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4 unusual facts about Francis Lathom


Francis Lathom

But Lathom was not only a Gothic novelist: about half his works are works of contemporary satire or attempts at fiction in the mode of Walter Scott.

Francis Lathom was born on the 14 July 1774, either in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, where his father, Henry, conducted business for the East India Company and returning to England around 1777, settling near Norwich, or he was born in Norwich and may have been the illegitimate son of an English peer.

First, he was one of the first writers of historical fiction, with historical romances such as The Mysterious Freebooter; or, The Days of Queen Bess (1806), a novel which blends fact and fiction regarding Queen Elizabeth, predating the better known historical novels of Scott.

He also travelled in France and Italy, eventually settling in rural Scotland with the Rennie family, where he died in Aberdeenshire in 1832.



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