E. Maria Albanesi
Personal Information
Description
Effie Adelaide Maria Henderson was born on 1858/1859 in New South Wales, Australia. She was the second daughter of the English Alexander Henderson (1828–1886) and Maria Nelson. Her sister Caroline Sidney Henderson was born on 9 January 1855. Their parents married on 26 December 1853 in in Hobart, Tasmania, but their marriage wasn't legal, because her father was already married and had not divorced. For that reason, Effie and her sister were illegitimates. Her father formed other families over the years, and she had several half brothers. Her maternal grandfather, Sidney Nelson, was a well-known composer, and her parents worked in his teathre company in Australia. The family moved to England, where in 1871, the Henderson sisters were boarders in Victoria Road, West Derby, Lancashire. Her sister became an actress under the name Carrie Hope, and on 8 January 1877, she married comedian William Henry Hallatt at Parish Church in St. Luke's, Chelsea, and had two children: Maria Effie Hallatt (alias May Hallatt), also an actress, and Alexander Norman Hallatt. On 19 dic 1882 in Epsom, Surrey, Effie married Abraham Cecil Francis Fothergill Rowlands (alias Cecil Raleigh), an actor and playwright. Her father died on 1 February 1886 in Cannes, and her sister died on 19 October 1887 in Marylebone, London. Her husband abandon her, and she begun to write to support himself. She penned countless serials for magazines and newspapers that were reprinted around the world. She signed under her married name Effie Adelaide Rowlands, and started to pubished popular romance novels. Finally, she divorced her husband in 1892. On 1894, her ex-husband remarried actress Saba Raleigh, to which he would also abandon. And on 1896, Effie also remarried Italian musician Carlo Albanesi, professor at the Royal Academy of Music. She started to use the pennames of E. Maria Albanesi and Madame Albanesi to signed part of her novels. The marriage had two daugthers Eva Olimpia Maria Albanesi in 1897 and Margherita Cecilia Brigida Maria Albanesi in 1899. Eva, married Marshall Lord Curtis-Brown in 1917 and they had 3 children, and remarried with Austin Henry Williams in 1927 and had other child. Margherita (alias Meggie Albanesi), became an actress and died prematurely, aged 24. Her husband Carlo Albanesi died on 21 September 1926. Effie Adelaide Maria passed away on 16 October 1936 at her home in London.
Books
Capricious Caroline
[...]Ocean! No, no! If the St. John did not make her port here, she has been telegraphed there. The strongest wind cannot stagger a Spirit; it is a Spirit's breath. A just man's purpose cannot be split on any Grampus or material rock, but itself will split rocks till it succeeds. The verses addressed to Columbus, dying, may, with slight alterations, be applied to the passengers of the St. John: -[...]. [...]that he was glad to be away from London again even for a little while; glad to dissociate his thoughts from that element of his life that belonged to the world in which Camilla Lancing lived. Not that he expected to be able to put her out of his thoughts altogether, for even in the dull, prosaic, unlovely surroundings of the factory, remembrance of this woman haunted him in so tangible a way that at times he could almost have imagined she was close beside him. And on this occasion he carried with him new matter for thought where Camilla was concerned. A new element had crept into his heart. If he shut his eyes he could see with painful distinctness Camilla floating round that large room held in the arms of another man. He knew perfectly well that this other man was no more to her than the floor on which she danced, but that did not affect the situation as far as he was concerned. He winced and turned hot as he sat alone in the railway carriage whirling away from town, just as he had winced and grown hot the other night, when, like some graceful white leaf borne on a wayward wind, she had lightly skimmed past him, brushing him with her soft, clinging skirts. Her laughing, petulant reproach when he had refused to dance because he could not dance had left a little wound. She had made him feel clumsy; suddenly she had seemed to recede from him. It was the first time that he had ever felt awkward, and at the mere suggestion that he could look foolish in the eyes of this woman Rupert Haverford discovered that he was very like other men, some of whom perhaps he had judged hardly, and some contemptuously. He had no definite intention in his mind as to how he should act. Indeed, it seemed to him that the future was not held in restraint by his hand or his power, and he laughed once to himself a little bitterly, as he recalled how he had gone round and round this subject of late, thinking entirely of his own feelings, and of how far the bewitchment that this[...]