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HOOD, ARTHUR (1863 - 10 Nov 1938)
(pseudonym of
Amy Constance Woodhouse, married names Hood and Mends-Gibson)
1900s, 1920s – 1930s
Playwright and author of at least three novels—The Mind of the Duchess (1908), Dragon's Teeth (1925), and Jacob (1932). The second of these is
set during the French Revolution. Woodhouse also wrote (and at least
occasionally appeared in) plays and was involved with the Bankside Theatre in
Middlesex.
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HOOKE, NINA
WARNER (14 Aug 1907 – 14 Dec 1994)
(née Malagoni,
adopted stepfather's name Hooke, married name Thomas)
1930s, 1950s – 1980s
Playwright, biographer, children's writer, and author of six novels. Her
trilogy of humorous novels about young people in the 1930s—Striplings (1933), Close of Play (1936), and Own Wilderness (1938)—garnered
comparisons to Wodehouse and was later turned into a successful play. Home Is Where You Make It (1952) is a
memoir about two Londoners creating the home of their dreams from a row of
derelict hovels, while Darkness I Leave
You (1956) was described as "a rip-roaring melodrama set
appropriately in Victorian England", and Deadly Record (1958) is a crime novel and was also adapted for
the stage. In later years, she published several children's books—The Starveling (1958, aka White Christmas and The Snow Kitten), about "how a
homeless kitten melts the sad cold heart of a spinster", Pepito (1978, aka Little Dog Lost), A Donkey
Called Paloma (1981), and The Moon
on the Water (1982). The Seal
Summer (1964) appears to be a memoir about her interactions with a
friendly wild seal during one summer holiday.
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Hooke, Sylvia Denys
see MALLESON, LUCY BEATRICE
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HOOPER, JUNE
(dates unknown)
1950s
Unidentified author of a single novel, The
Apprentices (1956), set among a group of young people in Cambridge, which
received considerably acclaim along with some critiques for being too
influenced by Henry James.
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HOOTON, E[LSIE]. MAY (?1907 -
?1997)
(uncertain but probable identification)
1950s – 1960s
Author of eight children's titles, including one school story, The Harbord Prize (1955). Others are Anne's Call (1951), Cherry's Corner (1953), The Winning Side (1954), Those Terrible Tindalls (1956), Julie's Bicycle (1959), Sally's Summer Adventures (1960), and Wendy (1964).
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Hope, Amanda
see BERRISFORD, JUDITH MARY
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HOPE,
CAMILLA (18 Jan 1889 – 14 Jan 1975)
(pseudonym of
Grace Elsie Thompson)
1920s
Journalist, biographer and author of three novels. A blurb for the second, Long Shadows (1928), reads,
"Seeking the motive for the crime leads into the dark labyrinth of an
African city and a mysterious legionnaire." Moon of Joy (1927) is a romance about a “golden-haired girl who
falls in love with a Moorish Prince,” Curiously
Planned (1928) is an adventure featuring Lady Gwen Hardwyn, who has taken
to gun-running in the Sahara. Hope later wrote biographies of George IV and
William IV, as well as courtesan and Casanova lover Marianna de Charpillon.
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HOPE, CORAL (dates unknown)
1940s – 1950s
Untraced author of three novels. A blurb for Listening Hands (1944) describes it as the "[s]tory of a
concert pianist who encounters a wraith from the past." The others are The Play of a Lifetime (1946) and The Shadowed Hour (1951). She also
published one children's book, The
Flapdoodle Who Always Knew Best (1945).
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HOPE, [FRANCES] ESSEX [THEODORA]
(3 Apr 1880 – 17 Sept 1964)
(née Smith)
1930s – 1940s, 1960s
Author of three children's titles—Pen
Goes North (1949) set partly in a school, Turned Adrift: The Story of a Dog (1937), and A Dog for Richard (1966)—and what may
be an adult novel, I Have Come Home
(1940).
SEE
ESSEX SMITH
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HOPE,
GERTRUDE (dates unknown)
1920s
Untraced author of a single short romance, A Fair Weather Lover (1929).
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HOPE, JANE (dates unknown)
1940s – 1960s
Untraced author and illustrator of nearly a dozen
humorous works, most concerned with schools or child-rearing. Though
purportedly non-fiction, one assumes that some of her accounts are at least
lightly fictionalized. Titles include Don't
Do It: A Complete Guide to Teaching (1949), One Term at Utopia: Pages from the Diary of Jane Hope (1950), The Inspector Suggests, or, How Not to
Inhibit a Child (1951), The
Scholarship Stakes (1955), Happy
Event: A Humorous Account of a Child's First Year of Life (1957), and The Thin Chalk Line (1962). In a bio
from the Penguin edition of one of her books, Hope says she "was born into
a Lancashire family of engineers and schoolteachers, and married into a
Lancashire family of engineers and schoolteachers." She progressed to
teaching and writing, and at the time (mid-1950s) was living in Newcastle-upon-Tyne
with her husband and two sons. Despite these details, there are too many
possibilities in public records to narrow down. Thank you to David Redd for
sharing information and his copy of one of the books.
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HOPE,
NOEL (9 Jan 1867 - 1950)
(pseudonym of
Sarah Louisa Morewood)
1890s – 1930s
Author of numerous children's titles, most with religious or inspirational
themes, including Where Moses Went to
School (1909), Jolly the Joker: A
Life-Saving Scout Story (1921), Fenella's
Fetters, or, Unseen Chains (1921), Face
It Out, or, Straight Roads Are the Shortest (1928), and Ruth the Home Maker (1934).
