For more information about this list, please see
the introduction, linked below.
You can download the entire list in a single PDF.
Clicking on the link below will open a Google Docs page displaying the entire
list in PDF. To save a copy of the PDF, just click on the little down arrow
in the upper left. You can also print the list from the Google Docs page, but
be warned that it now weighs in at 544 pages!
BRITISH & IRISH WOMEN WRITERS OF FICTION
1910-1960 (PDF)
[Current total: 2,391 writers]
UPDATED 2/29/2024
GLASIER,
KATHARINE BRUCE (25 Sept 1867 – 14 Jun 1950)
(née Conway)
1890s – 1900s, 1920s
Socialist-feminist activist and author of three novels—Husband and Brother (1894), Aimee
Furniss, Scholar (1896), and Margret
(1903)—as well as two story collections, Tales
from the Derbyshire Hills (1907) and Dolly-logues
(1926). Glasier is discussed in Angela Ingram's Rediscovering Forgotten Radicals.
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GLEN, ELSA (dates unknown)
1930s
Author of a single thriller, The
Secret of Villa Vanesta (1935), a “Rivieran murder tale of a neurotic
girl, a somewhat unsympathetic English painter, and two modern English
women,” also described as "a tale of suffering, occult influences, and
weird happenings." Hubin concluded the name is a pseudonym, but there
are too few leads to pursue.
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GLYN, ELINOR (17 Oct 1864 – 23
Sept 1943)
(née Sutherland)
1910s – 1930s
Sister of fashion designer Lucy Duff Gordon. Most famous for her scandalous sixth novel, Three Weeks (1907), about a Balkan
queen seducing a young Brit, Glyn wrote more than 20 other novels, including The Man and the Moment (1914), which
introduced the concept of "it". She also wrote several screenplays
in the 1920s and even directed two films. Other titles include The Visits of Elizabeth (1900), The Damsel and the Sage (1903), Elizabeth Visits America (1909), The Reason Why (1911), The Career of Katherine Bush (1916), The Great Moment (1923), This Passion Called Love (1925), The Flirt and the Flapper (1930), Sooner or Later (1933), and The Third Eye (1940).
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GODDARD, [MARY] CONSTANCE
[EVELYN] (17 Feb 1881 – 25 Jan 1954)
1920s – 1940s
Author of five works of fiction, some or all of it
for children and much of it revolving around farming and rural life in
Derbyshire, where Goddard was born and spent much of her life. Titles are Dear Charity (1922), Silver Woods: The Story of Three Girls on
a Farm (1939), Paradise Valley
(1947), Life in Little Eden (1948),
and Three at Cherry-Go-Gay (1949),
the last a wartime story about evacuees in Devonshire. Come Wind, Come Weather (1945) seems to be a memoir about farm
life in wartime. [Thanks to Hilary Clare for her clever work tracking down
Goddard, who was previously unidentified.]
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GODDEN, JON (JONQUIL) [WINSOME
RUTH KEY] (3 Aug 1906 – 10 Apr 1984)
(married names Baughan and Oakley)
1940s – 1980s
Sister of Rumer GODDEN and author of 12 novels of
her own, as well as several works co-written with her sister. Her novels are The Bird Escaped (1947), The
House by the Sea (1948), The City
and the Wave (1950), The Peacock
(1950), The Seven Islands (1956), Mrs. Panopoulis (1959), Told in Winter (1961, aka A Winter's Tale), In the Sun (1965), Kitten
with Blue Eyes (1971), Mrs. Starr
Lives (1972), Ahmed's Lady
(1975), about an elderly woman and her guide hiking in the Kashmir mountains,
and In Her Garden (1981). With her sister, she published Two Under
the Indian Sun (1966), a memoir of their childhood in India, Shiva's Pigeons: An Experience of India
(1972), and a story collection, Mercy,
Pity, Peace, and Love (1989).
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GODDEN, [MARGARET] RUMER (10 Dec
1907 – 8 Nov 1998)
(married names Foster and Dixon)
1930s – 1990s
Sister of Jon GODDEN. Author of 21 novels and more
than two dozen children's books. The novels are Chinese Puzzle (1936), The
Lady and the Unicorn (1938), Black
Narcissus (1939), Gypsy, Gypsy
(1940), Breakfast with the Nikolides
(1942), A Fugue in Time (1945, aka Take Three Tenses), The River (1946), A Candle for St. Jude (1948), A
Breath of Air (1950), Kingfishers
Catch Fire (1953), An Episode of
Sparrows (1955), The Greengage
Summer (1958), China Court
(1960), The Battle of Villa Fiorita
(1963), In This House of Brede
(1969), The Peacock Spring (1975), Five for Sorrow, Ten for Joy (1979), The Dark Horse (1981), Coromandel Sea Change (1990), Pippa Passes (1994), and Cromartie v. The God Shiva (1997).
Among her well-known children's titles are The Doll's House (1947), The
Mousewife (1951), Candy Floss
(1960), Miss Happiness and Miss Flower
(1961), The Kitchen Madonna (1967),
The Diddakoi (1972), Thursday's Children (1984), and Listen to the Nightingale (1992). A
number of her works have been adapted for film or television, most famously Black Narcissus by Michael Powell in
1947 and The River by Jean Renoir
in 1951. She also published several memoirs, including Rungli-Rungliot (1944), a diary of her life in an isolated house
in Kashmir in the early days of World War II, Two Under the Indian Sun (1966), written with her sister, about
their childhood in India, and two volumes of autobiography, A Time To Dance, No Time To Weep
(1987) and A House with Four Rooms
(1989), which recount her dramatic life, including an attempted poisoning by
a disgruntled servant while living in Kashmir (later dramatized in Kingfishers Catch Fire). I've written
about some of her work here.
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GOLDEN, GILLIAN D. (1932 - )
(married name Dunkerley)
1950s
Daughter of children's author Dorothy DENNISON.
Author of two children's titles—Over to
Paul (1958) and Bouquet for Susan
(1958). These were part of a series of family stories called the Courtney
Chronicles, and it appears that Dennison and Golden each wrote two titles for
the series, all published the same year. Over
to Paul appears to be #2 in the series, and Bouquet for Susan is #4, while Dennison's Spotlight on Penelope (1958) and Call Me Jacqueline (1958) are #s 1 and 3.
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GOLDIE,
HENRIETTA [FRANCES TAUBMAN] (1 Dec 1874 - 1944)
(née Curwen)
1900s – 1910s
Author of two novels, A Pilgrim of Love
(1905) and The Veiled Life (1914),
which seem to have been reviewed as pleasant, if slightly melodramatic,
romantic tales.
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GOLDRING, MAUDE (12 Nov 1880 –
24 Nov 1962)
1900s – 1910s
Poet, novelist,
and biographer of Charlotte Brontë. Her fourth and final novel, The Wonder Year (1914), is, according
to OCEF, "about the dullness
of provincial life, and the women who want to escape it." The others are
Dean's Hall (1908), The Tenants of Pixy Farm (1909), and The Downsman: A Story of Sussex
(1911).
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GOLDRING, RUTH M[ARIANNE?]. (?26
Jul 1910 - ?2001)
(married name Ward [uncertain but probable identification])
1930s
Author of two novels—Ann's Year
(1933), "a story combining school and business life in its period,"
and Educating Joanna (1935), about
a young woman at Oxford, discussed in Anna Bogen's Women's University Fiction, 1880–1945.
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GOODWIN,
SUZANNE [CECILE] (27 Sept 1916 – 28 Feb 2008)
(née Ebel,
earlier married name Belsey, aka Suzanne Ebel, aka Cecily Shelbourne)
1950s – 2000s
Author of more than 40 romance novels, including Love the Magician (1956), The
Half-Enchanted (1964), The Love
Campaign (1965), A Most Auspicious
Star (1969), The Family Feeling
(1973), Grove of Olives (1976), The Clover Field (1987), and French Leave (2001).
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GOODYEAR, SUSAN
(2 Mar 1888 – 11 Oct 1963)
(pseudonym of
Margaret Alice Matthews, née Bryan)
1930s
Author of three novels—Cathedral Close
(1936), College Square (1937), and Such Harmony (1938). The second deals
with the power dynamics in an English college following the death of a
beloved principal.
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GOOLDEN, BARBARA (5 Jun 1900 –
21 Apr 1990)
1920s - 1980
Author of nearly 100 volumes of fiction, most of them novels. Her early work
seems to have been seriously reviewed, but later titles sound lighter. Titles
include The Knot of Reluctance
(1926), Children of the Peace
(1928), The Conquering Star (1929),
The Toils of Law (1931), Slings & Arrows (1934), Call the Tune (1939), The Asses Bridge (1940), Swings and Roundabouts (1943), Ichabod (1945), Venetia (1952), The China
Pig (1953), The World His Oyster
(1955), The Linnet in the Cage
(1958), Against the Grain (1961), Battledore and Shuttlecock (1963), A Finger in the Pie (1965), The Reluctant Wife (1968), Fortune's Favorite (1971), A Leap in the Dark (1972), and Sanctuary (1980).
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Gordon,Diana
see ANDREWS, LUCILLA
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Gordon, Janet
see WOODHAM-SMITH, CECIL
[BLANCHE]
|
GORDON, PAT (dates unknown)
1930s
Untraced author of a single girls' school story, Madcap Petrina (1934).
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GORELL, ELIZABETH (13 Sept 1886
– 26 Apr 1954)
(pseudonym of Maud Elizabeth Furse Barnes, Baroness Gorell, née Radcliffe)
1940s – 1950
Author of nearly a dozen children's titles,
beginning with So Early in the Morning
(1941), which was apparently based on her own children who had been evacuated
to America. Other titles include Miss
Fairitch and the Little Greenes (1943), Fay's Croombe (1944), The
Bear Garden (1945, illustrated by Dorothy BURROUGHES), and The Captured Stream (1950). Earlier in
her life, she had apparently acted as a medium as part of William Butler
Yeats researches into the occult.
