Marie Clothilde Balfour | |
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Born | 20 October 1862 Edinburgh |
Died | September 1931 London |
Occupation(s) | Writer, folklorist |
Parent |
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Relatives | Robert Louis Stevenson (cousin); George William Balfour (uncle and father-in-law); Thomas Stevenson (uncle) |
Marie Clothilde Balfour (20 October 1862 – September 1931) was a British writer, translator, and folklorist. She wrote three novels, stories, and plays; translated poetry and a French Revolution-era memoir; collected folk stories and songs; and edited two volumes of letters from her aunt.
Balfour was born in Edinburgh, the daughter of James Balfour, a noted engineer, and Christina Simson Balfour (later Nicholson). Writer Robert Louis Stevenson was her first cousin. She spent her early years in New Zealand while he father was working there; when he died in 1869, she returned to Scotland with her mother.[1]
Balfour wrote three novels, translated a French Revolution-era memoir, and edited two volumes of letters from her aunt, Margaret Isabella Balfour Stevenson, sent during her travels with her son in Polynesia.[2][3] She also wrote plays and stories, and collected folklore. "From time to time doubts have been expressed about the authenticity of the tales that Marie Clothilde Balfour said she had collected," notes one scholar,[4] because the tales she published were especially strange, and she certainly added her own literary flourishes.[5][6][7]
Balfour married her first cousin, physician James Craig Balfour; they had a daughter, Marie Margaret Melville Balfour, who also became a writer.[20] Balfour's husband died in 1907, and she died in London in 1931.[1]