Elizabeth Wormeley Latimer (Mrs. Randolph) (1822-1904)
Mary Elizabeth Wormeley Latimer traversed nations, centuries, and genres in her writing. Originally from London, Latimore moved to New England for schooling, where her love of literature flourished. She became a Baltimore resident upon her marriage to Randolph Brandt Latimer in 1856. Latimer is best known for her weighty series on nineteenth-century European history, including France in the Nineteenth Century and England in the Nineteenth Century. These works give equal play to both men and women, princes and princesses. Latimer also published prolifically in magazines and write several novels; in these works she frequently depicts women navigating conflicting gender roles. Latimer was an enthusiastic member of the Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore from its genesis in 1890 until her death in 1904. She was often praised by the Club members for her historical and translation work.
Sources
Livermore, Mary Ashton Rice and Frances E. Willard, eds. American women: fifteen hundred biographies with over 1,400 portraits: a comprehensive encyclopedia of the lives and achievements of American women during the nineteenth century. New York; Chicago; Springfield, Ohio: Mast, Cromwell & Kirkpatrick, 1897: 451.
Shepherd, Henry Elliot. The Representative Authors of Maryland. New York: Whitehall Publishing Company, 1911. 126.
“Elizabeth Wormeley Latimer.” Wikimedia Foundation, Inc, Last edited 9 April 2018.
Contributors
Ellen Roussel