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HOPE-SIMPSON, JACYNTH (10 Nov
1930 – 3 Jul 2008)
(née Cureton, aka Helen Dudley)
1960s – 1980s
Author of nearly 30 volumes of fiction for adults and children, as well as
several non-fiction works for children. Children's fiction includes the
sports-oriented school stories Anne,
Young Swimmer (1960) and Young
Netball Player (1961), as well as The
Great Fire (1961), Danger on the
Line (1962), The Ice Fair (1963),
and The Witch's Cave (1964). Her
novels for adults are The Bishop of
Kenelminster (1961), The Bishop's
Picture (1962), The Unravished
Bride (1963), The Hooded Falcon (1979,
as Helen Dudley), Cottage Dreams
(1985), and Island of Perfumes
(1985).
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HORLEY,
[BEATRICE] GEORGINA (24 Sept 1918 – 17 Aug 2006)
(née Essex,
married name Smith)
1950s
Journalist and author of a single humorous novel, Bus Stop (1955), about a London civil servant who, fed up with
poor bus service, leads a protest in the form of everyone walking to work.
She later published a cookbook, Good
Food on a Budget (1969), published by Penguin. A 1955 article says that
she was living in Worthing and married to Eric Earnshaw Smith, a retired
Civil Servant. Their 1947 marriage record shows her as "Georgina Horley
or Essex", indicating either a previous marriage or that Horley was a
pseudonym.
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HORN, KATE (27 Aug 1866 – 22 Jan
1951)
(pseudonym of Constance Emma Cromwell Weigall, née Warner, aka C.E.C.
Weigall)
1890s – 1920s
Author of
more than 30 novels, mostly lightly humorous romantic tales. I reviewed Edward and I and Mrs Honeybun (1910),
about an impoverished aristocratic couple and an eccentric charwoman, here. Other titles include The
Temptation of Dulce Carruthers (1893), An Angel Unawares: A Lincolnshire Story (1899), A Wife Worth Winning (1907), The Mulberries of Daphne (1910), Susan and the Duke: A Mere Love Story
(1912), The Flute of Arcady (1914),
Handley's Corner (1919), Three Blind Mice (1923), Beauty and the Pig (1925), Lavinia of Whiteways (1925), and The Verger (1927).
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HORNER, JOYCE
[MARY] (13 Jul 1903 – 24 Mar 1980)
1940s
Novelist, pioneering scholar, and professor at Mount Holyoke College for a
quarter of a century. Her first novel, The
Wind and the Rain (1943), deals with the childhood and young womanhood of
Marian Townsend, hopelessly in love with a school friend who turns into a
successful actor. The Greyhound in the
Leash (1949) flirts with fantasy in telling of a woman who lives her life
four times, making varied decisions each time. Prior to her fiction, Horner
had published The English Women
Novelists and Their Connection with the Feminist Movement (1688-1797)
(1930), a pioneering work of feminist criticism before such a thing really
existed. In later years, she suffered from debilitating arthritic, keeping a
diary of her experiences in a nursing home, published posthumously as That Time of Year (1982).
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HORNSBY, THORA E. (1929 - ????)
(married names Neal and Clack)
1940s
A precocious literary prodigy, Hornsby published the first of her three
school stories when she was only 13. Her works, characterized by lots of not
entirely believable action (according to Sims & Clare), are Diana at School (1944), Three Thrilling Terms (1946), and The Feud (1948). She may have
relocated to South Africa after her second marriage in 1976.
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HORT,
GERTRUDE [MARIE] (21 Sept 1873 – 17 Dec 1953)
1920s, 1940s
Poet, biographer, and author of two novels—The Peace-Fire: A Story of Somerset (1929) and Goodman's Ground: A Romance of the West
Country (1946). Information is sparse, but the former at least may have
supernatural themes. She published one biography, Dr. John Dee: Elizabethan Mystic and Astrologer (1939).
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HOSIE, DOROTHEA (1885 – 15 Feb
1959)
(née Soothill)
1940s
Wife of diplomat Sir Alexander Hosie. After his
death she published several works of biography and nonfiction about China.
She made at least one foray into fiction, with The Pool of Ch'ien Lung: A Tale of Modern Peking (1944).
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HOUGH,
[HELEN] CHARLOTTE (24 May 1924 – 31 Dec 2008)
(née Woodyadd,
later married name Ackroyd)
1950s – 1970s
Mother of novelist Deborah Moggach and author of more than 20 children's
books, including The Home-Makers
(1957), Morton's Pony (1957), The Trackers (1960), Educating Flora and Other Stories
(1968), Queer Customer (1972), and The Mixture as Before (1978). She also
published a single adult novel, The
Bassington Murder (1980), featuring an amateur sleuth in a small English
village. She began work on a second mystery, but in the 1980s she went to
prison for assisting an elderly friend in committing suicide, and the
experience was so traumatic that she was unable to return to writing. There’s
an article discussing the events here.
