Ada Buisson

Ada Buisson (26 March 1839 – 27 December 1866) was an English novelist best remembered for her ghost stories.

Ada Buisson, c. 1866

Biography

Ada Buisson was born in Battersea in Surrey, the third child of French-born merchant Jean François (aka 'John Francis') Buisson (1797–1871) and his English wife Dorothy Jane (née Smither; 1817–1852).^[1][2] Her eldest sibling was Leontine, who later became a teacher, writer and fine essayist, suffragist and campaigner for women's rights in Queensland, Australia.^[3] Her father was declared bankrupt in 1842, and in about 1850 she and her family moved to Brighton,^[1][4] where her mother died in 1852. From 1854 to 1855, along with her sisters Leontine and Irma, she studied moral philosophy and natural history at the women-only Bedford College in London.^[5]

Ada Buisson died in 1866 in Boulogne-sur-Mer, aged 27.^[1]

Work

During her life, Buisson published one novel, Put to the Test (1865), published by John Maxwell.^[1] The remainder of her work, consisting of a second novel, A Terrible Wrong: A Novel (1867), published by T. C. Newby, and various short stories, were published shortly after her death. Various of her writings appeared in Belgravia, a magazine edited by her friend, the novelist Mary Elizabeth Braddon,^[1] whom she met through Braddon's husband, Buisson's publisher John Maxwell. In this were posthumously published her six ghost stories: "My Aunt's Pearl Ring" (1867), "A Story Told in a Church" (1867), "The Ghost's Summons" (1868), "The Baron's Coffin" (1869), and "My Sister Caroline" (1870).^[6] Buisson's writings were later mistakenly ascribed to Braddon by Montague Summers, a scholar of Gothic literature.^[1] Summers's mistake, published in The Times Literary Supplement on 30 September 1944, was corrected by Buisson's nephew Frederick Buisson Evans (1874-1952) three weeks later.^[6][7]

Buisson's tale "The Ghost's Summons", published posthumously in Belgravia (January 1868),^[8] has been anthologised in collections of ghost stories.^[9][10][11] A collection of five of her ghost stories, originally printed in Belgravia, was published in 2022 as The Baron's Coffin and Other Disquieting Tales.^[12][13]