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Golden Gorse
see MURIEL WACE
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GORST,
MRS. HAROLD E. (2 Nov 1869 – 19 Oct 1926)
(pseudonym of Cecilia Frances Rose
Gorst, nicknamed Nina, née Kennedy)
1890s – 1910s
Edwardian playwright and author of at least seven novels, which OCEF summed up as "relentless
studies of the deprivations of slum and suburban life." These include Possessed of Devils (1897), —And Afterwards? (1901), This Our Sister (1905), The Light (1906), The Soul of Milly Green (1907), The Thief on the Cross (1908), and The Leech (1911). NGCOBA lists two
additional later titles—a novel, The
Misbegotten (1921), and what appears to be a memoir, The Night Is Far Spent (1919), but these are not shown in
Worldcat or the British Library.
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GORST,
HESTER [GASKELL] (25 Sept 1887 – 18 Oct 1992)
(née Holland,
aka Hester Holland)
1930s – 1940s
Great-niece of Elizabeth Gaskell. Well-known painter, sculptor, and short
story writer, and author of four novels under her maiden name—A Man Must Live (1938), Under the Circumstances (1944), Week-Ends for Henry (1947), and There Is Always Oneself (1948).
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GOUDGE, ELIZABETH [DE BEAUCHAMP]
(24 Apr 1900 – 1 Apr 1984)
1910s, 1930s – 1970s
Author of fifteen novels, some historical, which were bestsellers in their
day. These include the international bestseller Green Dolphin Country (1944, aka Green Dolphin Street), made into a popular film, and two
trilogies—The Eliots of Damerosehay,
about family life on a large country estate, comprised of The Bird in the Tree (1940), The Herb of Grace (1948, aka Pilgrim’s Inn), and The Heart of the Family (1953), and City of Bells, comprised of A City of Bells (1936), Towers in the Mist (1938), and The Dean's Watch (1960). The others
are Island Magic (1934), The Middle Window (1935), The Castle on the Hill (1942), Gentian Hill (1949), The Rosemary Tree (1956), The White Witch (1958), The Scent of Water (1963), and The Child From the Sea (1970). She
also published several children's books, including most famously The Little White Horse (1946), as well
as Sister of the Angels (1939), The Well of the Star (1941), Henrietta's House (1942, aka The Blue Hills), and Linnets and Valerians (1964, aka The Runaways). Her first book was The Fairies' Baby and Other Stories
(1919), published before she was 20, and her last was her memoir, The Joy of the Snow (1974).
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GOWER, MARGARET [ROSEMARY] LEVESON (13
Mar 1903 – 22 Dec 1964)
1920s – 1930s
Author of three titles,
the first of which, at least, Chuckles:
The Story of a Small Boy (1927), is probably a children’s book. The
others are The Fighting Six (1929)
and The Good Detectives (1931).
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GRACE, ARMINE (1867 - 1939)
(pseudonym of Amy Grace Catherine Lowndes)
1910s
Sister of Dolf WYLLARDE. Actress on the London stage in the 1890s (including
in a touring production of Oscar Wilde's Lady
Windermere's Fan) and author of two novels—The Cloak of St. Martin (1913), a melodrama about the children of
a wrongly-hanged man, and The House of
Silent Footsteps (1917), about a troupe of romantic burglars and their
pursuit by a young journalist.
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GRADY, WINIFRIDE [MARY] (2 Jun
1896 - 1981)
1920s
Author of only one book, The Oldmay
Scholarship & True Blue (1927), containing two school-related
novellas.
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GRAHAM,
DORIS (dates unknown)
1920s
Untraced author of a single romantic novel, A Heart in Exile (1922).
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GRAHAM, ELEANOR (9 Jan 1896 – 8
Mar 1984)
1920s – 1960s
Children's author and longtime editor for Penguin, best known
for The Children Who Lived in a Barn
(1938), which was reprinted by Persephone. Most of her other children's
fiction were collections of fairy tales and bedtime stories, but The Night Adventures of Alexis (1925),
Six in a Family (1935), and Change for a Sixpence (1937) seem to
be longer tales. She later produced children's biographies of Queen Victoria
and Charles Dickens, among others.
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Graham, Ennis
see MOLESWORTH, MARY LOUISE
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GRAHAM, HELEN [VIOLET] (1 Jul 1879 – 27
Aug 1945)
1930s
Illustrator and author of one
collection of short stories, The Wherefore o' the Why (1935), about
the ordinary affairs of the fictional Scottish village of Pedenknowe and
including three illustrations by the author. She published two one-act plays,
The Memorial (1939) and The Black Sheep’s Home-Coming (1939).
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GRAHAM, JEAN (?1913 - ????)
(pseudonym of Mary Scott, née ???)
1950s – 1960s
Author of eight romantic novels—The
Quiet Star (1955), which starts in an old haberdashery shop, No Fool
of Time (1956), which includes recurring characters from Quiet Star,
Happy Ever After (1959), The Daffodil Wind (1960), Release
from Bondage (1961), featuring romance between a “middle-aged” couple who
are over forty, Green Bough and Singing Bird (1962), The Image of
Eve (1966), and Uncertain Glory (1967). Her birth date comes from
the British Library catalogue, and a contemporary article says she is a Mrs.
Mary Scott in real life, but all the names are so common, and there’s a
prolific South African novelist named Mary Scott (b. 1888), so I’ve not been
able to get any further.
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GRAHAM, LYDIA S[USANNA]. (25 May
1882 – 23 May 1974)
(married name Elliot)
1930s
Author of two children's titles—The
Three Ts at Aberleigh (1932), tracing a young girl's development from
childhood to the verge of adulthood, and Cockle
Cove (1935). Graham was probably a Quaker, and she also wrote a play, Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh (1931),
and a travel book, Port to Port
(1935). On the 1939 England & Wales Register, she is a schoolteacher in
Devon, though she and her husband seem to have retired to Cornwall.
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GRAHAM, [MATILDA] WINIFRED
[MURIEL] (21 Apr 1873 – 5 Feb 1950)
(married name Cory, aka Winifred Cory)
1890s – 1940s
Prolific author of sensationalistic fiction, some dealing with her interest
in spiritualism, some attacking religions she disliked. Titles include When the Birds Begin to Sing (1897), Christian Murderers (1908), Tumbling Out of Windows (1929), and A Spider Never Falls (1944).
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GRAND,
SARAH (10 Jun 1854 – 12 May 1943)
(pseudonym of
Frances Elizabeth Bellenden McFall, née Clarke)
1880s – 1920s
Activist and novelist of
social issues, best known for her scandalous bestseller The Heavenly Twins (1893), which initiated the "new
woman" novel, and her autobiographical The Beth Book (1897). Other titles are Ideala (1888), Our Manifold
Nature (1894), Babs the Impossible
(1901), Adam's Orchard (1912), The Winged Victory (1916), and Variety (1922). Mark Twain was
apparently not a fan—his copy of The
Heavenly Twins contains the handwritten comment "A cat could do
better literature than this."
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GRANGER,
AMY (dates unknown)
1920s - 1940
Untraced author of 20 romance novels, including The Girl in the Pictures (1923), Another Woman's Child (1926), Diamonds
for Daisy (1927), The Cast-Aside
(1928), Her Masterful Man (1930), The Sham Widow (1931), His Traitor Wife (1933), Their Poor Relation (1936), and It Had to Happen (1940).
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Grant, Anthony
see CAMPBELL, JUDITH
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Grant, Carol
see COOPER, GWLADYS DOROTHY
|
GRANT, GWEN (dates unknown)
1920s - 1930s
Unidentified author of two novels—Suburban
Thunder (1933), which focuses on the inhabitants of a London suburb, and Dead
Yesterday (1935), about a married woman unexpectedly reminded of a past
love affair. Alps of Gold (1927) is a volume of poetry. I’ve had no
luck finding her in publish records, though she is (obviously) not to be
confused with children's author Gwen Grant, b 1940.
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Grant, Jane
see BLACKBURN, [EVELYN]
BARBARA
|
GRANT,
JOAN (12 Apr 1907 – 3 Feb 1989)
(née Marshall,
later married names Beatty and Kelsey, aka J. M. Grant)
1930s – 1950s
Author of eight historical
novels which featured themes of reincarnation, astral travel, and the occult,
and which were noted for their vivid details, which she claimed stemmed from
her own past lives. Titles are Winged
Pharaoh (1937), Life as Carola
(1939), Eyes of Horus (1942), Lord of the Horizon (1943), Scarlet Feather (1945), Return to Elysium (1947), The Laird and the Lady (1949), and So Moses Was Born (1952). She also
published two story collections for children, The Scarlet Fish and Other Stories (1942), about ancient Egypt,
and Redskin Morning and Other Stories
(1944), described as stories about the author in a previous life as an Indian
girl, and a travel book, Vague Vacation
(1947), as well as a memoir, Time Out
of Mind (1956, aka Far Memory).
Late in life she published two books for young children—The Monster That Grew Small: An Egyptian Folktale (1987) and The Blue Faience Hippopotamus (1991).
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GRANT,
KATRIONA (dates unknown)
1930s
Untraced author of a single romantic novel, Everybody's Anne (1937).
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GRANT, L.
(c1882 – ?1 Nov 1938)
(pseudonym of
Alicia Eliza Grant, née Salmon)
1920s
Author of one novel—Jenny Pilcher
(1922), which traces the childhood and young womanhood of a working class
London girl with an artistic sensibility—and co-author of several travel
books with her husband, Cyril Fletcher Grant, including 'Twixt Sand and Sea: Sketches and Studies in North Africa (1911)
and A Chronicle of Rye (1927). She
was definitely née Salmon and married Cyril Fletcher Grant in 1909, when he
was in his mid-sixties and she was 21. The death date above comes from a
possible probate for her, but is not certain.
