Love of a Lady

Undated but circa 1930. In red cloth-covered boards with black titles on spine. 12mo. Boards gently rubbed and rounded at corners and spine ends. Obliterated name on front paste down, else internally neat, clean, bright and tight. Bertha M Clay was a literary pseudonym which was first used by the English novelist Charlotte Mary Brame, best known for her novel, Dora Thorne; Brame and her books were popular with the general reading public but her earnings were diminished by piracy, especially in the United States. After Brame’s death in 1884, the pen name continued to be used by her daughter. Simultaneously, a dozen or some male writers at the New York publisher, Street and Smith, wrote under the name – writers including Frederick Merrill Van Rensselaer Dey; other authors know to have used the name include Gilbert Patten, William J Benners, William Wallace Cook and Thomas W Henshaw. According to Miriam Gogol (1995) some 27 different publishers adopted the pseudonym between 1876 and 1926. It is not clear which of these authors produced Love of a Lady but given the date and subject matter, we’d take a punt at Charlotte Brame’s daughter. Some Bertha M Clay titles are common; this one is particularly hard to find.