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HOULT, NORAH (ELEANOR) (20 Sept
1898 – 1 Apr 1984)
(married name Stonor)
1920s – 1970s
Irish author of nearly 30 volumes of fiction,
including three story collections. Her most famous work today is There Were No Windows (1944), thanks
to its Persephone reprint, a harrowing but fascinating tale about an elderly
woman in London experiencing dementia in the worst days of the Blitz,
accompanied only by surly caregivers and indifferent others, all women. The
novel is reportedly based on the sad final days of novelist Violet HUNT, who
was Hoult's neighbor for a time. House
Under Mars (1946) also focuses primarily on women, set in a boarding
house in the late years of the war. Hoult seems to have had a particular
interest in boarding-houses and apartment buildings, a setting also used in Apartments to Let (1931) and A Death Occurred (1954), the latter
about apartment dwellers coming to terms with the death of a neighbor none of
them liked. Among her other work, Smilin'
on the Vine (1939) and its sequel Augusta
Steps Out (1942) feature a young black woman as their protagonist, and Scene for Death (1943) is a
philosophical murder mystery set in a small village during wartime. Hoult had
enough success early in her career to warrant a Selected Stories in 1946. In recent years, two more of her works,
Farewell Happy Fields (1948) and Cocktail Bar (1950), have been
reprinted by New Island Books in Dublin. Other novels include Closing Hour (1930), Holy Ireland (1935), Four Women Grow Up (1940), Sister Mavis (1953), Husband and Wife (1959), Only Fools and Horses Work (1969), and
Two Girls in the Big Smoke (1977).
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HOUSELANDER,
[FRANCES] CARYLL (29 Sept 1901 – 12 Oct 1954)
1940s
Primarily the author of Catholic inspirational works, many of which remain in
print, including This War Is the
Passion (1941), which deals with the Blitz, Houselander also wrote short
fiction and a single novel, The Dry
Wood (1947).
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HOUSTON, BILLIE (15 Oct 1906 – 30 Sept
1972)
(pseudonym of Sarah McMahon Gribbin, married names
Wilton, Cowper, and Wills-Eve)
1930s
Actress and dancer with her sister Reneé, as the Houston Sisters, and author
of a single mystery, Twice Round the
Clock (1935), a country house mystery which has now been reprinted by
British Library Crime Classics.
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HOWARD, ELIZABETH JANE (26 Mar
1923 – 2 Jan 2014)
(married names Scott, Douglas-Henry, and Amis)
1950s – 2010s
Screenwriter and novelist best known for her five
volume saga The Cazalets, comprised
of The Light Years (1990), Marking Time (1991), Confusion (1993), Casting Off (1995), and All Change (2013),
which traces one family's experiences during World War II. Howard's first
novel, The Beautiful Visit (1950), won
the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize. Others include The Sea Change (1959), After
Julius (1965), Odd Girl Out
(1972), Getting It Right (1982),
and Slipstream (2002). Her third
marriage was to novelist Kingsley Amis, which made her for a number of years
stepmother to novelist Martin Amis.
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Howard, Jean
see MACGIBBON, JEAN
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HOWARD, JOYCE
[BEAUMONT] (28 Feb 1922 – 23 Nov 2010)
1960s, 2000s
Stage and film actress and author of three novels. Two Persons Singular (1960) is a love story set in a low-rent boarding
house in East London, and A Private
View (1961) is about a man reflecting on his life from a state-run home
for the elderly. Four decades later, Howard appears to have self-published a
final novel, Going On (2000), about
an alcoholic in Los Angeles. Howard's film roles included The Night Has Eyes and Miss Fitzherbert. She retired from
acting in 1950 to care for her three children.
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Howard, Linden
see MANLEY-TUCKER, AUDRIE
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Howard, Mary
see EDGAR, MARY
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HOWARTH, SHEILA (29 May 1921 – 23 Nov 1982)
(married name Majdalany)
1960s
Author of two works of fiction—With My Body (1960), comprised of a short story and a novella,
and Bogeyman's Plaything (1962).
She is presumably the same author who wrote gardening and cooking books in
the 1970s. Her first book is partly set in Hollywood, which may mean she's
the Sheila Howorth, from Leeds, born c1921, who got publicity for being
attacked by a taxi driver in Los Angeles in 1947.
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HOWAT,
ETHEL (dates unknown)
1930s
Untraced author of a single short romance, Snake in the Grass (1934).
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HOWE,
BEA (BEATRICE) [ISABEL] (21 Dec 1898 – 6 Jun 1992)
(married name
Lubbock)
1920s
A fringe member of the Bloomsbury Group, Howe published one short novel, A Fairy Leapt Upon My Knee (1927), as
well as biographies of Jane Loudon and Mary Eliza Hawels, and a memoir, A Child in Chile (1957). The Spectator described Fairy as "a tale of two shy and
delicate lovers and a very odd fairy" and summed it up as "charmed
and wistful, like the tears in the cup of the crown-imperial, or the opening
of evening primroses." Simon at Stuck in a Book reviewed it here.
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HOWE,
DORIS [KATHLEEN] (23 Sept 1904 – 10 Jul 1994)
(aka Newlyn
Nash [with Muriel Howe], aka Kaye Stewart, aka Mary Munro)
1940s – 1970s
Sister of Muriel HOWE. Author of more than 40 novels, mostly romances, though
Wild Garlic (1962) and The Affair at Claife Manor (1963),
written with her sister, seem to be romantic suspense. Other titles include The Touchstone (1945), All Vigil Ended (1947), The Happy Pilgrim (1953), Winter Jasmine (1956), Island Destiny (1958), A Red Rose (1960), The Honey Pot (1962), and The Hotel by the Loch (1977).
