Elizabeth Burgoyne Corbett

Elizabeth Burgoyne Corbett (1846 1930), also known as Mrs. George Corbett, was an English feminist writer best remembered for her groundbreaking work New Amazonia: A Foretaste of the Future (1889), which explored feminist ideals and envisioned a future society where women played dominant roles. Born on 16 August 1846 in Standishgate, near Wigan, her parents were Mary (n e Marsden) and Benjamin Corbett, who worked at a forge. Corbett received a solid education and later worked as a journalist for the Newcastle Daily Chronicle. She was also known for writing adventure and society novels, many of which were serialized in magazines before being published as books. Corbett's work was heavily influenced by her feminist views, and she became particularly active after reading Mrs. Humphry Ward's letter An Appeal Against Female Suffrage, which spurred her to write New Amazonia in response. Her novels often tackled the role of women in society, with When the Sea Gives Up Its Dead (1894) introducing one of the earliest female detectives in fiction, Annie Cory. Her contributions to the detective genre earned her recognition, and Hearth and Home hailed her alongside Arthur Conan Doyle as a master of the craft.