Julia Frankau (; 30 July 1859 – 17 March 1916), known by the pen name Frank Danby, was an English art historian and novelist. Her first novel was published in 1887: Dr. Phillips: A Maida Vale Idyll. Its portrayal of London Jews and Jewish life, and its depiction of murder by a doctor were controversial. This was followed by more Frank Danby novels and by books on other subjects, including engraving, which were sometimes written under her own name. Frankau continued to write until the time of her death.
Early life and education Frankau was born Julia Davis on 30 July 1859 in Dublin to Anglo-Jewish parents Hyman Davis (1824–1875), a dentist and later portrait photographer, and Isabella Davis (1824–1900). The seventh of nine siblings , Frankau was the sister of the librettist and journalist James Davis, known by the pen name Owen Hall, and the fashion journalist, editor and socialite Eliza Davis. Frankau was also the sister of the American based journalist Harrie Davis, and the writer Florette Collins.
The family returned to London in 1864, living in Bruton Street before settling in Warrington Crescent. Raised in a observant Reform Jewish household, the family belonged to West London Synagogue. Frankau first attended Miss Belisario's School before being educated at home. Educated by a tutor and later by Laura Lafargue, Frankau's formal education ended when she was 12 years old following her father's death. Frankau's education continued informally under her brother James, through whom she was introduced to London's bohemian society.
Marriage and religious life On 28 March 1883, Frankau married Arthur Frankau, one of three partners in the wholesale cigar importing business J. Frankau & Co, at the West London Synagogue. Arthur was raised in an assimilated Jewish family, and only joined the West London Synagogue a month before the couple's wedding in order to appease his future mother-in-law. The couple had five children including the novelist and poet Gilbert Frankau, the comedian Ronald Frankau and the literary scholar and critic Joan Bennett. The couple's daughter Joanna (1888–1889) died in infancy and their son Paul "Jack" Frankau (1890–1917), died whilst serving in Mandatory Palestine during First World War. The family lived in Gloucester Terrace, Weymouth Street and later settled in Mayfair.
Both Julia and Arthur believed in radical assimilation and following the birth of couple's first child Gilbert in 1884, refused to have him circumcised. As a result the Frankau's either broke with or were expelled from their Synagogue, and the families' connection to religious Judaism ended. Adopting radical assimilation, the Frankau's raised their children in the Church of England, sent them to boarding school, and their son Gilbert was not informed of his Jewish ancestry until the age of 16.
Career Dr Phillips The first Frank Danby novel, originally published by Vizetelly in 1887, was a somewhat controversial social satire set in the affluent Jewish Maida Vale world where the author herself – "a Jewish girl from an Anglo-Jewish family of impeccable orthodoxy"Aryeh Newman, "From Exile to Exit: The Frankau Jewish Connection", The Jewish Quarterly Vol. 34, No. 4 (128), 1987, p. 50 – had grown up. Punch was said to have commented: "It should never have been written. Having been written, it should never have been published. Having been published, it should not be read."Gilbert Frankau, Self-Portrait, Hutchinson 1940 p. 23
Dr Phillips earned notoriety on two counts. "The Jews in Frankau's novel are repugnant. They are almost without exception uneducated, narrow, clannish, vulgar, materialistic, and tasteless."Todd M. Endelman, "The Frankaus of London: A Study in Radical Assimilation, 1837-1967", Jewish History Vol. 8 Nos 1–2, 1994 p. 129 "Imagine the shock," recalled Horace Collins, "when it was discovered that the book contained characters with obvious likenesses to members of the family and cronies of my mother. Their idiosyncrasies and weaknesses had been held up to ridicule with mordant wit and subtle irony. ... Dr Phillips was, in fact, in advance of the times and might be deemed to have been the precursor of the smart Society type of novel."Horace Collins, My Best Riches, Eyre & Spottiswoode 1941 p. 34
The second controversial aspect was the conduct of the eponymous doctor, who deliberately administers a lethal morphia overdose to his (German-Jewish) wife in the hope of being able to marry his (Gentile) mistress, the mother of his illegitimate daughter.Frank Danby, Dr Phillips: A Maida Vale Idyll, Vizetelly 1887 Bk. III, Ch. III-VIII It was bruited at the time of publication that the fictional Jewish Dr Phillips (named Dr Abrams in a pre-publication draft) was based on the real-life (Jewish) surgeon Ernest Abraham Hart, then editor of the British Medical Journal, whose first wife had died by "accidental poisoning" in 1861.Stephen Lock, Introduction to the limited-edition BMA reprint of Dr Phillips: A Maida Vale Idyll, The Keynes Press 1989 pp. v-xii Mrs Aria insisted that Dr Phillips had "fluttered the dovecotes of Maida Vale, rattled the skeletons in the cupboards and the stout ladies at the card-tables, but never merited the popular suspicion that the hero was taken from life." On the other hand, Mrs Belloc Lowndes suggested that the characters in Dr Phillips had been more closely based on real-life individuals than those of any other Frank Danby novel, recalling particularly that the character of Dr Phillips "was supposed to have been drawn from a well-known doctor, and he must have felt the cap fitted his head, for he bought up and destroyed every copy he was able to procure."