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Howe, Ethel
see LEWIS, ETHELREDA
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HOWE,
MURIEL (9 Jul 1898 – 4 Dec 1987)
(married name
Smithies, aka Newlyn Nash [with sister Doris Howe])
1940s – 1960s
Sister of Doris HOWE. Author of more than 20 novels, including at least two
collaborations with her sister that appear to have been romantic suspense.
Two of her own titles, The Affair at
Falconers (1957) and Pendragon
(1958) were more straightforward mysteries. Others are If There Be One (1944), Master
of Skelgale (1946), Heatherling
(1950), and Beach of Dreams (1961).
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HOWIS,
ELAINE [VERA] (13 Aug 1900 - 2001)
(née Vivian)
1950s
Author of four novels—All I Want
(1956), The Lily Pond (1957), Almost an Island (1958), and Demand Me Nothing (1960)—and a story
collection, Dazzle the Native
(1956), which seem to have been influenced by Virginia WOOLF. A copy of The Lily Pond was in Barbara PYM's
personal library. I wrote about several of her books here.
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HOY, ELIZABETH (2 Feb 1898 – 7
Nov 1982)
(pseudonym of Alice Nina Conarain)
1930s - 1980
Author of more than 60 Mills & Boon romances. Her many titles include Love in Apron Strings (1933), Sally in the Sunshine (1937), Enchanted Wilderness (1940), The Dark Loch (1948), Fanfare for Lovers (1953), City of Dreams (1959), and The Blue Jacaranda (1975).
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HUDDART, GLADYS M[AUDE]. (dates
unknown)
1920s?
Daughter of
Beatrice HERON-MAXWELL. According to OCEF
she published fiction in the 1920s, but I can find no reference to her in the
British Library catalogue or on Google Books. Perhaps her fiction appeared
only in periodicals.
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HUGHES, MOLLY (MARY) [VIVIAN] (2
Oct 1866 – 29 May 1956)
(née Thomas)
1930s
Author of non-fiction and memoir, as well as one
historical and semi-autobiographical novel, Vivians (1935). She remains best known, however, for her four
memoirs—A London Child of the 1870s
(1934, reprinted by Persephone), A
London Girl of the Eighties (1936), A
London Home of the Nineties (1937), and A London Family Between the Wars (1940).
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HUGHES-GIBB, ELEANOR [MARY] (26 May
1858 – 30 Oct 1947)
(née Wigram)
1900s – 1910s
Author of
several books about botany as well as four novels—The Soul of a Villain (1905), Through
the Rain (1906), His Sister
(1908), and Gilbert Ray (1914). The
last is about labour disputes among iron-workers in northern England.
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HUGHES-STANTON,
BARBARA [LOIS] (17 May 1905 – 18 Jun 1975)
(married name
Brookes)
1930s
Author of three novels, including Nurse
(1933), about "a traditionally wise and kindly nurse," Family Affairs (1934), and Never-Ending (1934).
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HUISH, FRANCES [KATHERINE MARY]
(18 Sept 1904 – 21 Nov 1974)
1940s
Author of a single novel, Selina
Triumphant (1940). A blurb from the Times,
quoted in a publisher's ad, said, "There is plenty of entertainment and
fun in this story of Oxford and life in a girls' school."
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HUKK, JANE [HEPBURN] (1886 – 11 Aug
1957)
(née Batty)
1920s - 1930s
Author of three novels, all concerned to some extent with India, where she
lived for more than a decade with her husband. Abdullah and His Two Strings (1926) is about an Indian student at
Edinburgh University who, though already married at home, falls in love with
his landlady’s daughter. In The Bridal
Creeper (1928), “a young man marries out of his class, and repents in
India, where he and his wife each seek suitable consolation.” And End of a Marriage (1935) deals with
the World War I marriage between an Indian man and a Scottish woman, who vow
never to meet again, but do, unexpectably, under very different
circumstances. Following her return from India, Hukk lived in Berwick. She
was a stepsister to Anne HEPPLE, and in a 1929 interview Hepple said she was
inspired to try her hand at writing because Hukk had been successful at it.
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HULL, E[DITH]. M[AUDE]. (16 Aug
1880 – 11 Feb 1947)
(née Henderson, aka Edith Maud Winstanley)
1910s – 1930s
Author of seven novels, none so famous as her enormously successful debut, The Sheik (1919), which became a film
starring Rudolph Valentino. The Literary
Review called the book "[p]oisonously salacious in conception,"
but that didn't stop the British edition from going through 108 impressions
in the four years after publication. Hull's subsequent novels, including a
sequel, were less successful. Titles are The
Shadow of the East (1921), The
Desert Healer (1923), Sons of the
Sheik (1925), The Lion-Tamer
(1928), The Captive of Sahara
(1931), and The Forest of Terrible
Things (1939, aka Jungle Captive).
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HULL,
KATHARINE (18 Jul 1921 – 13 Nov 1977)
(married name
Buxton)
1930s – 1940s
Author of four popular children's books with Pamela WHITLOCK, most famously The Far-Distant Oxus (1937), written
when the pair were still teenagers, about six children on their own in
Exmoor. The others are Escape to Persia
(1938), Oxus in Summer (1939), and Crowns (1947).
