Rosaline Masson and Flora Masson
Rosaline Masson (1867-1949) and Flora Masson (1856-1937) were born to influential parents whose lives have rather overshadowed those of their accomplished offspring. Their father, David Masson, was a Professor of Rhetoric and Literature at Edinburgh University and editor of Macmillan’s Magazine and their mother, Emily Rosaline Orme, was joint honorary secretary of the Edinburgh National Society for Women’s Suffrage. Flora and Rosaline also campaigned for women’s suffrage.
Rosaline was a versatile writer whose works include histories (Scotland the Nation [1934]), biographies of William Wordsworth and Robert Louis Stevenson, novels (In Our Town [1901], Nina [1911]), and short stories (My Poor Niece and Other Stories [1893], A Departure from Tradition and Other Stories [1898]) in addition to articles in the Cornhill, Blackwood’s Magazine, Chambers’s Journal and the Scotsman.
Flora trained as a nurse and became close friends with Florence Nightingale. She was awarded the Royal Red Cross for her services as Matron during World War I. In addition to editing two of her father’s works (Memories of London in the Forties [1908] and Memories of Two Cities [1911], Flora wrote several biographies, including Florence Nightingale O. M., by one who knew her (1910), The Brontes (1912), Charles Lamb (1913), and Robert Boyle (1914).