{{short description|19th-century English mystery writer}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} '''Harriet Raikes''' (2 August 1808 – 4 October 1890) was an English author, whose 1849 book ''The Marriage Contract'' was the first recorded murder mystery novel in English by a woman.{{Citation needed|date=April 2024}}
Raikes was born in London, the daughter of Thomas Raikes the Younger and Sophia Maria Bayly.<ref>''Westminster, London, England, Church of England Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1558–1812''</ref><ref name="death"/> Her father was a London merchant and banker, and the son of Thomas Raikes the Elder, also a merchant and banker and Governor of the Bank of England from 1797–9. Her mother was the daughter of plantation owner and politician Nathaniel Bayly.
Her father became a famous diarist and dandy traveller in Europe, meeting the highest celebrities of his times. In 1861, Raikes edited her father's correspondence with the 2nd Duke of Wellington.<ref>{{cite journal |title=Great Britain |journal=The Danville Quarterly Review |date=September 1861 |page=545 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=v3QXAAAAYAAJ&dq=Harriet+Raikes&pg=PA545 |access-date=16 April 2024 |publisher=Richard H. Collins |language=en}}</ref>
She died in 1890 in Versailles, Yvelines.<ref name="death">''Yvelines, France, Births, Marriages and Deaths 1734–1996''</ref>
==Bibliography== *''[https://books.google.com/books?id=RmcHAQAAIAAJ&q=The+Marriage+Contract++raikes The Marriage Contract (Vol. I)]'' (1849). London: Richard Bentley. *''[https://books.google.com/books?id=ZmcHAQAAIAAJ The Marriage Contract (Vol. 2)]'' (1849). London: Richard Bentley.
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Raikes, Harriet}} Category:1808 births Category:1890 deaths Category:Writers from London Category:19th-century English novelists Category:British emigrants to France Category:19th-century English biographers
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