Jessie FothergillJessie Fothergill was an English novelist. Her novel, The First Violin, did particularly well. Publishers rejected it because a wife commits adultery, something they did not think readers would welcome. They were wrong. Fothergill was born in June 181 in Cheetham Hill, Manchester, as the eldest child of cotton trader Thomas Fothergill and his wife Anne. He had formerly been a Quaker. Anne was the daughter of Burnley residents William and Judith Coultate. (Jess Fothergill's sister Catherine also wrote novels, which were published between 1883 and 1898.) When she was younger, the Fothergills relocated to Bowdon, Cheshire, where she attended a private school before moving to Harrogate to attend boarding school there. Jessie, Caroline, and two friends stayed in Düsseldorf, Germany, for 15 months in 1874. When she returned to England, she published her first novel, Healey, in 1875, having already begun her third novel, The First Violin (1876), which earned Fothergill's name but was initially published anonymously to protect her family. Inspired by her 15 months of music studies in Dusseldorf, it tells the narrative of a 17-year-old English girl who rejects the attentions of a wealthy landowner in order to become a lady's companion and travel to "Elberthal" for voice training. Read More Read Less