Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 1.djvu/507

 His only surviving son is Sir Henry Bargrave Deane, a judge of the probate, admiralty and divorce division of the high court of justice.



DE LA RAMÉE, MARIE LOUISE, '' (1839–1908), novelist, born on 1 Jan. 1839 at 1 Union Terrace, Bury St. Edmunds, was daughter of Louis Ramé and his wife Susan Sutton. She owed all her education to her father, a teacher of French, whose mental power was exceptional. She expanded her surname of 'Ramé' into 'De la Ramée' at an early age. A diary of girlhood from April 1850 to May 1853 (, Memories, 1911, pp. 228-96) proves her precocity, love of reading, and eagerness to learn. She visited Boulogne with her parents in 1850, and accompanied them to London in 1851 to see the Great Exhibition. In 1859 she was living in London at Bessborough House, Ravenscourt Park, Hammersmith, and her neighbour and medical adviser, Dr. Francis W. Ainsworth, introduced her to his cousin, [q. v.]. She began her literary career under Harrison Ainsworth's auspices, publishing in the 'New Monthly Magazine' a short story entitled 'Dashwood's Drag or, the Derby and what came of it' (1859). Ainsworth, convinced of her ability, accepted and published by the end of 1860 seventeen tales by her, none of which she reprinted, although they brought her into notice. Like her later novels they dealt with dubious phases of military and fashionable life. Her first long novel, 'Granville de Vigne,' appeared in the same magazine in 1863. Tinsley published it in three volumes, changing the title with her consent to 'Held in Bondage' and paying her 80l. On the title-page Miss Ramé first adopted the pseudonym of 'Ouida,' a childish mispronunciation of her name Louise, by which she was henceforth exclusively known as a writer. 'Strathmore' followed in 1865, and 'Idalia,' written when she was sixteen, in 1867. 'Strathmore' was parodied as 'Strapmore! a romance by "Weeder" ' in 'Punch' by (Sir) Francis Burnand in 1878. Ouida's vogue, thenceforth established, was assisted by an attack which Lord Strangford made on her novels in the 'Pall Mall Gazette.'

From 1860 onwards 'Ouida' spent much time in Italy. When in London she stayed at the Langham Hotel, and attracted attention which was not always flattering in literary society. William Allingham met her at a dinner in London in December 1868; he describes her as dressed in green silk, with a sinister clever face, her hair down, small hands and feet, and a voice like a carving-knife ( and, William Allingham, a Diary, 1907, pp. 193-4). She made a more favourable impression on Shirley Brooks in 1870 (, Shirley Brooks, 1907). Bulwer Lytton greatly admired her work, and in 1871 on the publication of 'Folle-Farine' he wrote her an eight- page letter in which he hailed the book as a triumph of modern English romance. In 1874 she settled permanently with her mother in Florence, and there long pursued her work as a novelist. At first she rented an 'apartment' at the Palazzo Vagnonville. Later she removed to the Villa Farinola at Scandicci, three miles from Florence, where she lived in great style, entertained largely, collected objets d'art, dressed expensively but not tastefully, drove good horses, and kept many dogs, to which she was deeply attached. She declared that she never received from her publishers more than 1600l. for any one novel, but that she found America 'a mine of wealth.' In 'The Massarenes' (1897) she gave a lurid picture of the parvenu millionaire in smart London society. This book was greatly prized by Ouida, but it failed to sustain her popularity, which waned after 1890. Thenceforth she chiefly wrote for the leading magazines essays on social questions or literary criticisms, which were not remunerative.

Unpractical, and not very scrupulous in money matters, Ouida fell into debt when her literary profits declined, and gradually became a prey to acute poverty. Her mother, who died in 1893, was buried in the Allori cemetery at Florence as a pauper. From 1894 to 1904 Ouida lived, often in a state bordering on destitution, at the Villa Massoni, at Sant' Alessio near Lucca. From 1904 to 1908 she made her home at Via-reggio, where a rough peasant woman looked after her, and her tenement was shared with dogs which she brought in from the street. A civil list pension of 150l. a year offered her by the prime minister, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannennan, on the application of Alfred Austin, George Wyndham, and Lady Paget, was at first declined on the score of the humiliation (, Autobiography, 1835-1910, 1911, ii. 105-6), but her scruples were overcome by her old friend, Lady Howard of Glossop, and Ouida accepted the 