Florence Marryat was the daughter of the famous author Captain Frederick Marryat and was particularly well known for her involvement with the spiritual movement – and mediums – of the late 19th century. Florence Marryat wrote about 90 novels, adapted some of them for the stage and even took a role in a drama she had written. Her most notable work is There Is No Death (1891).

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The Life & Times of Florence Marryat

Florence Marryat was born in Brighton, Sussex. Her parents separated when she was still a child and she was educated entirely at her parent’s residences, with the help of her father’s extensive library and a bunch of governesses. In 1854 she married Thomas Ross Church at Penang, Malaya. Thomas was an officer of the British army in India, so they spent their married life traveling India. In 1860 Florence suffered a breakdown and, pregnant, returned to Brighton with her three children, while her husband remained in India.  

While caring for her children alone, Florence wrote her first novel. Love’s Conflict was published in 1865, with modest success. Many reviewers of her work were alarmed by such themes as adultery, alcoholism and marital cruelty. She rejected the accusations of sensationalism, saying she wrote from her own experience. No wonder that her first marriage broke down in 1879, though she had eight children with Thomas Ross Church. Later that year she wed Colonel Francis Lean.  

Cover of There Is No Death

There Is No Death

In 1874, Florence interviewed for a London newspaper a prominent clairvoyant. This marked the beginning of her belief in spiritualism. She participated in countless seances and claimed having communicated with her two dead daughters and her brother who died in a shipwreck. She wrote down her experiences in a highly successful non-fiction book, There Is No Death, and the sequel The Spirit World. Spiritualism also influenced her works of fiction in such novels as The Clairvoyance of Bessie Williams or The Strange Transfiguration of Hannah Stubbs.

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Her major work There Is No Death is being published now on the web on the site GhostWritings.

One of her psychic investigations was recounted here: There Is No Death in Bruges-la-Morte.

Florence’s father, Captain Marryat, played an important part in the famous story of The Ghost Photograph of the Brown Lady of Raynham Hall.