Charlotte Chanter

'''Charlotte Chanter''' ({{nee}} '''Kingsley'''; bapt. 17 October 1828<ref>''Northamptonshire, England, Church of England Baptisms, 1813–1912''</ref> – 24 March 1882<ref>{{cite book|title=The Genealogist|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oyE9AQAAIAAJ|year=1914|page=38}}</ref>)<ref name=longman/> was an English writer best known for a book that helped set off a Victorian fad for collecting ferns in Devon.

==Biography== Charlotte Kingsley was born in Barnack, Northamptonshire,<ref name="1871census">''1871 England Census''</ref> to the Reverend Charles Kingsley and Mary Lucas Kingsley. Her older brothers Charles and Henry both became novelists, as did her niece, Lucas Malet. She spent her childhood in Clovelly, Devon, where her father was curate and then rector.<ref name=griggs/> She moved to London in 1836.<ref name=longman/> Her husband, John Mills Chanter, became the vicar of Holy Trinity Church in Ilfracombe.<ref name=allen/>

Chanter's 1856 book ''Ferny Combes'' was the first book to draw public attention to the great diversity of ferns to be found in Devon. Her book focused mainly on ferns discoverable within an easy distance of the coast.<ref name=rise/> Like other botanizing authors of this period, she encouraged people to dig up rare ferns, contributing to the increasing rarity of certain Devon ferns.<ref name=rise/> Her brother Charles coined the term pteridomania for this Victorian craze for ferns.<ref name=boyd/>

Chanter's 1861 novel, ''Over the Cliffs'', had elements of both the gothic novel and the sensation novel, with a plot revolving around murder and an inheritance.<ref name=longman/> Although it is said to have been well received in its day,<ref name=longman/> it was panned by at least one critic.<ref name=ce1860/>

==Selected books== * ''Ferny Combes: A Ramble After Ferns in the Glens and Valleys of Devonshire'' (1856) * ''Over the Cliffs'' (1861)

==References== <references>

<ref name=boyd>Boyd, Peter D. A. [http://www.peterboyd.com/pteridomania.htm "Pteridomania – the Victorian passion for ferns"]. ''Antique Collecting'', 28:6 (1993), pp. 9-12.</ref>

<ref name=longman>Sutherland, John. ''The Longman Companion to Victorian Fiction''. Routledge, 2014.</ref>

<ref name=ce1860>"Review of Current Literature". ''The Christian Examiner'', vol. 69 (November 1860), p. 466.</ref>

<ref name=allen>Allen, Nicholas, Nick Groom, and Jos Smith. ''Coastal Works: Cultures of the Atlantic Edge''. Oxford University Press, 2017.</ref>

<ref name=rise>'Travis, John F. ''The Rise of the Devon Seaside Resorts 1750-1900'', pp. 169-171. University of Essex Press, 1993.</ref>

<ref name=griggs>Griggs, William. ''A Guide to All Saints Church, Clovelly''. 1980, revised 2010, p. 7.</ref>

</references>

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chanter, Charlotte}} Category:1828 births Category:1882 deaths Category:19th-century English novelists Category:Victorian women writers Category:Victorian writers Category:English botanical writers Category:People from Barnack Category:People from Torridge District Category:Writers from Cambridgeshire Category:Writers from Devon Category:19th-century British women writers Category:Kingsley family