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Ouida

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Author

The Resume

    (January 1, 1839-January 25, 1908)
    Born in Bury St. Edmunds, England, United Kingdom
    Birth name was Maria Louise Rame
    Author of romance/adventure novels
    Wrote the novels 'Held in Bondage' (1863), 'Under Two Flags' (1867), 'Idalia' (1867), 'A Dog of Flanders' (1872), 'The Village Commune' (1881), 'Princess Napraxine' (1884) 'A House Party' (1887) and 'Helianthus' (1908)
    Pen name pronounced 'wee-da'

Why she might be annoying:

    Her pen name was based on her childhood mispronunciation of 'Louise.' ('A fact that should be sufficient warning to the prospective reader,' according to a latter-day critic.)
    She wrote in bed on purple paper.
    When she was reprimanded for talking through the entertainment at a dinner party, she replied 'As I talk better than others, I ought to be listened to, even if singing is going on.'
    She spent extravagantly and spent much of her time moving from hotel to hotel to keep one step ahead of the creditors.
    Her finances got so bad that when her mother died, she kept the body in the house for weeks until she could afford the burial.

Why she might not be annoying:

    She was a founding member of the Italian Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
    Her novels were popular partly because she avoided the moralizing that was common among Victorian writers.
    Max Beerbohm called her one of the 'miracles of modern literature.'
    She wrote, 'I do not object to realism in fiction. What I object to is the limitation of realism to what is commonplace, tedious and bald -- the habit, in a word, of insisting that the potato is real and that the passion flower is not.'

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 4 Votes: 25.00% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 1 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 16 Votes: 62.50% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 7 Votes: 28.57% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 4 Votes: 75.00% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 4 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 4 Votes: 75.00% Annoying
    In 2016, Out of 4 Votes: 75.00% Annoying
    In 2015, Out of 8 Votes: 75.00% Annoying
    In 2014, Out of 9 Votes: 44.44% Annoying
    In 2013, Out of 18 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2012, Out of 14 Votes: 64.29% Annoying