Lady Florence Caroline Dixie (née Douglas; 24 May 1855 – 7 November 1905) was a Scottish writer, war correspondent, and feminist.

[6]: 65  She rode astride,[7] wore her hair short in a boyish crop, and refused to conform to fashion when being presented to Queen Victoria.

Falconer Atlee, the British Consul at Nantes, offered them a place of safety when their first location was discovered, and the Emperor Napoleon III eventually extended Lady Queensberry his protection, ensuring that she could keep the custody of the three children.

[1][12] Another tragedy struck the family just days before Florence's eldest brother, John Douglas, was to reach his majority as 9th Marquess of Queensberry.

As guests gathered for a lavish celebration, word came that on 14 July 1865, the 18-year-old Lord Francis Douglas had fallen to his death with three others, after achieving the first ascent of the Matterhorn.

[1][19] Both husband and wife shared a love of adventure and the outdoor life, and are generally considered to have had a happy marriage, certainly the happiest of the Douglas siblings.

– Lady Florence Dixie[22]Following loss of the estate, the couple moved to Glen Stuart, Annan, Dumfriesshire, Scotland.

[23] One of the houses on Lord Queensberry's Scottish estate of Kinmount, it had previously been the home of Lady Florence's mother, the Dowager Marchioness.

[25] A number of Dixie's books, particularly her children's books The Young Castaways, or, The Child Hunters of Patagonia and Aniwee, or, The Warrior Queen, and her adult novels Gloriana, or the Revolution of 1900 and Isola, or the Disinherited: A Revolt for Woman and all the Disinherited develop feminist themes related to girls, women, and their positions in society.

[26] In December 1878,[27] two months after the birth of their second son, Edward, Dixie and her husband left their aristocratic life and their children behind them in England and traveled to Patagonia.

[28] Once in Patagonia, Dixie paints a picture of the landscape using techniques reminiscent of the Romantic tradition of William Wordsworth and others, using emotion and physical sensation to connect to the natural world.

[30] During her travels in Patagonia, Dixie is "active, hardy, and resilient", rejecting Victorian gender constructs that depicted women as weak and in need of protection.

She has been criticized by Monica Szurmuk for not addressing the military campaigns of General Julio Argentino Roca against indigenous people of the time.

... the figures of Topsie, whose expertness as a stalker might put a veteran Highlander to shame, and of Aniwee, who teaches her tribe that a woman may be just as good a hunter and warrior as a man, and so revolutionises the whole social fabric of Indian life,—these are novelties indeed.

[17][37] In Dixie's In the Land of Misfortune, there is a struggle between her individualism and her identification with the power of the British Empire, but for all of her sympathy with the Zulu cause and with Cetshwayo, she remained at heart an imperialist.

[42]: 57  In it, women win the right to vote, as the result of the protagonist, Gloriana, posing as a man, Hector D'Estrange, and being elected to the House of Commons.

[42] Another of the many active, competent and powerful women characters in the book is Scottish Lady Flora Desmond (who, as The Athenaeum pointed out, has a name very similar to the author).

It has been the means of sending to their graves unknown, unknelled, and unnamed, thousands of women whose high intellects have been wasted, and whose powers for good have been paralysed and undeveloped.

As the following reminiscence shows, part of the appeal of hunting in Leicestershire was the opportunity to compete on an equal footing with active male peers: 'The merry blast of the huntsman's horn resounds, the view-halloa rings out cheerily on the bright crisp air of a fine hunting morning; the fox is "gone away", you have got a good start, and your friend has too.

How distinctly you remember that run, how easily you recall each fence you flew together, each timber-rail you topped, and that untempting bottom you both got so luckily and safely over, and above all, the old farm-yard, where the gallant fox yielded up his life.'

The following account gives a vivid idea of the risks involved in a fox hunt:[50] "From scent to view they kill him in the open in one hour and five minutes, after a good twelve miles' run.

There were few who rode the run as hounds ran, and who saw the fox killed, but we believe Mr. Coupland, Captain Middleton, Lord Douglas, and Tom Firr accomplished it, much to their credit, as in the present state of the country it could not be an easy task.

[28] "Unconscious of anything but the exciting chase before me, I am suddenly disagreeably reminded that there is such a thing as caution, and necessity to look where you are going to, for, putting his foot in an unusually deep tuca-tuca hole, my little horse comes with a crash upon his head, and turns completely over on his back, burying me beneath him in a hopeless muddle."

Lady Florence Dixie, 1880[28] However, she was also "haunted by a sad remorse" for the death of a beautiful golden deer of the Cordilleras, which was exceedingly tame and trusting.

[51] Dixie was an enthusiastic writer of letters to newspapers on liberal and progressive issues, including support for Scottish and Irish Home Rule.

[54][55][56] Reports were published of an attempt to assassinate Lady Florence Dixie at her residence, the Fishery, situated near the Thames, and about two and a half miles from Windsor.

Lady Florence Dixie gave the following account to the newspapers: "I was out walking near the Fishery last evening, about 4:30, when two very tall women came up and asked me the time.

They were dressed in long clothes, and were unnaturally tall for women; the one who stabbed me had on a thick veil, reaching below the mouth; the other was unveiled, but his face I did not notice much.

[1] The New York Times reported that the "Author, Champion of Woman's Rights, and War Correspondent" had died on 7 November at her home in Glen Stuart, Dumfriesshire.

[39] A more significant lithograph, by Théobald Chartran, printed in colour, appeared in Vanity Fair in 1884 and is one of the long series of caricatures published in the magazine between 1868 and 1914.