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GRANT, M. SHIRLEY (dates unknown)
1930s
Author of a single novel, Elizabeth
Holds Forth (1930), a novel in the form of a diary “kept during a short
period in which many incidents, mainly romantic, came into the life of a
discerning girl.” An article of the time gives us her family in Maidstone
(her brother Bernhard Shirley Henniker Grant was a well-known philatelist),
but there are two sisters, Edith Marjorie and Doris Maid, who could be the
source of the “M" (and two more sisters without Ms, if it’s a sort of
pseudonym). Perhaps most likely to be Edith (17 Feb 1894 – 22 May 1968), who
on the 1939 England & Wales Register is a teacher and owner of a school.
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Grant, Pamela
see OLDMEADOW, KATHARINE
LOUISE
|
GRANT, SADI (dates unknown)
1890s – 1910s
Untraced author of eight novels and a story collection, many set in the Far
East. Titles are A New Woman Subdued
(1898), Trespassers Who Were Prosecuted
(1899), Diamanelen and Other Tales
(1900), Folly at Cannes (1902), A Japanese House-Party (1904), A Guardsman Japanese (1905), The Second Evil (1906), Lobelia of China (1907), and Plain William (1916).
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GRANT, SYBIL [MYRA CAROLINE] (1879 – 25
Feb 1955)
(née Primrose, aka Neil Scot)
1910s – 1920s
Primarily a poet, Grant
published an early collection of stories, The
Chequer-Board (1912) and one pseudonymous novel, The Riding Light (1926), about which the Spectator said it “makes rather heavy reading and the volume
contains almost every known fault of construction.”
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GRAVES, CLOTILDE [AUGUSTA INEZ
MARY] (3 Jun 1863 – 3 Dec 1932)
(aka Richard Dehan)
1880s – 1930s
Irish actress, poet, playwright and novelist. She grew up at Bullivant
Barracks in Cork, where her father was a major, then joined a theatrical
troupe and became a successful playwright, with 16 of her plays produced on
both sides of the Atlantic. She wrote more than a dozen novels (the earliest
appear to be under her own name, while later works were published under her
pseudonym), as well as nine collections of stories. Her most famous work was The Dop Doctor (1910), which revolves
around the Siege of Mafeking and appears to trade considerably in racial
stereotypes on all sides. Her earlier comedy Maids in a Market Garden (1894) is about a group of women setting
up a market garden. I wrote a bit about it here. Other fiction includes The
Belle of Rock Harbour (1887), A
Well-Meaning Woman (1896), Between
Two Thieves (1912), Off Sandy Hook
(1915), The Just Steward (1922), The Sower of the Wind (1927), Shallow Seas (1930), and Dead Pearls: A Novel of the Great Wide
West (1932).
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GRAVESON, CAROLINE C[ASSANDRA]. (16 Jun 1874 –
1958)
1940s – 1950s
Pioneering vice principal of Goldsmiths' College
and author, following her retirement, of three novels—Susan and the Witch, or, The Spark of God (1949), The Farthing Family (1950), set in
London during the plague and the great fire, and London to Philadelphia (1954), subtitled "The Story of a
Quaker Family, 1670-1689".
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GRAY,
DULCIE (20 Nov 1915 – 15 Nov 2011)
(pseudonym
& stage name of Dulcie Winifred Catherine Denison, née Savage)
1950s – 1980s
Veteran actress of stage,
television, and film (including the screen version of Dorothy WHIPPLE's They Were Sisters), Gray also wrote
more than 20 novels, most of them mysteries characterized, according to one
critic, by their "zest and energy." She was reportedly a fan of
Agatha Christie, and some of her early books evoke her work. Later books are
more psychological in nature, and Gray also published adventure and horror
stories. Her titles include Murder on
the Stairs (1957), Epitaph for a
Dead Actor (1960), Murder on a
Saturday (1961), The Devil Wore
Scarlet (1964), Died in the Red
(1967), The Murder of Love (1967), Understudy to Murder (1972), Stage Door Fright (1977), Butterflies on My Mind (1978), Anna Starr (1984), and (one of my
favorite mystery titles) Deadly
Lampshade (1971).
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Gray, Ellington
see JACOB, NAOMI
|
GRAY, EVA (1 Jul 1881 – 25 Jul
1946)
(née Greet)
1930s
Author of three children's books—In the
Fairy Ring (1935), Rainbow Stories
(1936), and The Three Wishes
(1938). The last is a school story.
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GRAY, FRANCES (19 Oct 1909 – 29
Apr 2003)
(pseudonym of Clara Penistan, née Chapman, later married name Holmes)
1930s – 1940s
Author of two satirical novels. B.U.N.C. (1938) deals with industrial
war profiteering: "British and United National Chemicals sell virulent
gas to a foreign Power and initiate an advertising campaign at home to sell
gas masks and anti-gas to a torpid British Government" (Guardian). Period Piece (1941) is about the leisured classes, "seen
with so merciless a comic eye and presented with such diabolical suavity that
Period Piece will give
sophisticates a couple of hours of pure pleasure" (Observer).
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Gray, Harriet
see ROBINS, DENISE NAOMI
|
GRAY, LOUISE (14 Oct 1915 –
2005)
(pseudonym of Naomi Louise De Paula, married names Malim, Chandor, and
Brooks)
1950s – 1960s
Author of about a dozen romantic novels, including I Too Have Wings (1952), Lonely Journey (1954), The Dark Window (1956), Lavender's Blue (1957), Safety Curtain (1959), Black Magic (1960), and Interlude in Elba (1963).
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GRAY,
MARY (dates unknown)
1930s
Untraced author of a single romantic novel, Her Secret Vow (1930).
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GRAY, MAXWELL (1847 – 21 Sept 1923)
(pseudonym of Mary Gleed Tuttiett)
1870s – 1920s
Playwright and author of
more than 20 volumes of fiction, most famously The Silence of Dean Maitland (1886), which she also turned into a
successful play. Other titles include The
Broken Tryst (1879), The Last
Sentence (1893), Sweethearts and
Friends (1897), Four-Leaved Clover
(1901), The Great Refusal (1906), Unconfessed (1911), The World-Mender (1916), A Bit of Blue Stone (1923).
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GRAY,
ROSEMARY (dates unknown)
1930s – 1940s
Author of two romantic novels, His
Mannequin Wife (1932) and The Café
Girl (1932), and two school stories (which do not appear to be listed in
Sims & Clare?)—The Twins at Tower
School (1941) and Decima at Danes
Court School (1941). Or these could conceivably be two separate authors,
so little is known about her/them.
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GRAY, UPTON (15 May 1889 – 21
Mar 1977)
(pseudonym of Gertrude Ethel Hulford)
1920s
Author of three novels of country life—Yellow
Corn (1926), Heartsease Country
(1927), and Down South (1929)—the
first two, at least, described as romantic comedies.
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GRAYE,
ELLICE (dates unknown)
1900s, 1920s – 1930s
Untraced author of more than 20 romantic novels, including Love Turned Traitor (1905), A Dangerous Woman (1906), The Pride of Poverty Hall (1906), Peggy the Spark (1922), The
Pursuit of Phyllis (1924), Her
Stroke of Luck (1925), The
Fascinating Flapper (1926), Bewitched!
(1928), Valley of Shadows (1929),
and Gloria Gay (1931). During the
"down time" between her books of the 1900s and those of the 1920s,
she published several serials in the "Girls' Friend Library"
series—see here.
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GRAYNE, MELITA (dates unknown)
1930s
Untraced author of a single novel, Invicta
(1930), about “a rich orphan's unhappy experiences in marriage and society,
and of her successful entry into politics.” The name is likely a pseudonym,
but I’ve not found any clues.
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GREEN,
JANET (4 Jul 1908 – 30 Mar 1993)
(pseudonym of
Ethel Victoria Green)
1950s
Actress, playwright, screenwriter, and author of a single novel, Murder Mistaken (1953), based on her
earlier play and later filmed as Cast a
Dark Shadow, starring Dirk Bogarde and Margaret Lockwood. The story is
about a man who murders his wife for her money, only to find her fortune
isn't what he expected, so he goes on the prowl for another victim.
|
Green, Glint
see PETERSON, MARGARET
|
Green, Linda
see COOPER, GWLADYS DOROTHY
|
GREEN, MOLLIE M[????]. (dates
unknown)
1940s
Untraced author of a single girls' school story, Schoolgirl Janet (1947). The only tidbit of information about her
is that she appears to have worked as a librarian.
|
GREENWOOD, FRANCES (1915 - ????)
(pseudonym of Ivy May Bradley)
1930s
Untraced author of one girls' school story, Mary Todd's Last Term (1939), praised by Sims and Clare for the
depth of characterization of its rebellious head girl heroine.
|
GREGORY, CONSTANCE (dates
unknown)
1910s
Untraced author of a single girls' story, The
Castlestone House Company (1918), set during World War I, in which Guides
deal with the standard spies and wartime misadventures.
|
Gregory, Jean
see URE, JEAN [ANN]
|
GRESSWELL, ELISE (ELIZABETH) KAY
(23 Aug 1877 – 18 Mar 1944)
(née Kay)
1930s
Author of one novel, When Yvonne Was
Dictator (1935), a utopian novel about a future Britain under the control
of an 18-year-old, much concerned with overpopulation, healthcare, and
feminism. Gresswell apparently served as a magistrate in Southport.
|
GRETTON, MARY
[GERTRUDE] (1 May 1871 – 15 Aug 1961)
(née Sturge,
real name May, evolved into Mary)
1930s
Historian and biographer of George Meredith and John Constable, and author of
a single novel, Crumplin' (1932),
apparently a mystery set in the time of Richard III.
|
Grey, Brenda
see MACKINLAY, LEILA [ANTOINETTE
STERLING]
|
GREY, JANET (dates unknown)
(pseudonym of Daisy White)
1940s
Untraced author of a sequence of four girls' school stories set at St.
