[2] At fifteen a collection of Sergeant's Poems,[3] with a short introduction by her mother, were published in a volume that received positive notice in Wesleyan periodicals.

[4] One of Sergeant's first major published works for an adult audience appears to be a translation, The Chase; a tale of the Southern States, from the French of Jules Lermina (London: J.C. Nimmo & Bain, 1880).

In 1882 her novel Jacobi's Wife resulted in an award of £100,[1] and the work was published serially by The People's Friend (Dundee).

In 1888 she sold A Dead Man's Trust to W. C. Leng and Co., who ran a newspaper syndication service based in Sheffield.

Probably a short time later, Tillotson's Fiction Bureau, a rival operation based in Bolton, Lancashire, offered her a five-year contract to produce a full-length serial and a short story totalling around 160,000 words annually, for which she was paid £162 per annum.