Halloween has come and gone, but here in California we didn’t get anything remotely like Fall until the week of Halloween, so I’m hereby declaring that we can celebrate Halloween right up until Thanksgiving and then segue promptly into various Winter Solstice festivities.
With this in mind, this month’s kickass woman is Maria Louise Ramé, or, as she preferred to be called, Marie Louise de la Ramée, an author who used the pseudonym ‘Ouida’. If that name sounds familiar, it’s because she may have been the inspiration behind the naming of the Ouija board. If you had lived in Europe during the Victorian Era, it would have sounded familiar because Ouida was the author of dozens of somewhat scandalous best-selling novels as well as children’s novels and essays.
Maria Louise de la Ramée was born in England in 1839. She moved to London in 1867 and commenced her career as an author and as a social entertainer.
According to the Langham Hotel, which seems quite proud of their former guest, Ramée liked to write on purple notepaper while reclining in bed, surrounded by purple flowers.
She also threw parties that were attended by all the prettiest and smartest people including soldiers, politicians, writers, and artists.
In 1871 Ramée moved to Florence where she partied and wrote novels. According to biographer Elizabeth Lee, “she lived in great style, entertained largely, collected objets d’art, dressed expensively but not tastefully, drove good horses, and kept many dogs, to which she was deeply attached.”
As much as Ramée loved entertaining the literary lights of the day and living the good life, she certainly wasn’t idle. She published her first novel at the age of 24 and went on to write over forty books, including adult novels, children’s books, and collections of short fiction and essays. Her novels were famously criticized for being racy, and the worse the reviews were, the better the sales. (SB Sarah: “You don’t say.”) Her early works focused on adventure while her latter books were more along the lines of historical romance. Jack London considered her to be an important influence on his work – specifically, in his list of eight factors that contributed to his success; he includes “Reading Ouida’s Signa at eight years of age.”
After 1890, she focused on writing essays for magazines. Her finances plummeted around this time and she spent the latter part of her life in poverty, although she always managed to feed and shelter stray dogs, many of which ate at the table with her from their own place settings. One of her more famous books is the incredibly depressing children’s book, A Dog of Flanders. Most of Ramée’s writing included social commentary along progressive lines, with messages like “don’t abuse children, dogs, and poor people, and quit slut-shaming.”
Ramée is connected to the Ouija Board only in theory, but it’s a fun theory. It all has to do with Ramée’s pen name, Ouida.
According to Atlas Obscura, the Ouija Board was around for a while in one form or another (no one seems to agree on its precise origins). In 1890, Charles Kennard, of the Kennard Novelty Company, wanted to start selling a version of the board, but he needed a name for it. He asked Helen Peters, who was a medium, to ask the board what it wanted to be called. It replied with the letters OUIJA, which the board claimed meant “Good Luck.” But Helen Peters showed Kennard a locket she was wearing with a picture of a woman and the name “Ouija.”
Historian Robert Murch believes the picture was of Ouida and that Kennard misread the name:
Eccentric and ostentatious (she loved purple writing paper and Lord Byron), scorned by many male writers, but beloved by female readers, Ramée and her signature apparently became something of a talisman for forward-thinking women like Peters.
Ramée’s books were huge best sellers, especially among women, during most of her life. Her financial woes came not so much from lack of sales but from copyright problems and over-spending. Unfortunately, her writing and the impact it had on women of the day has been largely forgotten – though, if Murch’s theory is true, then she left an unexpected, hidden legacy by giving her name (slightly misspelled) to a device that has terrorized slumber parties since 1891.
She also inspired future generations of kickass women, including medium Helen Peters. From Atlas Obscura:
And like Ouida herself, Peters was unconventional: she married late, and to a man significantly younger than herself. Murch says her important role has been written out of Ouija history. When Elijah Bond described his all-important meeting with the patent office in Washington in his letters, he refers to Peters simply as “a lady friend.” But it was this “lady friend” who demonstrated the board’s efficacy for the chief patent officer, supposedly leaving him white-faced and shaken. Were it not for Peters, the board wouldn’t have either its name or its patent.
“For 20 years I researched the fathers of the Ouija board,” Murch said. “Turns out, it had a mother.”
Although Ramée’s books ebbed and flowed in terms of popularity, they were huge bestsellers for a time and many of them remain in print. Ramée’s fortunes, both financial and personal, ebbed and flowed as well, but she always lived life on her own terms. I have to admire a woman who enjoyed younger men and good food and dogs and purple things and had a sharp mind for literature and publicity.
Those of us who are fans of historical romance also owe her a great debt as she helped form and popularize the genre. And those of us who are still celebrating Halloween in the middle of November should remember her fondly should we be so very foolish as to use a Ouija board despite many, many movies that remind us not to, and despite the fact that there are many theories as to where the name came from.
William Fuld, who helped design the boards and remained in charge of their production, said the name was a combination of the French and German words for “yes.” But I have to admit that I find Murch’s theory to be far more satisfying.
Sources:
My purpose in these columns is less to do rigorous research and more to bring some amazing women to your attention. With this in mind, my sources include the ever-reliable Wikipedia.
You can find more details at the free online page from the 1912 version of the Dictionary of National Biography
There’s also a great article about Ouida at Catherine Pope – Victorian Geek
The Langham Hotel has a little feature about Ouida at their website.
Bess Lovejoy writes about Ouida and the Ouija Board at Atlas Obscura