Ursula's School, including The Advent
of Anne (1941), The Concerns of
Cecily (1947), The Sixth Form
Pantomime (1949), and Lucille—House
Captain (1950). The real name "Daisy White" comes from Sims
& Clare, who note that the author was likely in broadcasting, but
interestingly, John Herrington discovered that journalist Esmé Beryl Kitcat
(née Zelger) (1913-2004) used the name "Janet Grey" for some of her
articles in the 1940s, as well as for some novelizations in the 1960s. We
found nothing to specifically link her to the girls' stories, however.
|
GREY, JUDITH (dates unknown)
1940s
Untraced author of three linked tales—Christmas
Term at Chillinghurst (1942), That
Dramatic Term! (1946), and Summer
Term at Chillinghurst (1947)—set during the revamping of a bad school.
She also wrote a stand-alone school story, Duchess in Disguise (1943), and one non-school story, Steps in the Dark (1949).
|
GREY, ROWLAND (1863 – 7 Sept
1959)
(pseudonym of Lilian Kate Rowland-Brown)
1880s – 1910s
Journalist and author of a dozen volumes of fiction, which OCEF calls "anodyne
romances." Titles include In Sunny
Switzerland (1884), By Virtue of
His Office (1888), The Power of the
Dog (1896), The Unexpected
(1902), Green Cliffs (1905), Surrender (1909), and La Belle Alliance (1915), after which
she seems to have stopped publishing.
|
GRIER, SYDNEY CARLYON (30 Jun
1868 – 22 Jun 1933)
(pseudonym of Hilda Caroline Gregg)
1890s – 1920s
Teacher and novelist whose work was often set in India (though it seems
unclear when—or if?—she lived there). Titles include An Uncrowned King (1896), Like
Another Helen (1899), The Heir
(1906), The Power of the Keys
(1907), The Kingdom of Waste Lands
(1917), Berringer of Bandeir
(1919), and A Brother of Girls
(1925).
|
GRIERSON, LINDEN (14 Sept 1914 – 1987)
(pseudonym of
Monica Linden Grierson, née Corps)
1950s – 1970s
Author of more than 20 romantic novels, including The Bond Between (1950), Rising River (1954), The Whisper of the Night Winds (1955),
Peppertree Lane (1956), The Senorita Penny (1959), The Adventuresome Spirit (1962), Wild Harvest (1966), and Down by the Riverside (1974). Some of
these may have Australian settings, as Grierson lived there for much of her
adult life. She was born and died in Yorkshire, but her family went to
Australia when she was about 12.
|
GRIFFIN,
[EDITHA] ACEITUNA (12 Jul 1876 – 10 Jun 1949)
(née Thurlow)
1900s – 1930s
Author of 13 novels, among them several mysteries. OCEF calls her first two books—Lady Sarah's Deed of Gift (1906) and The Tavistocks (1908)—"commonplace romances." At least
one of her mysteries, The Punt Murder
(1936), was reprinted in the 2000s. Her other titles are Mrs. Vannock (1907), Pearl
and Plain (1927), Amber and Jade
(1928), Genesta (1930), Conscience (1931), Delia’s Dilemma (1934), Motive for Murder (1935, co-written
with her daughter, Joy GRIFFIN), Commandments
Six and Eight (1936), Sweets and
Sinners (1937), and “Where There Is
a Will…”.
|
GRIFFIN,
[URSULA MARY] JOY (23 May 1913 – 4 Dec 1973)
1930s
Daughter of Aceituna GRIFFIN, and co-author with her of a single mystery, Motive for Murder (1935).
|
GRIFFITHS, HELEN (8 May 1939
- )
(married name Santos, aka Helen Santos)
1950s – 1980s
Author of more than 20 children's titles, including
a number of pony and other animal stories, as well as a single adult novel, The Dark Swallows (1966), about an
ill-fated romance during the Spanish Civil War. Two of her children's titles,
The Last Summer (1979) and Dancing Horses (1981), are also set
immediately before and during the civil war, and focus on a bull-fighting
horse and her colt. Other titles include Horse
in the Clouds (1957), Wild and Free
(1958), Africano (1961), The Greyhound (1964), Stallion of the Sands (1968), Russian Blue (1973), The Kershaw Dogs (1978), and Hari's Pigeon (1982). More detail
about her horse stories can be found here. Griffiths
grew up in the U.K. but married a Spaniard and thereafter lived in Spain.
|
GRIFFITHS, MARGARET W[RIGHT]. (6
May 1873 - 1961)
(tentative but probable identification)
1930s – 1940s
Author of nine adventure-oriented school and holiday stories, including A Queer Holiday (1936), J.P. of the Fifth (1937), The House on the Fjord (1939), The Eye of Dalarna (1941), Hazel in Uniform (1945), Wild Eagle's Necklace (1945),
apparently set in Canada, Elizabeth at
Grayling Court (1947), Jewel of
Danger (1947), and The Blue Mascot
(1949). If our identification is correct, she was also the author of The "Key" Method of Teaching
Reading (1930).
|
GRIGS, [ETHEL] MARY (18 Apr 1903
– 16 Feb 1951)
(aka Mary Day)
1930s
Children's author, novelist, and columnist for The Farmer's Weekly. Bookman praised her debut novel, Bid Her Awake (1930), about two
sisters. I wrote briefly about it here. It was
followed by four more novels for adults—The
Almond Tree (1931), Visitors for
Miss Howard (1932), Journey by
Candlelight (1936), and Call for a
Crooner (1940)—and two children's titles, The Yellow Cat (1936) and Animal
Joe (1939). A collection of her Farmer's
Weekly columns (under the name Mary Day) appeared posthumously as Mary Day's Book (1952).
|
GRIMSHAW, BEATRICE [ETHEL] (3
Feb 1870 – 30 Jun 1953)
1900s - 1940
Travel writer and novelist. One of the earliest women to travel extensively
in the South Seas, she wrote of her experiences in works like From Fiji to the Cannibal Islands
(1907). She also wrote novels set in these locales. Fiction includes Vaiti of the Islands (1906), When the Red Gods Call (1911), A Coral Queen (1917), My South Sea Sweetheart (1921), The Sands of Oro (1924), Wreck of the Redwing (1927), My Lady Far Away (1929), The Mystery of Tumbling Reef (1932), Victorian Family Robinson (1934), and South Sea Sarah and Murder in Paradise:
Two Complete Novels (1940).
|
GRIMSTEAD,
HETTIE (HARRIET) (4 May 1903 – 12 Jul 1986)
(aka Marsha
Manning)
1950s – 1970s
Author of more than 70 romance novels. After one early novel, Painted Virgin (1931), she fell silent
for nearly 20 years, returning with The
Journey Home (1950). Other titles include The Passionate Summer (1953), The
Reluctant Bride (1957), Dream
Street (1959), Magic of the Moon
(1961), When April Sings (1964), Lover Come Lonely (1965), Orchids for the Bride (1967), Roses for Breakfast (1970), Sister Rose's Holiday (1975), and The Passionate Rivals (1978).
|
Groom, C.
see GROOM, KATHLEEN
[CLARICE]
|
GROOM,
KATHLEEN [CLARICE LOUISE] (11 Mar 1872 – 29 Apr 1954)
(née Cornwell,
earlier married names Klein and Dealtry, aka Kit Dealtry, aka C. Groom, aka
Mrs. Sydney Groom)
1910s – 1950s
Author of at least a dozen novels, some of them mysteries. Titles include Ill-Gotten Gain (1909), Shadows of Desires (1918), The Mystery of Mr. Bernard Brown
(1920), Detective Sylvia Shale
(1924), The Folly of Fear (1947), Phantom Fortune (1948), and The Recoil (1952). There is an odd gap
in her output from 1924 until 1947—one wonders if there's another pseudonym
that hasn't yet come to light.
|
GROOM, OLIVE L[ILIAN]. (14 Nov
1920 – 6 Feb 2006)
(née Weller, aka Olive Lindsey)
1940s – 1990s
Author of more than 30 volumes of fiction, including several school stories
influenced, according to Sims and Clare, by Elinor BRENT-DYER, other
children's titles, and more than a dozen pseudonymous romance novels. Her
school stories include The School of
False Echoes (1947), Holly of
Swanhouse (1949), Ray's First Term
(1951), Roxbrunn Finds the Way
(1954), and Avril in the Alps
(1955). Among her romance titles as Olive Lindsey are When the Dream Is Past (1978), September Spring (1982), Shadows
on the Snow (1987), and Never Go
Back (1991).
|
Groom, Mrs. Sydney
see GROOM, KATHLEEN
[CLARICE]
|
GROSE,
[FLORENCE LOUISA] HELENA (4 Dec 1901 – 11 Sept 1986)
(née Clapshaw,
later married name Morrell)
1930s – 1960s
Author of more than 40 romantic novels for Mills & Boon and, later, for
Collins. Titles include Bachelor's
Wife: The Story of an Unconventional Honeymoon (1930), The Stork Called Twice (1931), They Meant to Marry (1934), Gay Bachelor (1936), Two Were Foolish (1940), Lovebound (1948), Wedding Shoes (1952), and The
Sin of Eden (1961).
|
Groves, Georgina
see SYMONS, GERALDINE
|
GUEST,
[MURIEL ETHEL] CARMEL HADEN (16 May 1881 – 20 Feb 1943)
(née Goldsmid)
1910s – 1940s
Children's writer and author
of six novels. The Yellow Pigeon
(1928) is about relief workers, nurses, and other women in Belgium during
World War I—I reviewed it here. Scent of Magnolia (1934) is, according
to Bookman, "a thoughtful
study of a special case—that of a sensitive child of an Anglo-Argentine
marriage." Her other novels are Children
of the Fog: A Novel of Southwark (1927), Little Mascot (1936), Give
Us Conflict (1937), and Punch's
Boy: A Romance of the Nineteenth Century (1942). She is the grandmother
of screenwriter/director/actor Christopher Haden-Guest, who drops the
"Haden" for career purposes.
|
GUITON, HELEN
[ELIZA] (10 May 1894 – 11 Oct 1978)
1940s
Author of a single novel, A Country
Lover (1948), set in a French-Canadian settlement and about "a
dreamer who yet had to play out his role of farmer; of his widowed mother,
and of his young bride from far away Quebec, beautiful indeed, but unfit for
the type of life the wives of these Lauretian farmers had to live."
