Charlotte Anne Elizabeth Moberly (1846–1937) was a pioneering English academic who served as the first Principal of St Hugh's College, Oxford. Established in 1886, the college was designed to provide higher education opportunities for women within the university system. Moberly played a foundational role in shaping the institution's early academic environment, guiding its growth and administration during its formative decades.
Beyond her administrative career at Oxford, Moberly is widely remembered for a controversial and highly popular literary work. In 1911, she co-authored the book An Adventure with her fellow academic Eleanor Jourdain, who later succeeded her as Principal of St Hugh's. Published under pseudonyms, the book detailed a claimed paranormal experience the two women had during a visit to the Petit Trianon at Versailles in 1901. They asserted that they had inadvertently slipped through time, encountering historical figures from the late eighteenth century, including Queen Marie Antoinette.
An Adventure became an immediate bestseller, capturing the public's imagination and sparking widespread debate regarding spiritualism, time slip phenomena, and psychological suggestion. Despite the skepticism of contemporary researchers, the book remained a cultural touchstone. Moberly's legacy thus remains uniquely divided between her serious contributions to women's higher education in late-Victorian and Edwardian England and her association with one of the twentieth century's most famous ghost stories.
