Her grandfather was Lieutenant Colonel Peter Hawker, author of Instructions to Young Sportsmen published in 1841.

[3] Hawker began to write early in life, a few of her stories and essays appearing in magazines and newspapers.

Her first major work, in 1890, was the initial volume of a series of novels included by Fisher Unwin in the Pseudonym Library: a story by Hawker entitled Mademoiselle Ixe, "by Lanoe Falconer".

[4] The story is a mystery about a heroine who is a governess in an English country house connected with Russian nihilists.

[1] Hawker's productivity declined after her mother died on 23 May 1901, as she struggled to maintain her own mental and physical health.