Mary Gleed Tuttiet

Mary Gleed Tuttiett, who wrote under the pen name Maxwell Gray, was a distinguished Victorian novelist and poet born in Newport, on the 11th of December 1846. She was the daughter of local surgeon Frank Bampfylde Tuttiett and Elizabeth Gleed. Largely self-educated, Mary initially contributed essays, poetry, articles and short stories to periodicals. Her literary breakthrough came in 1886 with The Silence of Dean Maitland, a dramatic and highly successful novel which established Maxwell Gray as a recognised name in Victorian literature. T

he novel was set against a fictionalised Isle of Wight landscape, with familiar Island places providing inspiration. Despite suffering from severe and persistent health problems, Mary maintained a remarkably productive writing career. She produced numerous novels and several volumes of poetry, including Westminster Chimes and Lays of the Dragon Slayer. Much of her early literary work was written while living in Newport.

Mary was also interested in women’s rights and female suffrage, supporting the campaign for women’s voting rights and incorporating questions surrounding women’s position in society into some of her fiction. After the death of her father in 1895, she moved from Newport to the London area. She died in Ealing on 21 September 1923, aged 76.

Today, Mary Gleed Tuttiett is remembered as one of Newport and the Isle of Wight’s significant literary figures, and The Silence of Dean Maitland remains her best-known work.