A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Pardoe, Julia
PARDOE, JULIA,
Is the daughter of a field-officer in the British army, whose family is of Spanish extraction. She was born at Beverley, in Yorkshire, and early manifested great indications of genius, having at the age of thirteen produced a volume of poems, and a few years later an historical novel of the time of William the Conqueror, called "Lord Morcar of Hereward." A warmer climate being recommended, on account of certain consumptive symptoms which it was thought she manifested. Miss Pardoe went to Portugal, where she spent about fifteen months, contributing during that time to various periodicals. The fruits of her observations on that country were, on her return to England, published in two volumes, entitled "Traits and Traditions of Portugal." The work was dedicated, by express desire, to H.R.H. the Princess Augusta, who manifested a warm interest in the fortunes of the young authoress; it quickly went through two editions, and was followed shortly after by two novels—"Speculation" and "The Mardens and the Daventrys." These established her reputation as a novelist. But she did not at the time pursue this opening to literary fame and fortune. In 1835, during the fearful visitation of the cholera at Constantinople, we find Miss Pardoe there, and in the following year is published her account of what she sees and hears on the shores of the Bosphorus, in that popular book "The City of the Sultan." The vivid sketches of oriental life of which this book consists, rendered it extremely fascinating to general readers; and the interest which it created, heightened by the knowledge that its author had, at some risk to herself, penetrated behind the veil which had hitherto hidden many of the "peculiar institutions" of the Moslem from unbelieving eyes. Its popularity induced the writer to publish in 1838 a series of letters, descriptive of the earlier part of her journey to the East, under the title of "The River and the Desert, or Recollections of the Rhine and the Chartreuse;" after which she again took up the thread of her eastern recollections, and produced a series of short tales, connected by a slight vein of continuous narrative, to which she gave the title of "The Romance of the Harem;" and not having yet exhausted her memories of the sunny clime, she furnished the letter-press to a beautifully-illustrated work called "The Beauties of the Bosphorus."
Miss Pardoe next turned her attention to Hungary, which country she visited for the express purpose of obtaining materials for a useful and veracious, rather than an amusing book. In "The City of the Magyar, or Hungary and its Institutions," issued in 1840, it was acknowledged that she had, without the sacrifice of utility or truth, given to the world a book which possessed all the charm and excitement of a romance. Her fertile imagination and graphic powers of description were next exhibited in "The Hungarian Castle," a novel; and after this, in 1847, the first of her great historical works—"Louis the Fourteenth, or the Court of the Seventeenth Century," in which, with all the lively spirit of a French biography, we have a well-defined picture of an historical epoch. As a relief to these graver studies, there then followed two novels—"The Confessions of a Pretty Woman" and "The Rival Beauties," after which came two more historical works—"The Life of Francis the First" and "The Life of Marie de Medicis," both works of acknowledged excellence. To this long catalogue may be added a story called "Reginald Lyle," first published in a periodical; "Flies in Amber," a series of short tales; "The Jealous Wife," a novel; and a book for young people; besides numerous contributions to magazines and reviews. When we consider the amount of research necessary for the production of some of these works, and that much of the author's time has been spent in travel, we are amazed at their number and variety of character. By her more elaborate historical works Miss Pardoe has earned for herself a lasting reputation, which is enhanced by the brilliant play of imagination which the lighter productions of her genius emits.