Elizabeth Marchant, known as Bessie, was educated at Petham County Primary School. Her 1898 novel Yuppie is thought to be a fictionalised account of her early life in Kent. Following her marriage to Baptist minister Jabez Ambrose Comfort in 1889, Marchant moved to London to join him as a teacher at a church-run school.
A hugely prolific author of stories for both girls and boys, with over 150 titles, Marchant earned a reputation as 'the girl's Henty'. Many of her stories are set overseas, despite the fact that the author herself never left Britain. She drew all her knowledge of exotic locations from visits to the Bodleian Library, by reading the Geographical Magazine, and through correspondence with readers in different countries. Such textual gleanings often produced interesting results.
Marchant's two 'Tasmanian' novels provide a useful example. Of particular interest is The Apple Lady, where two characters make an overland journey from Port Davey to the slopes of Mount Picton. In reality, such a trek through rugged Southwest Tasmania takes several days. Marchant's protagonists, however, accomplish the walk in a few hours, before spending the night at the town of Craycroft. This supposed settlement provides a clue to Marchant's source material. Maps of Tasmania published in Walch's Almanac, accessible to the author through the Bodleian, do not distinguish between established towns and proposed (or gazetted) settlements. One of these 'phantom towns' is Craycroft. The Almanac map also contains limited topographical details, perhaps leading Marchant to suppose that the Southwest Wilderness presented an easy challenge for walkers. This inventive use of a broad range of textual source material in order to construct particular locations makes Bessie Marchant an interesting example of an early 'virtual tourist'.
Only Marchant's works with an Australian setting are listed in AustLit.
