Her first published writing was in
The United Service Journal and Naval and Military Magazine in the early 1840s. She began with articles about her father and later contributed reports about war and life in "Kaffirland", and ran to three editions. In the same year Ward's first novel,
Helen Charteris, was also published but a reviewer complained that the main romance was "encumbered" by sub-plots. Three years later her novel
Jasper Lyle: a tale of Kafirland (sic) was more successful and was described in the
Morning Post as "truthful and popular" with a "fidelity and vivacity" in its descriptions of "Kaffir life and scenery", "giving it at the present moment an especial interest". This too ran to three editions, plus two more in the 1870s after Ward's death and just before the
Zulu War, when UK interest in South Africa was high. or even deliberately expressing "anti-colonial dissidence". One critic thinks she wrote at first with "full complicity in the prejudices of the frontier" but later revealed a "startling mismatch" with this in her novels. == Select bibliography ==