# Bertha Thomas

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English author (1845–1918)

**Bertha Thomas** (19 March 1845 – 24 August 1918), was a Victorian pro-feminist writer, author of the 1880 novel *The Violin Player*.

## Life

Thomas was born on 19 March 1845 at [Shelsley Beauchamp](/source/Shelsley_Beauchamp) in [Worcestershire](/source/Worcestershire).[1] Her father was Canon John Thomas (died 1883), and her sisters were the composer [Florence Ashton Marshall](/source/Florence_Ashton_Marshall) and the professional clarinettist Frances Thomas.[2]

She moved to London in the 1880s, initially living with her father and her sister Frances at 16 [Gordon Square](/source/Gordon_Square), Bloomsbury, until the father's death in 1883.[3] She completed seven novels, many of which were serialized in *[London Society](/source/London_Society)*, and which became popular in the [circulating libraries](/source/Circulating_library).[4] There were also short stories, other writings and articles that were published in periodicals in the UK and the US.[5] A collection of her short stories was re-issued in 2008.[6] Like her sister Frances, Bertha remained unmarried.

## Work

The 1880 novel *The Violin-Player* has been described as "perhaps the most triumphant narrative of female musicality in Victorian literature".[2] Her 1875 booklet *Latest Intelligence from the Planet Venus*, first published in *[Fraser’s Magazine](/source/Fraser's_Magazine)*, presented a satirical argument against giving women the vote. In *The Son of the House* (1900), a mother imprisons her son under the guise of insanity to protect the family inheritance - a subversion of [The Madwoman in the Attic](/source/The_Madwoman_in_the_Attic) Victorian trope of an insane woman controlled by her male relatives.[3]

Thomas also wrote the libretto for her sister Florence's operetta *Prince Sprite* in 1891, published by Novello.[7]

## Bibliography

- *Proud Maisie*, novel (published anonymously, 1877)

- *Cressida*, novel (1878)

- *The Violin-Player*, novel (1880)

- *In a Cathedral City* (1882)

- *Life of Richard Wagner* (Elzevir Library, 1883, translation of biography by Carl Friedrich Glasenapp)

- *Famous Women: George Sand* ([Eminent Women Series](/source/Roberts_Brothers#Famous_Women_Series), 1883, rev. 1889)

- *Ichabod: A Portrait*, novel (1885)

- *Elizabeth's Fortune*, novel (1887)

- *Famous or Infamous*, novel (1890)

- *Sundorne*, novel (1890)

- *The House on the Scar: A Tale of South Devon* (1890)

- *Camera Lucida: or, Strange Passages in Common Life*, short stories (1897)

- *The Son of the House*, novel (1900)

- *Picture Tales from the Welsh Hills*, short stories (1912) (reprinted as *Stranger Within The Gates* (2008)

## References

1. **[^](#cite_ref-1)** Thomas, Bertha (2008). Bohata, Kirsti (ed.). [*Stranger within the Gates: Short stories*](https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Stranger_Within_the_Gates/hWgfAQAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=%22bertha%20thomas%22%20shelsley&dq=%22bertha%20thomas%22%20shelsley&printsec=frontcover). Honno. p. iv. [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [9781870206945](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/9781870206945). Retrieved 14 October 2025.

1. ^ [***a***](#cite_ref-d_2-0) [***b***](#cite_ref-d_2-1) Shannon Draucker. [*Sounding Bodies: Acoustical Science and Musical Erotics in Victorian Literature*](https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Sounding_Bodies/K3wCEQAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22florence+ashton+marshall%22&pg=PT131&printsec=frontcover) (2024)

1. ^ [***a***](#cite_ref-p_3-0) [***b***](#cite_ref-p_3-1) [Bertha Thomas biography, Pascal Theatre Company](https://www.pascal-theatre.com/biographies/bertha-thomas/)

1. **[^](#cite_ref-4)** Bassett, Troy J. "Author: Bertha Thomas." in [*At the Circulating Library: A Database of Victorian Fiction, 1837—1901*](https://www.victorianresearch.org/atcl/show_author.php?aid=732)

1. **[^](#cite_ref-5)** Kirsti Bohata. ['Bertha Thomas: the New Woman and ‘Anglo-Welsh’ hybridity'](https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780203643211-7/bertha-thomas-new-woman-anglo-welsh-hybridity-kirsti-bohata), in *New Woman Hybridities*, Routledge (2004)

1. **[^](#cite_ref-6)** [Bertha Thomas. *Stranger Within the Gates* (Honno, 2008)](https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Stranger_Within_the_Gates.html?id=hWgfAQAAIAAJ&source=kp_book_description&redir_esc=y)

1. **[^](#cite_ref-7)** ['Florence Ashton Marshall 1843-1922'](https://www.salonwithoutboundaries.com/composer-of-the-month-1/2022/9/20/florence-ashton-marshall-1843-1922), *Salon Without Boundaries*, 21 September 2022

## External links

- [Works by Bertha Thomas](https://librivox.org/author/17057) at [LibriVox](/source/LibriVox) (public domain audiobooks)

- [Works by Bertha Thomas](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/33204) at [Project Gutenberg](/source/Project_Gutenberg)

v t e New Woman of the late 19th century (born before 1880) 19th-century feminism First-wave feminism Women's history Artists Louise Abbéma Elenore Abbott Nina E. Allender Sophie Gengembre Anderson Cornelia Barns Cecilia Beaux Enella Benedict Rosa Bonheur Jennie Augusta Brownscombe Julia Margaret Cameron Mary Cassatt Minerva J. Chapman Émilie Charmy Alice Brown Chittenden Elizabeth Coffin Emma Lampert Cooper Susan Stuart Frackelton Wilhelmina Weber Furlong Elizabeth Shippen Green Ellen Day Hale Laura Knight Anna Lea Merritt Elizabeth Nourse Violet Oakley Rose O'Neill Elizabeth Okie Paxton Emily Sartain Pamela Colman Smith Jessie Willcox Smith Annie Swynnerton Candace Wheeler Anne Whitney Writers Elizabeth Barrett Browning Mona Caird Kate Chopin Annie Sophie Cory Ella D'Arcy Ella Hepworth Dixon Maria Edgeworth George Egerton (Mary Chavelita Dunne Bright) Sarah Grand Amy Levy Olive Schreiner Educators Alice Freeman Palmer Literature about the New Woman Isabel Archer in Henry James's The Portrait of a Lady (serialized 1880–81) Elizabeth Barrett's Aurora Leigh (1856) Kate Chopin's The Awakening (1899) Victoria Cross' Anna Lombard (1901) Ella Hepworth Dixon's The Story of a Modern Woman Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary (1856) Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House (1879) Henry Arthur Jones's The Case of Rebellious Susan (1894) Henry James' novella Daisy Miller (serialized 1878) Amy Levy's The Romance of a Shop (1888) George Bernard Shaw's Mrs. Warren's Profession (1893) George Bernard Shaw's Candida (1898) H. G. Wells' Ann Veronica (1909)

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Bertha Thomas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertha_Thomas) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertha_Thomas?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.