"The scandal of Dr Phillips was compounded by publication the following year of Amy Levy's Reuben Sachs (1888). Levy was almost as harsh in her delineation of Jewish manners and morals, and the two works became linked in public discussion, the notoriety of each reinforcing that of the other."Todd M. Endelman, "The Frankaus of London: A Study in Radical Assimilation, 1837-1967", Jewish History Vol. 8 Nos 1–2, 1994 p. 132
Art history During the 1890s, Julia Frankau began to research and write on engraving, ultimately publishing (under her own married name) three books on the subject. Her sister Eliza recalled: "having started a small collection of eighteenth-century engravings of mezzotint and stipple, she particularly favoured the English stipple colour prints, and because no book existed telling her what she wanted to know about them, she set to work and wrote one."Mrs Aria, My Sentimental Self, Chapman & Hall 1922 p. 56
Later novels After she returned to fiction – or, to use her own phrase, "relapsed into novel writing" – in 1902, The Sketch found "something quaint in the thought that Mrs Frankau – who, as 'Frank Danby', has recently published that brilliant study of contemporary manners (and morals), Pigs in Clover – should be, as she is without question, the greatest living authority on that daintiest product of the eighteenth century, the colour-print."The Sketch, 23 September 1903, p. 348
The commercial success of Pigs in Clover, which coincided with a substantial inheritance from Arthur's late brother and business partner Edwin Frankau (1854–1903), permitted Arthur and Julia Frankau to move from Weymouth Street to 11 Clarges Street, as well as acquiring a seaside retreat named Clover Cottage (now 13 South Cliff, Eastbourne). Their Clarges Street house was said to have been occupied at one time by Emma, Lady Hamilton, thus providing inspiration for Frank Danby's Story of Emma, Lady Hamilton.Gilbert Frankau, Self-Portrait, Hutchinson 1940 pp76-77Mrs Belloc Lowndes, The Merry Wives of Westminster, Macmillan, 1946 p. 57
Mrs Aria commented that The Sphinx's Lawyer was "written to defend the undefendable Oscar Wilde" – she and Frank Danby having both, through their brother Owen Hall, met Wilde in their youth.Mrs Aria, My Sentimental Self, Chapman & Hall 1922 pp. 15, 54 It is probably not accidental that "Sphinx" was Wilde's name for their mutual friend and fellow-writer Ada Leverson. The Sphinx's Lawyer was dedicated to Owen Hall who, according to its author, vehemently disapproved both the story and its subject matter. The printed dedication, addressed directly to her brother, fills a page and a half, insisting: "your harsh criticism has intensified my conviction of the righteousness of the cause I plead ... I have heard all your argument; I know where I stand. It is at the foot of the Throne of Mercy, with my client by my side, the client of the Sphinx's Lawyer. You, as well as I, know what he was in his brilliant youth, you, as well as I, know how weak he was in his strength, of what flawed physique and untoward inheritance. Pity was the one unsounded note in the chorus of execration that followed this poor leper to his grave, and beyond it; to awaken pity I have written."Frank Danby, Dedication "To My Brother, 'Owen Hall'", The Sphinx's Lawyer, Heinemann, 1906
The Heart of a Child (1908), a less controversial tale based on a storyline devised by Owen Hall, enjoyed great commercial success as a novel, was twice filmed as a motion picture, and rewritten in 1920 by Gilbert Frankau as a stage play – in which form it did not succeed, though Frankau noted that the novel itself was still earning royalties in the summer of 1939. The heroine Sally Snape was played by Edna Flugrath in the first film version, Alla Nazimova in the second, and Renée Kelly in Gilbert Frankau's theatrical adaptation.Gilbert Frankau, Self-Portrait, Hutchinson 1940 pp215-239Mrs Aria, My Sentimental Self, Chapman & Hall, 1922, p. 69 Her most popular novel was Joseph in Jeopardy (1912).
Twilight was a novel completed by Frank Danby on her deathbed,Mrs Aria, My Sentimental Self, Chapman & Hall 1922 p. 8 about a female author on her deathbed who is inspired to write about the death of a female author. The character of the ailing Jane Vevaseur is a semi-autobiographical portrayal of Julia Frankau, while her loving sister Eliza Aria is represented by the character of Ella Lovegrove. The title itself is a doubly resonant play on words – the dictum "Work whilst ye have the light" is quoted several times by the narrator, alluding to the fact that she (like Frank Danby) is running out of time;Frank Danby, Twilight, Dodd, Mead & Co. 1916 pp. 4,16 et seqq. and it transpires that Dr Kennedy, Jane Vevaseur's medical attendant, brought about the death of writer Margaret Capel some years previously by deliberately administering a lethal overdose of what the narrator refers to as "hyoscine", a drug known in its day as "Twilight Sleep". Unlike the undetected murder in Dr Phillips, however, this one is conducted with great reluctance at the patient's own poignant request.Frank Danby, Twilight, Dodd, Mead & Co. 1916 pp2. 50, 341-356
"Notes for Collectors" provides publishing history for her writing including color plates of covers.Smith, Timothy D'Arch. 2022. "Julia Frankau ('Frank Danby'): Art Critic and Novelist Some Notes for Collectors." The Book Collector 71 no.3: 395-415.
Personal life