In 1928, Arthur St. John Adcock wrote, "No woman novelist today writes more objectively or with a stronger imaginative realism in the creation of character and the designing of a story.

"[8] Dudeney was best known for her dramatic and romance fiction, though her books frequently touched upon social issues affecting the English working and lower middle classes.

[2] She is also considered an early Victorian feminist writer, whose popular "marriage-problem" novels, along with those of her contemporary, M. P. Willcocks, showed female characters who were often frustrated with problems in their own marriages.

[citation needed] Alice Dudeney was born to Frederick Whiffin, a master tailor, and his wife Susan Howe in Brighton on 21 October 1866.

Dudeney, then an aspiring writer, wrote a few short stories intended for publication, but much of her time was taken up as a housewife and expectant mother.

[12] Distraught over the loss of their baby, Dudeney stopped writing for a time and took a job as assistant secretary to the head of the Cassells publishing firm, Sir Wemyss Reid.

With the help of Henry's brother-in-law, Maurice Pocock, then living with his wife, Kate Dudeney, in nearby Chertsey, they planned the construction of a country estate named Littlewick Meadow in 1897.

[11] Folly Corner (1899) tells of a young woman who moves from London to live on an ancestral Sussex farm and becomes involved in a bigamous relationship.

[15] Marital troubles, including an affair with the artist Paul Hardy, caused Alice to separate from Henry, which prompted the sale of Littlewick.

They were eventually reconciled after their daughter Margery Janet's marriage and emigration to Canada, and moved to Castle Precincts House, Lewes in 1916.

[16] In 1920, Alice Dudeney was given an honourable mention, along with a number of other non-American authors, who were excluded by American Society of Arts and Sciences from receiving the O. Henry Memorial Award.