Guiton might better fit a Canadian version of this list, but she was born on
the Channel Island of Jersey and was still living there with her family in
1901. At some point thereafter, the entire family emigrated (or possibly
returned, as her parents may have been French Canadian), and Guiton remained
there the rest of her life.
|
GWYNN,
URSULA [GRACE] (7 Mar 1886 – 12 Jan 1969)
(née Leigh, aka
Ursula Leigh)
1920s – 1930s
Author of six novels, two—Chinook
(1932) and Give Me My Robe
(1934)—under her pseudonym, and four more more—The Green Hill (1928), The
Four Miss Ramsays (1932), The
Purple Shawl (1932), and If This Be
Love (1934)—using her real name. I have no details, but The Four Miss Ramsays was apparently
successful enough to warrant an abridged reprint in 1944.
|
GYNNE, G. M. (dates unknown)
1930s
Unidentified author of a single novel, I
Defend (1932), set in India and possibly combining romance and crime.
|
HADDOCK, SYBIL [FERN] (10 Oct
1887 – 16 May 1979)
(née Nume, aka Margaret Harwood)
1940s
Author of three children's titles, including Vera the Vet (1940), That
Orfull Girl (1943, later reprinted as Nancy
Takes a Hand), and That Orfull
Family (1944, later reprinted as Nancy
Runs the Show). Her Harwood pseudonym was used for a column in the Methodist Recorder and for several
short plays for amateur production. Thank you to David Redd for sharing his
discoveries about Haddock.
|
HAGAN, STELLA
FITZTHOMAS (26 Jul 1908 – 23 Mar 1993)
(pseudonym/adopted
name of Stella Mary Jackson)
1950s
Author of a single novel, The Green
Cravat (1959), set in the late 1700s and featuring Lord Edward
Fitzgerald, an aristocrat who supported independence for Ireland. English by
birth but a passionate Hibernophile by adoption, Hagan was the daughter of T.
A. (Thomas Alfred) Jackson, a founding member of the British Communist Party.
There is no record of a marriage that would explain Stella's name change, but
it seems to have been a bit more than a pseudonym, as official records from
later in her life record it as her name.
|
Hagon, Priscilla
see ALLAN, MABEL ESTHER
|
HAIME,
AGNES I[RVINE]. C[ONSTANCE]. (29 Oct 1884 – 21 Mar 1986)
(née Adams)
1940s
Poet and author of two short works of fiction—The Pencil Falls and Other Stories (1942) and Red Earth (1945).
|
HALDANE, CHARLOTTE (27 Apr 1894
– 16 Mar 1969)
(née Franken, earlier married name Burghes)
1920s – 1950s
Novelist, playwright, biographer, and author of controversial political
works. Her dystopian debut novel, Man's
World (1926), was reportedly one of the sources of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. According to ODNB, in Brother to Bert (1930) and I
Bring Not Peace (1932) Haldane "turned the novelist Malcolm Lowry
into her protagonist." Other fiction includes Youth is a Crime (1934), The
Shadow of a Dream (1952), and Fifi
and Antoine (1956). Haldane was a war correspondent for The Daily Sketch during World War II,
and wrote of her experiences in Russian
Newsreel (1942), an account of her 1941 trip to the wartime Soviet Union,
and Truth Will Out (1949), her
memoir.
|
HALE, MARGARET (11 Jun 1925
- )
(married name Bousfield)
1950s
Author of a single girls' school story, Last
Term at St. Andrew's (1953). [Special thanks to Gordon Jones, Margaret
Hale's own doctor, who emailed me—with Margaret's permission—to provide her
date of birth and married name.]
|
HALES, A[DA]. M[ATILDA]. M[ARY]. (24 Dec 1878 – 27 Apr 1957)
1910s – 1930s
Author of three novels—Leslie
(1913), The Puritan's Progress
(1920), and The Hamlet on the Hill
(1927)—as well as one children's title, The
Story of Ben-Ban, Siamese Cat (1934).
|
HALES, MOLLIE [KATE EMILY]
CARPENTER (17 Jul 1911 – 30 Jun 1973)
(married name Lee, aka Mollie Hales)
1930s – 1960s
Author of four novels—The Cat and the
Medal (1938), an allegorical tale of a man who loses his prized kitten
and his medal from the Crimean War, and three postwar novels, A Debt (1949), Home for a Night (1951), and So
Many Zeros (1961), which may steer toward melodrama. For some reason, the
first was published as "Mollie Carpenter Hales," the others only as
"Mollie Hales." Under her married name, she became a well-known BBC
radio presenter, and was featured on Desert Island Discs in 1971.
|
HALL,
AYLMER (24 Apr 1914 – 14 Jun 1987)
(pseudonym of
Norah Eleanor Lyle Hall, née Cummins)
1950s - 1970
Author of ten children's books, most of them historical. The Devilish Plot (1965) is set in Napoleonic England, and later
titles such as The Marked Man
(1967), Colonel Bull's Inheritance
(1968), Beware of Moonlight (1969),
and The Minstrel Boy (1970), are
set in historical Ireland. The Mystery
of Torland Manor (1952) and The K.
F. Conspiracy (1955) appear to have contemporary settings. The others are
The Admiral's Secret (1953), The Sword of Glendower (1960), and The Tyrant King (1967).
|
HALL,
[CONSTANT] BARBARA (1 Jan 1899 – 2 Feb 1987)
1930s – 1950s
Not to be confused with a well-known crossword puzzle creator of the same
name. Author of four novels, probably romantic in theme—April Year (1934), Last
Flight (1935), Beguile My Heart
(1951), and Desperate Felicity
(1954).
|
Hall, Julia
see PEARSON, MOLLIE (MARY) SUSAN SEYMOUR
|
HALL, [MARGUERITE ANTONIA]
RADCLYFFE (12 Aug 1880 – 7 Oct 1943)
1920s – 1930s
Poet and novelist best known for The Well of Loneliness (1928), one of
the earliest novels to sympathetically portray a lesbian woman (or, according
to some modern critics, a transgender male), which was the object of a famous
obscenity trial. She published six other novels—The Forge (1924), The Unlit
Lamp (1924), A Saturday Life
(1925), Adam's Breed (1926), The Master of the House (1932), and The Sixth Beatitude (1936)—and one story
collection, Miss Ogilvie Finds Herself
(1934). Hall was an early advocate for gay and lesbian rights and lived
openly with her partner, sculptor and translator Una Troubridge. The pair was
famously portrayed in Djuna Barnes's satire of the lesbian community in
Paris, Ladies Almanack (1928).
|
HALLACK, CECILY ROSEMARY (1898 - 23 Oct
1938)
1920s – 1930s
Prominent Catholic author of
children’s fiction, novels and stories as well as religious tracts. Some of
her fiction includes Beardless Counsellors (1923), tracing the lives
of several Boy Scouts through World War I and into adulthood; All About
Selina (1932), a children’s book about a governess taming a very “modern”
child; Miss Becky O'Toole (1932), in which an elderly spinsters solves
every kind of problem for her friends; Lady Georgy's House (1935), in
which, similarly, a surgeon loses the use of one hand and turns instead to
being a sort of therapist; and The Happiness of Father Happe (1938), a
humorous tale of an elderly Franciscan monk. Story collections include Odd
Jobs (1930) and As Common as Daisies (1932).
|
HALLAM-HIPWELL, HERMINE [DOROTHEA] (23
Apr 1907 – 25 Feb 1992)
(married name de Vivenot, aka Baroness Vivenot)
1930s
Journalist, diplomat, and author of a
single novel, The Ninas of Balcarce (1935, aka Argentine Interlude),
a "charming and tragic love story" about a young Englishman
visiting Buenos Aires and his encounters with a household of three
aristocratic sisters and their young niece. She was born in Argentina to a
British father and Dutch mother, and married a Frenchman. She was in the Ministry
of Information during World War II and later served in various diplomatic
posts until her retirement in 1967. She also published non-fiction about
Argentine art.
|
Hallsmith, Elspeth
see SMITH, EMMA
|
Halys, Nevin
see AGNEW, GEORGETTE
|
Hambledon, Phyllis
see MACVEAN, PHYLLIS
|
HAMEL, FRANK (1870 – 28 Mar
1957)
(pseudonym of Florence Hamel)
1910s – 1920s
Beginning her career as a biographer of prominent French figures including
Fontaine, Agnes Sorel, and the French Queens, Hamel later wrote three novels,
including the supernaturally themed Tiger-Wolves
(1916), The Luminous Pearl (1919),
and Trust to Boyd (1929). For many
years, she ran the successful publishing house Grafton Co.
|
HAMILTON,
CATHARINE J[ANE]. (1841 – 28 Feb 1935)
1880s – 1920s
Poet, children's writer, and
novelist whose works were often set in Ireland. Titles include The Flynns of Flynnville (1880), Rivals at School (1888), A Battle with the Waves (1890), The Merry-Go-Round (1894), Luck of the Kavanaghs (1910), and Rupert's Wife (1922). She also wrote
biographical sketches in Women Writers:
Their Works and Ways (1892-93).
|
HAMILTON, [MARY] CICELY (15
Jun 1872 – 5 Dec 1952)
(née Hammill)
1900s – 1930s
Playwright, suffragette, and novelist. She wrote more than 20 plays,
including most famously Diana of
Dobson's (1908) and the one act How
the Vote was Won (1910), a retelling of Lysistrata through the lens of women's rights, co-written with
her friend Christabel MARSHALL. She published six novels—Diana of Dobson's (1908), Just
To Get Married (1911), A Matter of
Money (1916, based on her play The
Cutting Knot), William: An Englishman
(1919), Theodore Savage (1922), and
Full Stop (1931). William, about an English couple on
honeymoon in Belgium who find their bliss turned to horror as World War I
begins and they are trapped in the German invasion, was the first Persephone
Books reprint. Theodore Savage is a
dystopia about the end of civilization ("amended and remodelled"
edition published as Lest Ye Die in
1928), while Full Stop is an
experimental novel featuring only one character. She also published the
non-fiction Senlis (1917), about a
French town brutalized by the Germans. In the 1930s, she wrote a series of
European travel books beginning with Modern
Germany as Seen by an Englishwoman (1931). Her memoir is Life Errant (1935).
|
HAMILTON,
ELAINE (c1882 – 15 Sept 1967)
(married name
Holt)
1930s
Author of nine mysteries in only seven years, after which she fell silent.