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HULL, VERONICA (dates unknown)
1950s
Author of a single novel, The Monkey Puzzle (1958), tracing the difficulties of an unhappy
young woman in bohemian London. According to an interview with thriller
writer Robin Cook, who apparently dated Hull for a time, the novel was a roman à clef about philosopher A. J.
Ayer's scandalous behavior with female students. Hull was also a translator
of works from French to English.
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HULME,
AUDREY (dates unknown)
1950s
Untraced author of a single novel, Lawyer's
Folly (1959), about the effects of a solicitor's misconduct on six
characters.
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HUMBLE-SMITH, MYLDREDE (26 Jan
1885 - 1978)
1920s
Author of a single girls' school novel, The
Girls of Chiltern Towers (1929).
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HUMPHRIES, HELEN S[PEIRS]. (27
May 1915 - 2014)
(née Dickie, middle name has sometimes been spelled as Spiers, but her
birth record has Speirs)
1950s – 1970s
Author of ten Christian-themed girls' stories, including a series of six set
at St. Margaret's school—Margaret the
Rebel (1957), Margaret of St.
Margaret's (1959), Changes for St.
Margaret's (1960), St. Margaret's
Girls Branch Out (1961), Return to
St. Margaret's (1962), and St.
Margaret's Trials and Triumphs (1964). Her other, standalone stories are The Strange New Girl (1964), Prudence Goes Too Far (1966), The Secrets of the Castle (1967), and The Twins Who Weren't (1972).
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HUNT,
DOROTHY A[LICE]. (26 Feb 1896 – 17 Apr 1982)
(married name
Fellows, aka Doric Collyer)
1920s – 1950s
Author whose books have sometimes been misattributed to Dorothy Alice
BONAVIA-HUNT (see my post about working through the confusion here). This Hunt
wrote eight novels, including the pseudonymous Ann of the House of Barlow (1926)—the Collyer from her pseudonym
was her mother's maiden name—and, under her own name, Unfettered (1937), Reflection
(1937), Vagabonds All (1938), Watching Eyes (1940), Meet Madame Mazova (1942), The Amazing Paradox (1948), and Ashes of Achievement (1959). According
to her grandnephew, she had been an active suffragette and also gave one or
more recitals at London's Wigmore Hall.
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HUNT, ELIZABETH M. (22 Jan 1917 – 20
Dec 2000)
(real name Elizabeth Joyce Hunt, married name
Green)
1940s
Actress, screenwriter, and author of
a single novel, The Eagle Lies Bleeding (1947), tracing a family’s
experiences in Poland from 1919 to the novel’s present. It’s unclear where
the initial “M” she used for the book came from, as her middle name is
clearly Joyce on all her records.
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HUNT, [ISABEL] VIOLET (28 Sept
1862 – 16 Jan 1942)
1890s – 1920s
Novelist and memoirist known for her early
"new woman" novels, her Kensington literary salons, and her affairs
with the likes of W. Somerset Maugham, H. G. Wells, and Ford Madox Ford. The Workaday Woman (1906) flirts with
themes of working women, while White
Rose of Weary Leaf (1908), often considered her best work, was risqué for
its day. Zeppelin Nights (1917),
written with Ford, is a sort of Canterbury Tales for World War I, though the
content is primarily historical and not war-related. The Last Ditch (1918), however, is described as an epistolary
novel about a mother and two daughters and their experiences during the war.
She also earned acclaim for her biography, The Wife of Rossetti: Her Life and Death (1932). Other fiction
includes The Maiden's Progress
(1894), Sooner or Later (1904), The House of Many Mirrors (1915), Their Lives (1916), and Their Hearts (1921), as well as a two
volumes of ghost stories, Tales of the
Uneasy (1911) and More Tales of the
Uneasy (1925). Hunt published a memoir, The Flurried Years (1926), and reportedly inspired two of Ford
Madox Ford's characters—Florence in The
Good Soldier and Sylvia in Parade's
End—as well as Rose in Somerset Maugham's The Moon and Sixpence. She also modelled for paintings by Edward
Burne-Jones and Walter Sickert. Hunt's final book appeared in 1932, but her
tragic final illness in London during the Blitz reportedly inspired the main
character in Norah HOULT's powerful novel There
Were No Windows (1944).
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Hunter, Clementine
see KEYNES, HELEN MARY
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HUNTER,
ELIZABETH [MARY TERESA] (24 Oct 1934 – 1 May 2005)
(aka Isobel
Chace, aka Elizabeth de Guise)
1960s – 1990s
Author of nearly 50 romances, most for Mills & Boon and under her Chace
pseudonym. Titles include The Japanese
Lantern (1960), Cherry-Blossom
Clinic (1961), Spiced with Cloves
(1963), The Rhythm of Flamenco
(1966), A Garland of Marigolds
(1967), The Beads of Nemesis
(1974), A Time to Wed (1984), and Bridge of Sighs (1992).
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HUNTSMAN, HILDEGARDE [RUTH] (14
Sept 1904 – 11 Apr 1999)
(née Jones)
1920s – 1930s
Author of three novels, the first of which, The Laughing String (1929, published in the U.S. as Mad Fingers), may owe something to The Constant Nymph: "A
well-written English story of an irresponsible artist's family, more
particularly of Anna, practical and level-headed, a balance wheel in
confusion." Butterflies Have Wings
(1931) is about the frustrations of a young girl whose parents don't realize
she's growing up. I could find no details her final novel, Martha and Mary (1935). In the 1950s,
Huntsman published two one-act plays for all-women casts. According to an
Ancestry family tree, she may have gone by the nickname "Garda".
