Theosophical History Conference 2003
The Many Lives of Mabel Collins
Kim Farnell
Youth
Mabel Collins was born Minna Collins on 9th September 1851 at St Peters
Port Guernsey at 8:30 am LMT. She was the daughter of Edward James Mortimer
(known as Mortimer) Collins, a popular poet and journalist and Susanna Hubbard,
the daughter of a Russian Merchant and banker. Her father was born in 1827,
an only child the son of a Plymouth solicitor. His family weren’t wealthy
and his father died of consumption when he was twelve. Soon after, his mother
Elizabeth joined the Plymouth Brethren remaining a member until her death
in 1872.
Mortimer was largely self-educated. The Collings family were often in
severe financial straits. In 1838 he took his first job. His writings were
first published in 1844. He wrote essays and poems originally for a variety
of publications and also occasionally taught. By 1847 Mortimer decided to
marry. When he arrived to take a new job he found the headmaster was ill
in bed, and his wife received him. He fell in love and decided that she was
the one he would marry. Three weeks later her husband died from his illness.
When she met Mortimer Susanna Hubbard was forty, nineteen
years older than him and the mother of six children, the oldest of whom was
little younger than Mortimer himself. In 1849 Mortimer proposed – she refused
immediately. Their families were horrified at the idea and sought to prevent
the marriage taking place. On 9th May 1850 the couple were finally married.
Though Susanna knew her new husband was much younger than she it was not
until he signed the marriage register that she realised how young he really
was.
Things were difficult with Mortimer’s low income and
his recently acquired large family. Susanna managed to raise some money
and they decided to buy a school. It was a disaster and after three months
they gave up. When a partnership in a Guernsey school turned out to be another
disaster, Mortimer landed a head teachers job at another school. Life was
treating the family well when Minna Mabel Collins was born. Mortimer worshipped
her from the first. Calling her Mabel or May, he wrote endless poems and
sonnets for her.
Mortimer was obsessed with his writing and Susanna
had to take responsibility for all practical matters. He lived with his
head permanently in the clouds and spent several hours a day writing and
several walking when he had the chance. He also and needed little sleep.
Minna’s early childhood was spent in a country which, although British on
the surface, was as different to England as any other continental country.
Money problems meant that in 1856 Mortimer decided
to devote himself totally to his writing and the family returned to England.
Mortimer became fashionable and frequently held court at a local watering
place. With his admirers he frequented a number of coffee rooms in local
hotels and was au fait with all the gossip. Drink was becoming a larger part
of Mortimer’s life and he lived far beyond his meagre means.
Then Susanna became ill and Mortimer spent more time alone. Almost penniless
the family moved from lodging to lodging. Things reached desperation point
and they returned to Plymouth. Mortimer was imprisoned for debt more than
once. As he relied more and more on drink Minna and her half sister spent
hours escorting him from his office and holding him upright. Much of his
free time was spent in London. The next few years were riddled with visits
by bailiffs and attempts to keep one step ahead of his debtors.
In 1861 the family moved to London. They ran out of
money and the cottage where Susanna had lived in the early days of their
romance was taken again. Mortimer was followed there and again thrown into
prison. The pattern of his life was now set – he would stay and work in one
place for a while, overspend, run into problems with debts, spend time in
prison, run away and then finally move to a new town where the whole process
could begin again.
By 1866 Mortimer was living a bachelor life in London
while the rest of his family remained at Knowl Hill. Although he visited
there at weekends with Susanna’s health failing further he was spending more
and more time alone. He continued to write his poetry and Minna recalled falling
asleep to the sound of his pen scratching the paper. By the time she was
twelve years old Minna had begun to write romances and verse herself. She
had never attended school – what education she had was from her father. Poetry
and philosophy formed the main content of her lessons.
Mortimer was familiar in the London haunts of journalism. Many hours were
spent in taverns meeting with other writers and journalists. His way of dealing
with a now unhappy marriage was to deny its existence and so deny his daughter.
Apart from taking responsibility for Minna’s education, Mortimer appears
to have had little to do with her. A fictionalised account
of his teaching of Minna appears in the novel Frances. (1) “…her father delighted to teach her at home. So
she knows a lot of things other girls don’t know, and is ignorant of an
infinite number of things…She knows her Shakespeare; she can read Chaucer;
she can enjoy the Odyssey and the odes of Horace…She can play neither croquet
nor the guitar.” A lover of the classics, a staunch Tory and conventionally
religious, Mortimer ensured that Minna’s education would stand her in good
stead if she were to mix with poets but be of little help in the real world.
In 1867 Susanna died. A year later Mortimer married
Frances Cotton and his life changed irrevocably. This was a love match and
the couple spent barely a minute apart. Frances devoted the rest of her life
to working for Mortimer. They lived at Knowl Hill surrounded by visitors
and Mortimer spent hour upon hour writing. He didn’t encourage his guests
to sleep much and although conversation would go on until the early hours
he would be up by 8 am, clamouring for attention. He also spent hours indulging
himself in his other interest, walking. Their active social life left Minna
barely acknowledged. Mortimer and Frances spent many happy years together,
to which Minna appears to have been almost incidental.
Marriage
By February of 1871 Minna was engaged to Keningale
Robert Cook, six years older than herself and son of Robert Keningale Cook,
the Church of England Canon of Manchester. Their marriage took place on 3rd
August 1871 at St Peters Church in Knowl Hill.
Five years later Mortimer’s happy life with Frances
was to come to an end. After a bout of rheumatic fever he decided to visit
Minna and her husband in Richmond. Even while so ill he didn’t want
to stop writing. Finally, his heart gave up the battle and on 28th July 1876
Mortimer died and was buried the following Tuesday in Petersham churchyard.