Titles are Some Unknown Hand (1930,
aka The Westminster Mystery), Murder in the Fog (1931), The Green Death (1932), The Chelsea Mystery (1932), The Silent Bell (1933), Peril at Midnight (1934), Tragedy in the Dark (1935), The Casino Mystery (1936), and Murder Before Tuesday (1937). Some or
all of her novels featured Inspector Thomas Reynolds, and some of the books
have been released as e-books.
|
HAMILTON, HELEN (1879 - 12 Nov
1926)
(pseudonym of Constance Maud Campbell)
1910s – 1920s
Teacher, poet, playwright, journalist, early
feminist, and author of two novels under her pseudonym. My Husband Still (1914), purportedly based on the experience of
an actual acquaintance of Campbell's and featuring an introduction by John
Galsworthy, told of an unhappily married, working class woman and advocated
for making divorce more accessible. The
Iconoclast (1917) is about a schoolmistress whose horizons are expanded
by reading a magazine advocating free love and who subsequently contemplates
an affair with a young vegetarian. Great
Meddow (1924) is a series of humorous sketches, some previously published
in periodicals, about life in a village in South England. She published two
volumes of satirical verse, The
Compleat Schoolmarm (1917), about women's education, and Napoo! A Book of War Bêtes-Noires (1918), about
attitudes toward World War I. Campbell was also a keen rock climber and wrote
wryly in Mountain Madness (1922)
about her experiences climbing in the Alps. Under her real name, Campbell
wrote a number of plays, including One
of the Old Guard (1914), about women's suffrage. Campbell is not to be
confused (as I did until recently) with an Aberdeen poet named Helen Hamilton
(1864-1937), who published two volumes of religious and inspirational poetry
(1924 & 1932). Some of Campbell's papers are held by the British Museum
and make clear her authorship of the other works. [Special thanks to Chrissy
Giles at Kent University for sharing her research into Hamilton/Campbell's
life and work.]
|
HAMILTON, HENRIETTA (20 May 1920 – 19 Jun 1995)
(pseudonym of Hester Denne Shepherd)
1950s - 1960s
Mystery writer who published four novels in her
lifetime—The Two Hundred Ghost
(1956), Death at One Blow (1957), At Night to Die (1959), and Answer in the Negative (1959).
Although she stopped publishing thereafter, she apparently wrote thirteen
additional novels, the last in about the mid-1960s. Sadly, it seems that
Agora Books, who were reprinting her work, has ceased operation, and the
books are again out of print.
|
Hamilton, Hervey
see ROBINS, DENISE NAOMI
|
HAMILTON,
M. (11 Apr 1869 – 9 Aug 1949)
(pseudonym of
Mary Spotswood Ash, married name Luck)
1890s – 1920s
Author of 18 novels that OCEF calls "underrated,"
some set in Ireland, some in India. Cut
Laurels (1905) is about a woman adapting to the return of her husband
after an 18 year absence. The others are A
Self-Denying Ordinance (1895), McLeod
of the Camerons (1896), Across an
Ulster Bog (1896), The Freedom of
Henry Meredyth (1897), The
Dishonour of Frank Scott (1900), Poor
Elisabeth (1901), Beyond the Boundary
(1902), On an Ulster Farm (1905), The First Claim (1906), Mrs. Brett (1913), The Woman Who Looked Back (1914), The General's Wife (1916), The Locust's Years (1919), Anne Against the World (1922), The Detached Marriage (1923), The Alien Child (1924), and The Breakaway (1928).
|
HAMILTON,
MARGARET (dates unknown)
1950s
Unidentified Scottish author of a single novel, Bull's Penny (1950), set in the Firth of Clyde. An enlightening
review in the Aberdeen Press and
Journal notes: "Some readers may consider much of it to be nauseous,
others, less squeamish, may well be fasacinated by the grimness and vividness
with which a broken old man is made to tell how, throughout life, he has
either been denied everything that he most wanted, or has failed to measure
up to his chances and thrown them away." The same review describes
Hamilton as "a Local Government officer in Glasgow", but without
more details it has been impossible to trace her.
|
HAMILTON, MARY AGNES (8 Jul 1884
– 10 Feb 1962)
(née Adamson, aka Iconoclast)
1910s – 1930s
One of the first women elected to the House of Commons, Hamilton was a
significant political force for many years, and later a successful civil
servant. She was also a translator (from German) and author of nearly a dozen
novels. Virginia WOOLF wrote dismissively about her in her diaries: "The
truth is that Molly Hamilton with all her ability to think like a man, &
her strong and serviceable mind, & her independent self-respecting life
is not a writer." Nevertheless, she received some acclaim for Dead Yesterday (1916), which focused
on intellectuals and pacifism during World War I. Much criticism of her work
suggests that it's of journalistic value if not literary value. Other novels
include Less than the Dust (1912), Yes (1914), Full Circle (1919), The
Last Fortnight (1920), Follow My
Leader (1922), Folly's Handbook
(1927), Special Providence (1930), Three Against Fate (1930), and Life Sentence (1935). She also published
one mystery, Murder in the House of
Commons (1931). She used her pseudonym for several non-fiction works in
the 1920s. Later in life she published two memoirs, Remembering My Good Friends (1944) and Uphill All the Way (1953), the latter, according to her ODNB entry, "an account of the
achievements of a remarkable career woman and a study of her changing
political and spiritual beliefs."
|
Hamilton, Mollie
see KAYE, M[ARY].
M[ARGARET].
|
Hamilton, Pamela
see DUNKERLEY, ERICA [ISABEL]
|
HAMILTON GIBBS, HELEN (24 Dec 1874 –
Aug/Sept 1956)
(married name Ibbetson)
1920s – 1930s
Author of five novels. Jane Tryst
(1928) features a heroine—an “older, cruder Ann Veronica”—who determines to
have a child and sets about choosing a father. Diana Barrington
(1934), subtitled “a story of the rag trade,” sounds like a more cheerful
riches-to-rags-to-riches tale with a large cast of characters and transatlantic
settings. In The Prodigal Mother (1935), an unhappy wife escapes her
fiercely ambitious husband and travels in luxury with her daughter—"life
in a convent in the Ardennes, on the gay Riviera, in Naples and in Tahiti is
convincingly described." Shapes of Clay (1936) features an artist
who retreats to a Portuguese fishing village and marries a local woman, who
dies young and leaves him a daughter, who in turn grows up and has her own
love story, complicated by her father. And The Little Rift (1937) deals
with a woman joining a convent after disappointment in love—one critic
referred to it as “a remarkably outspoken attack on convent life." She
was from an illustrious writing family—her siblings include journalist and
novelist Philip Gibbs, playwright and novelist Cosmo Hamilton, and novelist
A. Hamilton Gibbs.
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HAMPTON,
MADGE (dates unknown)
1920s
Untraced author of two romantic novels—Playing
a Part (1924) and The Taming of
Betty (1925).
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Handasyde
see BUCHANAN, EMILY HANDASYDE
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HANN,
DOROTHY (4 Aug 1883 – 18 May 1963)
(née Owen, aka
Mrs. A[rchie]. C[ecil]. Osborne Hann, second married name Sutherland)
1920s - 1960
Author of several dozen works of children's
fiction, often "semi-evangelistic," according to Sims and Clare,
and many about camping or Brownies. She published two girls' school stories, Jane's First Term (1944) and Chris at Boarding School (1946). Other
titles include Peg's Patrol (1924),
Rhoda the Rebel (1925), All About Brownie (1928), June Runs the Company (1932), Lieutenant (1935), The Torchbearer (1938), Follow My Leader (1939), Chris at Boarding School (1946), 'Horrible' Harriet (1949), Five in a Family (1951), Vicky at the Vicarage (1953), The Pluck of the Coward (1955), and Rosemary the Rebel (1955).
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HANSHEW, HAZEL P[HILLIPS]. (20 Apr 1889 – 7 Aug
1966)
(married name
Hackney, aka Anna Kingsley, aka John Maske)
1910s - 1930s
Daughter of mystery and adventure authors Thomas W. Hanshew and Mary E.
Henshew, and author of at least seven novels in her own right. The first two—The Riddle of the Winged Death (1931),
which continued the adventures of her father’s “Cleek Riddle” characters, and
Murder in the Hotel (1932), set in
a luxury hotel in which a beautiful film star is murdered for her
pearls—appeared under her own name. The
Valiant Pilgrim (1933), about 70 years in the life of an American woman
and her children, was published under her Kingsley pseudonym. And four more
crime-themed tales appeared under her Maske pseudonym. The first three—The
Dinard Mystery (1933), The St. Malo Mystery (1933), and The
Cherbourg Mystery (1934)—comprised “an entertaining trilogy of the
amazing adventures of Jeremy and Irma Flack on the French coast," while Ghost
of a Cardinal (1935) is set in Italy. Her Maske pseudonym was identified
thanks to Peter Šleich, who emailed me after acquiring a complete set of the
novels, including original publishing agreements which clearly identify
Hanshew as the author—grateful thanks to Peter for this information. Hanshew
is also credited by the British Library with authoring or co-authoring (with
her mother) several titles in the 1910s and 1920s which were apparently first
published as by her father. Hanshew is sometimes considered an American
author as her parents were American, but they moved to England early in her
childhood and she remained there most of her life.
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HANSON, NELL
(ELLEN) [HUSTON] (15 Nov 1890 – 27 Mar 1942)
1930s
Author of a single novel, Winds of Pity
(1935), about a troubled marriage between the son of an Irish minister and a
woman from London. A review notes that Hanson was the daughter of the Rev.
