and carefully transcribed it into her late fiction. In 1874 she visited Germany and on her return she published a novel of Lancashire life, Healey (1875). Her experience in Germany was also reflected in her novel, The First Violin (1877), which made her name. Deteriorating health took her abroad several times to a milder climate, and was the reason for her thirteen month stay in America in 1884-85. Her other works include: Aldyth; or, 'Let The End Try the Man' (1876), Probation (1879), The Wellfields (1881), Kith and Kin (1882), Borderland (1886), The Lasses of Leverhouse (1888) and Oriole's Daughter (1893).