Born of a domineering but remote father, who was periodically imprisoned for debt, but an exceptional mother who devoted as much time to her daughters as to her sons, hatred of the family by the parishioners of her childhood village, intimidation by the residents of Epworth, a documented poltergeist in the rectory which was her childhood home, two homes destroyed by arson, an uncle who made a fortune in India and then lost it and who came into contact with a Cornish pirate, the early death of half her siblings and the near death by fire of her youngest brother, the disability from birth of one sister, a lack of food, insufficient clothing and warmth, a fabled family fortune, elopement and abandonment, ejection from the family home and ostracism by the family, an unhappy, forced, marriage, the early deaths of all her children, an exceptional poetic ability, ill health and an early death.