Dr. George Hanson, "who was so outstanding a figure in Northern Ireland
Presbyterianism."
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HARDING,
D[OLORES]. C[HARLOTTE]. F[REDERICA]. (5 Apr 1888 – 23 Mar 1945)
(real first
name Dorothy, née Hollender, later married name Alexander)
1910s – 1940s
Author of a dozen novels, but information about them is scarce. Titles are The Great Experiment (1911), Affairs of Men (1912), Oranges and Lemons (1916), Within the Gates (1921), The Family Coach (1927), The Common Round (1928), Daughters of Lear (1929), Dark Halo (1933), The Pendleton Fortune (1937), Peculiar
Triumph (1942), Pendleton Harvest
(1944), and The Twinkling of an Eye
(1945).
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HARDING,
[MARY] JANE [L. S.] (1889 - ????)
1910s – 1920s
Author of three novels—The Puppet
(1917), Margaret's Mead (1921), and
The House of Memory (1923). The
second of these, at least, seems to be romantic in themes.
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HARDY,
BLANCHE C[HRISTABEL]. (1873 – 25 Mar 1945)
1890s, 1920s
Poet, biographer, and author of five novels—The Adventures of Caradoc ap Alen, Cymru Soldier: A Tale of Wales in
the Days of King Arthur (1899), Dynasty
(1925), Sanctuary (1925), The Girl in the Scarlet Gown (1927),
and Torquess (1929).
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HARDY, DOROTHY M[AY]. (dates
unknown)
1950s
Untraced author of one girls' school story, Christabel at Cleve (1951), and a non-school sequel, Christabel's Cornish Adventure (1954).
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HARDY,
FLORENCE E[MILY]. (12 Jan 1879 – 17 Oct 1937)
(née Dugdale)
1900s – 1910s
Second wife of Thomas Hardy and author of several children's titles,
including Tim's Sister (1907), Nurse Jane! (1907), and In Lucy's Garden (1912). Her 2-volume
biography of Hardy appeared in 1928 and 1930, and was reprinted in 1962 as The Life of Thomas Hardy, 1840-1928.
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HARDY,
IZA DUFFUS (1850 – 30 Aug 1922)
1870s - 1910
Daughter of archivist and antiquary Sir Thomas Duffus Hardy and author of
more than two dozen novels which OCEF
describe as "unpretentious, well-crafted, rather predictable."
These include Not Easily Jealous
(1872), Love, Honour, and Obey
(1881), The Love That He Passed By
(1884), The Westthorpe Mystery
(1886), A New Othello (1890), The Lesser Evil (1901), A Butterfly: Her Friends and Her Fortunes
(1903), A Trap of Fate (1906), The Mystery of a Moonlight Tryst
(1908), The Silent Watchers (1910).
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HARDY,
JOAN (dates unknown)
1920s
Untraced author of three romantic tales, A
Desperate Remedy (1921), A Welsh
Cinderella (1924), and The Girl at
the Corner (1930).
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HARDY, MARY [SOPHIA] (28 Jun
1865 – 15 Mar 1952)
(née Evans)
1920s
Author of two novels—Grounds for
Divorce (1924) and Doctor Mingay's
Wife (1930)—which seem to veer toward the melodramatic. She also wrote an
essay collection, The Embroidery of
Quiet (1919), and what seems to be a memoir, Letters of a Grass Widow (1916).
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HARE,
MARTIN (1905 – 10 Mar 1968)
(pseudonym of
Lucy Zoe Girling, married name Zajdler)
1930s
Author of seven novels. According to Bookman, her debut, Butler's Gift (1932), is "about a
Liverpool bank clerk who, apprehensive about inheriting an estate, goes to
learn how to be a squire in a haphazard family of Irish cousins whom he has
never seen. There are suitable actions and reactions." Her final novel, Polonaise (1939), is about English
children adapting to a new life in Poland. This was presumably based on her
own adjustments after marrying a Polish man and living in Warsaw. Her other
novels are Describe a Circle (1933,
published in the US as The Enchanted
Winter), If This Be Error
(1934), The Diary of a Pensionnaire
(1935), A Mirror for Skylarks
(1936), and English Rue (1938). She
published two anonymous books about the fate of Poland during World War II, My Name Is Million (1940) and The Dark Side of the Moon (1946), for
which no lesser figure than T. S. Eliot wrote a preface. Apparently these
appeared anonymously because she had family members still living in Poland
and was worried about possible reprisals. I reviewed Pensionnaire here.
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HARGREAVES, ELISABETH [FELICITY]
(28 Aug 1917 – 2001)
(married name
Capstick)
1950s - 1970s
Author of a dozen novels, some with West Indies and African settings. She
grew up in England and Jamaica, and later lived in Sierra Leone where her
husband was a civil servant. Her final book, The Fair Green Weed (1972), seems to be a thriller. Other titles
include Green Felicity (1951), Sea Change (1953), Handful of Silver (1954), Summer Every Day (1957), The Ever-Fixed Mark (1959), The Short Weeks of Summer (1962), and The Sound of Voices (1968).
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Hargrave, Abbie
see TRUSCOTT, L. PARRY
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HARINGTON,
BRENDA [STANLEY IVY] (1924 – 2008)
(married name
Zielinska)
1940s
Author of a single novel, For Hope
Remains (1949), set in Poland at the end of World War I, about a young
student caught in a "maelstrom of personal and patriotic emotions"
in "a dark and sinister house against the Carpathian Hills, a place of
tattered and broken grandeur, peopled with strange characters."
Harington had spent time in Poland herself and married a Pole in 1948.
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HARKER,
L[IZZIE]. ALLEN (1863 – 21 Apr 1933)
(née Watson)
1900s – 1920s
Author of more than a dozen
novels, most famously Miss Esperance
and Mr Wycherly (1908), described by OCEF
as "the story of a Scots household consisting of an elderly lady and a
reformed alcoholic, which is disrupted when two small boys come to live
there. Far more sentimental than Cranford."
Mr Wycherley's Wards (1912) is
presumably a sequel. Other titles include A
Romance of the Nursery (1903), Master
and Maid (1910), The Ffolliots of
Redmarley (1913), Jan and Her Job
(1917), Allegra (1919), The Broken Bow (1924), Hilda Ware (1926), and Black Jack House (1929).
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HARLAND, ELIZABETH M. (11 Mar
1904 – 15 Jun 1977)
(pseudonym of Margaret Fanny Sayers, married names Garland and
Pickering)
1930s – 1950s
Author of eight novels, many dealing with rural life. Farmer's Girl (1942) deals with a Londoner's experience as a Land
Girl. The others are The Houses in
Between (1936), Be It as You Wish
(1939), Two Ears of Corn (1943), Well Fare the Plough (1946), A Path Is There (1948), set on a
Norfolk farm just after the war, Our
Hearts We Give (1950), and Wheelbarrow
Farm (1954). Her postwar diaries, No
Halt at Sunset: The Diary of a Country Housewife, were published in 1974.
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HARNETT,
CYNTHIA [MARY] (22 Jun 1893 – 25 Oct 1981)
1940s – 1970s
Illustrator and author of more
than 20 books for children. Early titles, such as Junk, the Puppy (1937) and Ducks
and Drakes (1942), were for younger children, but beginning with The Great House (1949), about
architecture in the 17th century, she focused on historical fiction for older
readers, known for its accurate detail and strong characterization. Others
include the Carnegie-winning The
Wool-Pack (1951), which makes vivid use of the Cotswolds wool trade of
the 15th century, Ring Out, Bow Bells! (1953),
Stars of Fortune (1956), The Load of Unicorn (1959), and The Writing on the Hearth (1971).
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HARRADEN, BEATRICE (24 Jan 1864
– 5 May 1936)
1890s – 1920s
Important suffrage activist and novelist, known for her strong female
protagonists. Her early bestseller Ships
that Pass in the Night (1893) coined that expression. Other works include
Hilda Strafford (1897), Katherine Frensham (1903), The Scholar's Daughter (1906), Lady Geraldine's Speech (1911), The Growing Thread (1916) Where Your Treasure Is (1918), dealing
with World War I, Patuffa (1923), Rachel (1926), about a woman who
leaves her husband and child for adventures with another man, only to have
the man die, and Search Will Find It
Out (1928).
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HARRINGTON, ELIZABETH (1884 – 19
Jul 1925)
(pseudonym of Minnie Elizabeth Farmer)
1920s
Author of a single novel, Paul Raymond,
Revolutionist (1921), which was dedicated to the "children of the
underworld," but about which little other information is available. For
sad and morbid reasons, more information is available online about the author
herself, since she drowned herself in a reservoir in South Derbyshire, which
some locals believe is haunted. She was a former schoolmistress and had
attended conferences abroad with the Women's International League. She had
also, according to her nephew, been present when her school was bombed by the
Germans during World War I and a number of small children were killed, an
experience which haunted her. Presumably, the school was the one described here.
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HARRIOT, ESLIE (dates unknown)
1940s
Unidentified author of a single novel, The
Garden of Dreams (1941), set in England and Italy. Apart from an ad for
the novel in the Observer and its
listing in the British Library, both showing the same unusual name, we could
find no trace of the author or the book.
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HARRIS, CATHERINE ANNE (dates
unknown)
1950s – 1960s
Unidentified author of seven works of children's fiction, all with pony
themes. Titles are We Started a Riding
Club (1954), They Rescued a Pony
(1956), The Ponies of Cuckoo Mill Farm
(1958), Riding for Random (1960), If Wishes Were Horses (1961), To Horse and Away (1962), and The Heronsbrook Gymkhana (1964). Jane
Badger Books has an entry for her here. She also published one non-fiction work, Practical Pony Keeping (1962). She may be the Catherine A. Harris
born 1936 in Worcestershire, which fits with reviews of her first book which
state she was only 18 at the time, but proof has been difficult to find.
