Her mother was Emma (born Poulden) who was the second wife of Revd James Gover Bedford who had children from his first marriage.

[1] In 1892 she took the nom-de-plume of Elizabeth Godfrey to write a three volume novel titled Twixt Wood and Sea.

[3] Her next book was a "musical novel" titled Poor Human Nature in 1898 which concerned opera singers in a German town.

[1] Bedford established friends in the literary world who included the poet Algernon Charles Swinburne and his supporter the poetry critic Theodore Watts-Dunton and Mary St Leger Kingsley who wrote under the name of Lucas Malet.

[1] In 1906 she published a book about Heidelberg and in 1909 came A Sister of Prince Rupert a biography of the German philosopher Elisabeth of the Palatinate.