Rhoda Broughton was born in Denbigh in North Wales on the 29th November 1840. She was the daughter of the Rev. Delves Broughton youngest son of the Rev. Sir Henry Delves-Broughton, 8th baronet. She developed a taste for literature, especially poetry, as a young girl. Her favourite writer was probably William Shakespeare, as the frequent quotations and allusions throughout her works indicate. Presumably after having read The Story of Elizabeth by Anne Isabella Thackeray Ritchie, she had the idea of trying her own talent and produced her first work within six weeks. Parts of this novel she took with her on a visit to her uncle Sheridan le Fanu, himself a successful author, who was highly pleased with it and assisted her in having it published. Her first two novels appeared in 1867 in his Dublin University Magazine. Le Fanu was also the one who introduced her to publisher Richard Bentley, who refused her first novel on the grounds of it being improper material, but accepted the second.^[1]