Norma Octavia Lorimer (1864–1948) was a Scots novelist and travel writer, who has been called "One of the most notable early female novelists of the Isle of Man."[1]
Norma Octavia Lorimer (1864–1948) was a Scots novelist and travel writer, who has been called "One of the most notable early female novelists of the Isle of Man."[1]
Lorimer was born in Auchterarder, Perthshire,[2] the eighth and youngest daughter in a family of eleven.[3] She was raised on the Isle of Man,[2] to which "she returned to in her fiction, showing clearly that she had 'lost her heart' to the South of the Island."[1]
In the 1890s she became secretary to Douglas Sladen, with whom she wrote book two of Queer Things about Sicily (Sicily from a Woman's Point of View).[2] She contributed to the Girl's Own Paper and wrote numerous travel books and 26 "rather sentimental novels."[2] "Perhaps her best book was On Etna," her novel A Wife out of Egypt became a best-seller.[3] "The grand sweep of emotions in her Manx novels offers a fresh colouring to the history and scenery of the South of the Island whilst demonstrating the variance and colour to Manx novels."[1]
Lorimer died on 14 February 1948, in Perth, Scotland.[3]
