OUIDA

born Jan. 1, 1839, Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, Eng. died Jan. 25, 1908, Viareggio, Italy pseudonym of Maria Louise Ram, or De La Rame English novelist, known for her extravagant melodramatic romances of fashionable life. Ouida's father was a teacher of French, and the pseudonym Ouida derived from a childhood version of Louisa. Her first novel, Granville de Vigne (renamed Held in Bondage, 1863), was first published serially in 1860. Her stirring narrative style and a refreshing lack of sermonizing caught the public's fancy and made her books extraordinarily popular. Strathmore (1865) and Chandos (1866) were followed by Under Two Flags (1867). After traveling in Italy, Ouida settled at Florence in 1874, and, among many subsequent novels, Moths (1880) was one of her best. She was the author of a number of animal stories, of which A Dog of Flanders (1872) was long a children's favourite. Reckless extravagance reduced her to acute poverty in later life.