The Land of Nowhere

(Cross-posted to tumblr, where my username is radicalaxis)

Not that I watch it myself, but a Game of Thrones discussion elsewhere had me thinking that fiction really likes the trope of “protagonist’s mother dies giving birth to protagonist”. But it occurs to be that historically, when mothers die in childbirth, often the child also dies, and usually doesn’t become protagonist of anything. (Though I'll give Garth Nix some credit here, as Sabriel would have died without Abhorsen intervention).

I got wondering as to how many famous historical personages had their mothers die giving birth to them (and not to a younger sibling). I couldn’t find a list, but research on Wikipedia and TVTropes suggests “not too many”. Here’s an incomplete list: please suggest additions in comments!


Mary Shelley
Anna Atkins, Victorian botanist and photographer
Alice Roosevelt Longworth, Teddy Roosevelt’s daughter
Michael Dillon, a trans man who lived in England in the first half of the 20th century
Benjamin and Ichabod from the Bible
Austen Chamberlain, half-brother of Neville, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1925 for negotiating the Locarno pact between France and Germany.

Plus various royals and nobles who probably got better than usual postnatal care for their time:

( random royals )