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HARRIS, ELIZABETH [JANE] COOMBE
(17 Apr 1873 – 30 Sept 1957)
1930s - 1950s
Author of more than three dozen books including children's fiction, novels,
and other Christian-themed writings. Titles include Concerning Jennifer, or, Satisfied at Last (1931), Norah: A Girl of Grit (1932), Behind Convent Walls (1934), A Tudor Heroine (1935), In the Grip of the Druids (1937), The Grey Nun (1939), In the Days of King Alfred (1948), The Better Way: The Story of a Jewish Home
in the First Century (1949), That
Wonderful Holiday (1951), Lesley's
Adventures (1955), and Desmond of
Redacres (1958).
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HARRIS, FRANCES [MARY PATON]
(1899 – 17 Aug 1966)
(married name Hankey)
1930s – 1940s
Author of four novels which appear to be family
comedy-dramas with some romantic elements. Fain Would I Change (1937) is about a family with two grown
daughters, coping with the girls' romances, a cousin's elopement, and the
mother's empty nest syndrome. The Sydney
Morning Herald said: "[Harris] writes in the Jane Austen tradition,
with sympathy and insight, and a shrewd sense of humour in regard to human
weaknesses which enlivens the pages and often brilliantly illuminates her
studies." Her fourth novel, June
to September (1941), is set among French, English, and Russian residents
of a village in the South of France on the cusp of World War II—the Guardian called it "a simple,
delightful book." Her other titles are Villa Victoria (1938) and In
Sleep a King (1939). Harris was married to Cyril Patrick Hankey, a Dean
of Ely.
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HARRIS,
MARY K[ATHLEEN] (22 Sept 1905 – 2 Jun 1966)
1940s – 1960s
Author of more than a dozen volumes of fiction, most for children, including
several school-related tales—Gretel at
St. Bride's (1941), a wartime school story in which the title character
is a refugee from the Nazis, The Wolf
(1946), Henrietta at St Hilary's
(1953), Emily and the Headmistress
(1958), Seraphina (1960), Penny's Way (1963), The Bus Girls (1965), and Jessica on Her Own (1967). Other
children's titles are The Niche over
the Door (1948) and A Safe Lodging
(1957). Thomas (1956) appears to be
for younger children. Harris also published three novels for adults—Fear at My Heart (1951), about a young
girl's conversion to Catholicism, My
Darling from the Lion's Mouth (1956, aka I Am Julie), and Lucia
Wilmot (1959)—as well as two books for children about saints—Elizabeth (1961) and Helena (1964).
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HARRIS,
[HANNAH] MURIEL (10 Feb 1879 – 1 Jul 1975)
(married name
Hueffer)
1930s
Sister-in-law of novelist Ford Madox Ford. Author of at least three novels—The Seventh Gate (1930), The Scornful Man (1932), and Probably Stormy (1933), the about a
struggling architect whom Norah HOULT, reviewing the book, described as
"a completely selfish and indeed silly person."
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HARRIS,
PAULA [JOSEPHINE] (1929 – 1 Apr 2013)
1950s – 1960s
Author of three music-themed children's titles—Music at Pendragon (1959), Cressida
and the Opera (1960), and Star in
the Family (1965)—as well as two non-fiction works, Introducing Beethoven (1963) and The Young Gilbert and Sullivan (1965).
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HARRIS, ROSEMARY [JEANNE] (20 Feb 1923 – 14 Oct
2019)
1950s – 1990s
Best known for her children's fiction, in
particular her trilogy set in ancient Egypt—The Moon in the Cloud (1968), which won that year's Carnegie
Medal, The Shadow on the Sun
(1970), and The Bright and Morning Star
(1972)—Harris also wrote eight novels for adults, including The Summer House (1956), Voyage to Cythera (1958), Venus with Sparrows (1961), All My Enemies (1967), The Nice Girl's Story (1968, aka Nor Evil Dreams), A Wicked Pack of Cards (1969), The Double Snare (1974), and Three
Candles for the Dark (1976). She had a varied life, studying art and
design, working with the Red Cross in World War II, and subsequently working
as a picture restorer, book reviewer, and reader for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Her
father was Sir Arthur "Bomber" Harris, who achieved considerable
prominence leading the RAF in World War II.
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HARRISON, ADA [MAY] (31 Aug 1899 – 7 May 1958)
(married name Austin)
1920s – 1950s
Travel writer, children’s author, and
novelist. She lived for a time in Italy with her husband, artist Robert
Austin, and many of her books (often illustrated by Austin) focus on Italy.
She also published two novels: The Balance (1930) is about a mother
obsessed with her children’s futures, but they all disappoint her in the end;
and Go Through the Door (1947) features a woman who leaves her
sculptor husband for a younger man. Her children’s titles include The
Adventures of Polly Peppermint (1943), The Tale of Tombo (1944), Lucy's
Village (1945), and The Doubling Rod (1957), the last about a
family who discover a magical rod capable of doubling objects, and how it
helps them in a search for a stolen treasure. She seems to have been born in
South Africa, but is on the 1901 England census with a brother and sister,
and spent much of her later life in England.
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HARRISON,
MARIE [FRANÇOISE JEANIE] (c1887/8 - 1932)
(married names
Bamborough, Lake, and Stokes)
1910s
Born in Paris to British parents,
Harrison was primarily known as a journalist but published one novel, The Woman Alone (1914), about a single
woman who decides to have a child. OCEF
says the "ethical and social difficulties of single parenthood and of
marriages where the couple both work are intelligently treated."
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Harrod, Frances
see FORBES-ROBERTSON, FRANCES
[MARIE DÉSIRÉE]
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HART, I[NNES]. R[UTH]. G[RAY]. (22 Oct
1889 - 6 Jul 1970)
1920s – 1930s
Artist and author of eight novels which, according to contemporary reviews,
often combine mystery, adventure, and humour. Frontier of Fear (1928) takes place in “a broken-down
cottage on an island, separated from the coast of Ireland by a narrow but
treacherous channel.” The Double Image
(1928) is described as “a murder story of an unusual type, which incidentally
includes an excellent satire on London suburban life.” Dead Hand (1929) features “a twin sister resolutely carrying out
the broken dying wishes of her brother who is killed in an accident. … Miss
Hart has subtlety and humour.” Facets
(1930) looks at a family’s suspicions of a dead man’s widow. In Forests of the Night (1930), two men
go on an expedition of the Malayan jungle, only one returns, and subsequent
revelations cause repercussions among their family and friends at home. Adjustments (1931) is a “very
entertaining book about a mother who would commit any small crime for the
sake of her children and not even recognise any wrong. There is a delicious
irony in the gentle exposure of Ruth Lambe’s fraudulent machinations.” In Like Water (1931) a girl who had a
fling with a soldier, soon after killed in battle, convinces his mother it
was a great love. And Coloured Glass (1933) features the
intrigues and tragedy around the young, selfish, unlikely wife of a vicar in
a country town. Hart is listed on a 1925 passenger list as a teacher.
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HARTE,
MARJORIE (10 Sept 1909 – 14 Sept 1989)
(married name
McEvoy [British Library has MacEvoy], aka Marjorie McEvoy)
1960s – 1980s
Author of about 40 romantic novels, many with hospital settings and some
suspenseful. Titles include A Red, Red
Rose (1960), Goodbye, Doctor
Garland (1962), Softly Treads
Danger (1963), Doctor Mysterious
(1965), Brazilian Stardust (1967), Eaglescliffe (1971), Castle Doom (1979), The Sleeping Tiger (1983), and The Black Pearl (1988).
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HARTLEY, OLGA [BEATRICE ROSALIE] (17
Jan 1881 – 26 Apr 1954)
(family name changed
from Hertz)
1920s - 1930
Suffragist, journalist, cookbook
writer, and author of three novels. Anne (1920) involves an orphan who
marries one her guardians, miserably, her child dies, and she finally runs
off with her other guardian (after he’s unjustly served five years in
prison)—but despite this subject matter, it was repeatedly noted by reviewers
that it was humorous—“A comedy with just that touch of sadness that brings
laughter close to tears.” The Malaret Mystery (1925) and The Witch
of Chelsea (1930) are mysteries—the former set in Morocco, the latter
featuring the murder of a former PM and a Cockney detective. She also wrote
or co-wrote several cookbooks, including with Hilda Leyel (1880-1957, aka
Mrs. C. F. Leyel). A 1923 libel case was brought against Hartley, involved
the attempted sale, by Hartley and her mother, of "Golden Ballot"
tickets to plaintiff; she lost, but the damages were one farthing and the
judge dismissed the action as frivolous.
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HARTNOLL,
PHYLLIS [MAY] (22 Sept 1906 – 8 Jan 1997)
1950s
Poet, critic, and theatre historian. She edited The Oxford Companion to the Theatre (1951) and published one
short novel, The Grecian Enchanted
(1952), which the publisher described as "[a] simple tale, as evanescent
as the scent of wild thyme, into which Phyllis Hartnoll wove the mingled
ecstasy and heart-break of young lover [sic]..."
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HARVEY, CONSTANCE (dates
unknown)
1920s – 1930s
Untraced author of ten school stories given mixed reviews by Sims and Clare.
Titles are Ups and Downs of School Life
(1926), The Head Versus the School (1927), In and Out of Mischief (1927), The Rival Houses (1928), The
Girl (1930), Helen Plays the Game (1930),
Mistress High and Mighty (1931), Pam Wins Through (1932), Alison—the Sport (1934), and Two Peas in a Pod (1936).
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Harvey, Marianne
see NETHERCOT, MARY
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Harvey, Rachel
see BLOOM, URSULA
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HARWOOD,
ALICE [MARY] (7 Jul 1909 – 19 Dec 1985)
1930s – 1980s
Author of nine novels, most if not all historical. Titles are The Star of the Greys (1939), She Had to Be Queen (1948), Merchant of the Ruby (1951), The Strangeling (1954), At Heart a King (1957), No Smoke without Fire (1964), The Living Phantom (1973), The Clandestine Queen (1979), and The Uncrowned Queen (1983).
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