Ouida’s Publishing History: Prolific Then, Peripheral Now

This article examines the popular and non-canonical Victorian novelist Ouida (Maria Louise de la Ramée) and her relationship with her publishers. In particular, through the study of nineteenth and twentieth-century criti­cism as well as correspondence, certain views concerning the writer and her oeuvre will be revised and amended, especially in the context of social and moral standards anticipated from the female artist, the writer. The analysis will concentrate on the author's reputation and sales and the fact that they were not only injured by her ostensibly immoral plots, as many claimed, but also by her publishers'—primarily Chapman Hall and Chatto Windus—differing priorities and conflicting opinions in their per­sonal and professional relationship. So, although viewed by biographers and critics as an eccentric person to work with, this article will reveal that Ouida was not treated fairly by her publishers, who chiefly sought for fi­nancial security. The examination of Ouida's publishing affairs here will trace one of the paths that led to the gradual decline in her reputation and the posterior obscurity of her works