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Hurnscot, Loran
see TAYLOR, GAY
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Hurst, Anna
see TRUSCOTT, L. PARRY
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HURST,
IDA (dates unknown)
1940s
Best known for adventurous travel books as the "vagabond typist,"
beginning with Wander-Thirst
(1936), but also credited with two novels, African Heart-Beat (1947) and I'll
Walk Beside You (1949), Hurst's identity is a bit of a mystery.
Contemporary reviews tell varying stories of her origins and her decision to
up sticks from her typist job to travel the world, but John Herrington has
been unable to trace her in public records. According to the archive of her
publisher, Hutchinson, a contract for one of the novels was indeed signed by
an Ida Hurst, but the surviving contracts for her travel books were all
signed by one Robert Goodwin Smith (1907-1996). Was Smith in fact the author
all along, or is there another explanation? For now, it remains a mystery.
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HURST,
SYBIL (dates unknown)
1920s – 1930s
Untraced author of seven romances, including She Wanted to Shine (1927), A
Sorry Start (1928), The Pretender
(1928), The Daughter-in-Law (1928),
Her Enemy (1930), A Girl of Grit (1934), and Out for Luxury (1935).
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HURT, FREDA M[ARY ELIZABETH].
(14 Jun 1911 – 1 Jan 1999)
1950s – 1970s
Author of more than 30 volumes of children's fiction and 16 mysteries. Her
children's books include two school stories, The Wonderful Birthday (1953) and Fun Next Door (1954). Others include her Mr. Twink series
(1953-1962), her Andy series (1953-1965), and standalone titles like The Exciting Summer (1956), Intruders at Pinetops (1958), The Caravan Cat (1963), and Benny and the Dolphin (1968). Her
mysteries, most or all of which feature series character Inspector Herbert
Broom, are The Body at Busman's Hollow
(1959), Death by Bequest (1960), Sweet Death (1961), Acquainted with Murder (1962), Death and the Bridegroom (1963), Cold and Unhonoured (1964), A Cause for Malice (1966), Death and the Dark Daughter (1966), So Dark a Shadow (1967), Seven Year Secret (1968), Death in the Mist (1969), Dangerous Visit (1971), Dark Design (1972), Return to Terror (1974), and Fatal Fortune (1975).
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HUTCHINSON,
VERE [STUART-MENTETH] (1891 – 7 Aug 1932)
1920s
Sister of novelist A. S. M. Hutchinson, and author of four novels—Sea Wrack (1922), The Naked Man (1925), Great
Waters (1926), and The Dark Freight
(1928)—and one story collection, The
Other Gate and Other Stories (1928).
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HUXLEY, ELSPETH [JOSCELINE] (23
Jul 1907 – 10 Jan 1997)
(née Grant)
1930s – 1980s
Journalist, travel writer, biographer, and author
of fifteen volumes of fiction. She is best known for her autobiographical
novel, The Flame Trees of Thika (1959), about her childhood in Kenya, and its sequels, The Mottled Lizard (1962) and Love Among the Daughters (1968). Early
in her career, she published three mystery novels, also set in Africa—Murder on Safari (1938), Murder at Government House (1939), and
Death of an Aryan (1939, aka The African Poison Murders). These
were described by the St. James Guide
to Crime & Mystery Writers as "[a] cross between P.G. Wodehouse
and Evelyn Waugh." She later returned to the genre with The Merry Hippo (1963, aka The Incident at the Merry Hippo),
which deals with murders among a delegation concerned with decolonization of
a fictional African state. Her other novels are Red Strangers (1939), The
Walled City (1948), I Don’t Mind If
I Do (1951), A Thing to Love
(1954), The Red Rock Wilderness
(1957), A Man from Nowhere (1964), The Prince Buys the Manor: An Extravaganza
(1982), and Last Days in Eden
(1984). During World War II, she published Atlantic Ordeal: The Story of Mary Cornish (1941), about the 1940
sinking of the City of Benares with
90 child evacuees on board. Among her numerous works of non-fiction and
African travel writing, Out in the
Midday Sun: My Kenya (1985) contains the non-fiction stories of early
European settlers in Kenya.
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Huxley, Helen
see FOLEY, HELEN
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HUXTABLE, MARJORIE (4 Jul 1897 –
2 Jan 1955)
(née Evans, later married name Fedden, aka Simon Dare, aka Marjorie
Stewart)
1920s – 1950s
Prolific author of nearly 100 romantic novels under
her two pseudonyms, including The
Little Upstart (1927), As a Peat
Fire Burns (1928), The Splash of a
Wave (1930), Handful of Stars
(1932), Blind Madonna (1933), April Whirlwind (1934), Cocktail Bar (1936), Mask Concealing (1938), Hunt the Horizon (1940), Cometh the Whirlwind (1943), Crocus Under Foot (1945), Buttered Toast (1946), No Goose So Grey (1949), Monk's Island (1953), and Spray on the Wind (1956). She also
published at least two children's books, including The Witch of the Green Glass Mountain (1939) and Riding School (1945), about riding
stables during wartime.
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Hyde, Eleanor
see COWEN, FRANCES [GERTRUDE]
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HYDE, ELIZABETH (23 Dec 1891 –
19 Apr 1982)
(pseudonym of Elizabeth
Hyde Macmurray, née Campbell)
1930s, 1950s?
