1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Charles, Elizabeth

CHARLES, ELIZABETH (1828–1896), English author, was born at Tavistock on the 2nd of January 1828, the daughter of John Rundle, M.P. Some of her youthful poems won the praise of Tennyson, who read them in manuscript. In 1851 she married Andrew Paton Charles. Her best known book, written to order for an editor who wished for a story about Martin Luther, The Chronicles of the Schönberg-Cotta Family, was published in 1862, and was translated into most of the European languages, into Arabic, and into many Indian dialects. Mrs Charles wrote in all some fifty books, the majority of a semi-religious character. She took an active part in the work of various charitable institutions, and among her friends and correspondents were Dean Stanley, Archbishop Tait, Charles Kingsley, Jowett and Pusey. She died at Hampstead on the 28th of March 1896.