Frances lived until 1886 and spent much of her time compiling her husband’s
work and letters. Minna had begun a new life. Away from her family and a new
bride the world was to open its doors to her.
Considering the chaotic state of Minna’s early life,
she must have considered the prospect of marriage to someone as seemingly
respectable as Keningale Robert Cook, the chance of a lifetime. He had a
degree in law, and so the chance of a good professional career, wrote poetry
and was approved by Mortimer. He was also an ardent spiritualist.
The son of a clergyman Robert was born 1845 and educated
at Rugby. He attended Trinity College in Dublin from January 1863 where he
obtained his bachelors degree in 1866 and Masters and Bachelor in Laws as
well as his Doctorate in Laws in 1875. From 1869 he had been employed by
the Post Office dealing with money orders. He held this job until at least
1873. By 1875 he was a stockbroker in the City of London. By the time of his
marriage Robert had already completed and published a book of verse, Purpose
and Passion. To say that this didn’t meet with great acclaim is rather
understating its negative reception. Now a published writer he continued
to sell his work wherever he could.
Throughout 1871 and 1872 he wrote innumerable pieces for Amelia Lewis’
magazine Woman. Minna had written since she was small and this magazine
saw her first published writings. Robert’s sister Louisa also wrote occasionally
for the magazine, and Mortimer contributed to the first issue. Almost every
issue contained Minna’s or Robert’s writings. They covered a range of subjects
but were primarily concerned with education, the role of women and the arts.
By 1875 Minna’s first novel, The Blacksmith and Scholar
was published under the name of Mabel Collins. Although still called Minna,
or Minnie, at home, gradually she was to become known as Mabel. The publication
of her first novel was slightly overshadowed by Robert gaining his doctorate
in law the same year.
In 1876 with her father’s death a gap appeared in the
world of romantic fiction that Mabel was more than able to fill. Mabel’s
novels were to appear with unremitting regularity. 1877 was a milestone year
in many ways for the Cooks. Robert was to buy the Dublin University Magazine,
Mabel would have her second novel, An Innocent Sinner, meet with great success,
and Frances would publish her biography of Mortimer. Mabel was totally unimpressed
with Frances’ biography of her father. She took advantage of the Dublin University
Magazine to air her disquiet.
Robert acted as the kiss of death to the Dublin University
Magazine while Mabel was launching on a roller coaster of success. Her second
novel An Innocent Sinner attracted enthusiastic reviews.
Although Robert persisted in his literary efforts,
his wife’s was already eclipsing his work. In 1879 Mabel had two more books
published, In This World and Our Bohemia. Many of Mabel’s books were two
or three volumes in length, and once she had begun to produce her novels
there was nothing to hold her back. Many were first seen in serialised form
in magazines.
Mabel settled into a marriage offering unremitting
boredom. Each morning, Robert left for work while she tried to fill the
hours until his return. Each day Robert would go to his office like a machine,
each evening come home and complain about it. Although he enjoyed spending
his time writing Robert was no saleable author. His monotonous life was
punctuated by long evenings of study.
Mabel was popular in her circle, a tall, graceful woman
with auburn hair and a delicate colouring. She looked younger than her age
throughout her life. And on embarking into married life she felt her brain
was atrophying. In these circumstances it was not at all difficult for Robert
to persuade her to attend séances. Mabel became a renowned medium
herself. In later years she became violently opposed to spiritualism as her
experiences while working as a medium and in attending the séances
of others led her to believe that the practice was highly dangerous.
In 1878 Mabel described how a procession of priests appeared as her inspiration
and that she wrote the first seven chapters of Idyll automatically. She saw
a face within Cleopatra’s Needle while looking from her window and was aware
that it was an Egyptian face. Soon after long processions of white-robed
priests came in at the door of the house and up the stairs and into her room.
This happened constantly and she grew accustomed to it.
On one occasion while she was working on a novel her
sister in law was present and noticed Mabel change in her my appearance,
becoming rigid, and with her eyes closed Mabel wrote on until she opened
her eyes. Mabel found that she had written the prologue and first chapter
of the Idyll of the White Lotus. The experiences continued until Mabel had
seven chapters completed and this writing was originally published as part
of Cobwebs in 1882. It was during 1884-5, when Mabel was ill and there was
“much trouble” in her life that the work was finally finished.
The text of Light on the Path was acquired in a similar
manner where Mabel described being taken away from her body to a hall where
the wall was covered in jewels. She found that these were words and memorised
what she could to write down on returning to her body. The two experiences
differed in that the second time Mabel was actively attempting to attain
a different condition of consciousness. She continued for many years to repeat
these experiences, particularly in 1893, when she states she was almost constantly
out of her body.
Robert hadn’t given up his attempts at writing. He
had another collection of verse and two romantic plays published. His final
work, The Fathers of Jesus took over ten years to complete and was published
shortly after his death. By the time of Robert’s death in 1886 the Cooks’
marriage had failed and the couple had separated. He died on 24th June 1886
with his father by his side. A rather strange obituary appears in Light in
July 1886 where it states that his wife “Miss Mabel Collins, besides one
or two clever novels wrote some very original short stories wherein Spiritualism,
or some facts based on it, were prominent motives”. As Mabel was working
on her fourteenth book at this time she would no doubt have questioned being
attributed with “one or two clever novels”.
In his will Robert left Mabel a little over £2,651. When the will
was re-sworn two years later the sum rose to a little over £3,279.
With the income Mabel earned from her books she would be able to live comfortably
for a few years as this sum was equivalent to about £161,596 in 1989).
Footnotes
(1) reference.. Frances Edward James Mortimer
Collins and Frances Collins Frederick Warne & Co. 1880.
Katinka Hesselink Net,
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