Author of a single novel, Out of the Earth (1935), apparently
influenced by D. H. Lawrence and autobiographical in subject, taking
inspiration from her unconventional open marriage with professor and
philosopher John Macmurray. The couple lived at one point with a male lover
of Macmurray’s, and in the 1950s lived in Edinburgh. It’s so far impossible
to be sure if she is also the otherwise untraced author of two girls' school
stories, Valerie of Gaunt Crag
(1956) and Babette of Bayfern Manor
(1957), both set on the Cornish Coast. However, it’s known that Hyde
Macmurray worked in a girls’ school for a time after her marriage. She is
also referred to as an artist. An alternative theory, that the school story
author was actually one Frances Newton, stems from a contemporary listing of
the books in which that name is used instead of Hyde—perhaps the publisher
allowing a real name to creep in instead of a pen name?
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ILES, [GLADYS] MARGARET (27 Feb
1901 – 6 Jan 1976)
1930s – 1940s
Author of five novels—Season Ticket
(1934), Elder Daughter (1936), Perry’s Cows (1937), Burden of Tyre (1939), and Nobody’s Darlings (1942). The last is
about wartime evacuees in a rural village. On the 1939 England & Wales
Register, she is listed as a "teacher and novelist" living in
King's Lynn, Norfolk.
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INCE,
GERTRUDE (dates unknown)
1920s – 1930s
Untraced author of three romantic tales, The
Silent Lover (1929), The Break in
Her Love Line (1930), and A Girl
Unknown (1931).
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INCE, MABEL [EMILY] (25 Feb 1870
– 14 May 1941)
1900s – 1910s, 1930s
Illustrator, children's writer, and author of at least four novels—The Wisdom of Waiting (1912), The Commonplace & Clementine
(1914), The Preacher (1935) and Man's Estate (1937). The latter two,
at least, seem to have received some critical acclaim. She published two
children's books, Our Ups and Downs
(1905) and The Darrydingle Dragon
(1907).
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INCHBOLD,
A. CUNNICK (1858 – 21 Jan 1939)
(née Ada Alice
Cunnick, aka Mrs. Stanley Inchbold)
1890s - 1920
Wife of artist Stanley Inchbold and author of nine novels, as well as two
travel books about the Middle East and Portugal. Titles include Princess Feather (1899), The Silver Dove (1900), The Letter Killeth: A Romance of the
Sussex Downs (1905), Phantasma
(1906), Love in a Thirsty Land
(1914), Love and the Crescent
(1918), and Sallie of Painter's Bakery
(1920).
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INCHFAWN, FAY (2 Dec 1880 – 16
Apr 1978)
(pseudonym of Elizabeth Rebecca Ward, née Daniels)
1920s – 1940s
Poet, memoirist, and novelist whose light verse and
sketches about village life were highly successful, beginning with The Verse-Book of a Homely Woman
(1920). Her sketches and memoirs include Journal
of a Tent-Dweller (1931), Living in
a Village (1937), As I Lay Thinking
(1950), Something More to Say
(1965), and Not the Final Word
(1969). Salute to the Village
(1943), which I reviewed here, is about
wartime in Freshford, Somerset, where Inchfawn lived. Those Remembered Days (1963) is more of a formal memoir that
covers the same period. Inchfawn also wrote three novels—Sweet Water and Bitter (1927), which, considerably darker than
most of her work, deals with an unmarried girl who bears a child as the
result of a rape, The Life Book of Mary
Watt (1935), and Barrow Down Folk
(1948). Mary: A Tale for the
Mother-Hearted (1926) appears to be a short work of fiction.
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Inglis,
John
see CLIFFORD, LUCY JANE
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INGLIS,
SUSAN (12 Nov 1898 – 22 Apr 1970)
(pseudonym of
Doris Nicol Paske Mackie)
1930s – 1960s
Author of more than 20 romantic novels, including Married Man's Girl (1934), Uncertain
Flame (1937), Too Many Men
(1939), Sara Steps In (1947), Jill Takes a Chance (1949), Highland Holiday (1952), The Loving Heart (1954), and The Old Hunting Lodge (1961).
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INGLIS-JONES,
ELISABETH [WINIFRED] (4 Jan 1900 – 18 Sept 1994)
1920s – 1940s
Author of six novels, most set in Caredigion (then called Cardiganshire) in
Wales and some at least sounding distinctly Brontëesque. Starved Fields (1929) was controversial for its portrayals of
drunkenness, adultery, and illegitimate children in the 1890s. Crumbling Pageant (1932), which was
reprinted by Honno Press in 2015, is about a young woman's obsession with a
decaying mansion. Pay thy Pleasure
(1939) is, according to Saturday Review,
about "Esther Girling, a passionate woman who has been denied all
passion by the fact of her physical ugliness, and Lew Gower, a man of much
spirit and few scruples, who finds it useful to play the ardent lover. These
are two elements of heat and cold mismated; they flare up briefly in a
compound as violent as it is foredoomed." Her other novels are The Loving Heart (1942), Lightly He Journeyed (1946), and Aunt Albinia (1948). She later
published the non-fiction Peacocks in
Paradise (1950), about Hafod Uchtryd, a historic estate in Caredigion,
and several biographies.
