diversions - the archives

take me to the poetry

Although apparently not acknowledged by name, the author of "Reading Without Tears" was a Mrs Favell Lee Mortimer. She was born Favell Bevan in 1802, the daughter of a wealthy Quaker banker with family's roots in Oxwich, South Wales. Having moved to Bristol the Bevans founded a bank, known as Bevan and Barclays. This subsequently became part of Barclays Bank. Favell Lee Mortimer had a religious and educational fervour. She also wrote "The Peep of the Day", a book of religious instruction for the very young. 500,000 copies of this were sold, and it was translated by the Religious Tract Society in 1884, into the language of the Ojibbewe Indians, and also into Cree: see http://www.library.ubc.ca/edlib/egoffbib/1880.html

Copies of both this book and "Reading Without Tears" are held in the rare books section at the Bodleian Library, Oxford. There are also some of Mortimer's geographical titles there too. "Peep of Day" is still in print, see Christian Focus

Favell Lee Mortimer died in 1878.

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