Caroline E. Norton
English Poet and Novelist
1808 – 1877 A.D.

Caroline Elizabeth Norton, an English poet and novelist. Her literary work was influenced by Byron, and while her books met with popular success, they are now seldom read.

In 1827 she made an unfortunate marriage to an impecunious barrister, the Hon. George Chapple Norton, whom she virtually supported for many years. Her marital troubles led her to write English Laws for Women, which undoubtedly contributed to the change of English laws as to the status of women, the custody of offsprint, and the protection of female earnings.

Mrs. Norton was a gifted and beautiful woman, and it is generally supposed that her story supplied the subject for Meredith’s Diana of the Crossways.

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Reference: Famous Women; An Outline of Feminine Achievement Through the Ages With Life Stories of Five Hundred Noted Women By Joseph Adelman. Copyright, 1926 by Ellis M. Lonow Company.