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Ingram, Grace
see ADAMS, DORIS SUTCLIFFE
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INNES-BROWNE,
JESSIE ELIZABETH (1853 – 6 Apr 1914)
(née Stickney,
aka Mrs. Innes-Brown)
1890s – 1910s
Author of at least three novels—Three
Daughters of the United Kingdom (1897), Honour Without Renown (1900), and A Garland of Everlasting Flowers (1906)—and one posthumous
children's title that qualifies her for this list, Little Donald (1916).
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INSKIP, BETTY
(6 Nov 1905 – 4 Aug 1945)
(full name
Constance Elizabeth Hamilton Inskip, married name Fellner)
1920s – 1930s
Author of three novels—The Ravelled
Sleeve (1929), which sounds like a cheerful romance, Step to a Drum (1931), described as "a picture of life
through the eyes of an essentially modern girl", and Pink Faces (1939), set in Austria
before the rise of the Nazis. Inskip died of complications from childbirth at
the age of 39.
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Iota
see KATHLEEN MANNINGTON CAFFYN
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IRBY, CHRISTIAN (dates unknown)
1930s
Untraced author of three novels—Cardinal
Molina: The Story of a Matador (1938), Marcus Revell (1938), and Rainbow
of Glory (1940). Researcher John Herrington narrowed her identity down to
a mother and daughter who share the name—Louisa Christian Irby, née Fellowes
(1874 – 20 Jan 1942) and Christian Geraldine Mary Irby (1913 – 1967)—but
we've been unable to determine which is the novelist.
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Ireland, Doreen
see LORD, DOREEN MILDRED
DOUGLAS
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Ireland, Noelle
see BRADLEY, NORAH MARY
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IREMONGER, LUCILLE [D'OYEN] (3
Jun 1915 – 7 Jan 1989)
(née Parks)
1950s, 1970s – 1980s
Novelist, travel writer, and biographer born in Jamaica. Her novels are Creole (1950), The Cannibals (1952), about an amnesiac girl in Fiji, How Do I Love Thee (1976), a fictionalized
biography of Robert and Elizabeth Browning, and My Sister, My Love (1981),
about Lord Byron's love affair with his half sister. She also wrote several
biographical works, including The
Ghosts of Versailles (1957), an examination of Miss Moberly and Miss
Jourdain's adventures at Versailles.
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IRONS, GENEVIÈVE [MARY] (28 Dec
1855 – 13 Dec 1928)
1900s – 1910s
Author of five novels with strongly Catholic
themes. The Mystery of the Priest's
Parlour (1911) has loosely crime-related themes, concerning a priest who
serves a long prison sentence for murder before the real killer’s confession
allows him to return to his calling. The others are A Maiden up to Date (1908), The
Making of Molly (1908), The Damsel
Who Dared (1909), and In the
Service of the King (1912). She also published two books for children, Only a Doll and Other Sunday Afternoon
Stories for Catholic Children (1904) and A Torn Scrap Book: Talks and Tales, Illustrative of the "Our
Father" (1908).
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IRONSIDE, JOHN (23 Feb 1866 -
1945)
(pseudonym of Euphemia Margaret Tait)
1910s – 1940s
Author of
nine novels, most of them mysteries. Titles are The Red Symbol (1911), Forged
in Strong Fires (1912), The
Call-Box Mystery (1923, aka The
Phone Booth Mystery), Chris: A Love
Story (1926), Jack of Clubs
(1931), The Marten Mystery (1933), Blackmail (1938), Lady Pamela's Pearls (1941), and The Crime and the Casket (1945). Her one title published under
her own name was Every Day: A Book of
Comfort and Counsel Compiled from the Scriptures (1933).
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IRONSIDE, MARGARET HUNTER (25
Apr 1884 – 26 Sept 1970)
1920s – 1930s
Author of six girls' school stories—The
Girls of St. Augustine's (1920), The
Mysterious Something (1925), The
Black Sheep of St. Michael's (1928), Young
Diana (1931), The Tale-Tellers'
Club (1932), and Jane Emerges
(1937).
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IRVINE, A[MY]. (AMELIA) M[ARY].
(13 Apr 1866 – 20 Nov 1950)
1900s – 1930s
Author of at least 18 volumes of fiction, including novels for adults and
school stories for both girls and boys. She seems to have written four
novels—The Specialist (1904), Roger Dinwiddie, Soul Doctor (1907), The Probationer (1910), and The Dreams of Orlow (1916)—some of
these reflecting an interest in the occult. Sims & Clare praise her
girls' school stories, which include Cliff
House (1908), A Girl of the Fourth
(1910), The Worst Girl in the School
(1912), Nora, the Girl Guide
(1913), Naida the Tenderfoot
(1919), The Girl Who Was Expelled
(1920), The Girl Who Ran Away
(1921), The School Enemy (1925), A School Conspiracy (1926), Adventurous Jean (1934), Quiet Margaret (1935). Her other
titles are The Two J. G.'s (1930)
and Scouts to the Rescue (1932),
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IRWIN, MARGARET [EMMA FAITH] (27
Mar 1889 – 11 Dec 1967)
(married name Monsell)
1910s – 1950s
Author of 20 volumes of fiction, best known today for her historical trilogy
about Elizabeth I—Young Bess
(1944), Elizabeth, Captive Princess
(1948), and Elizabeth and the Prince of
Spain (1953)—and for three early works of fantasy and time travel,
including the novels Still She Wished
for Company (1924) and These
Mortals (1925) and the story collection Madame Fears the Dark (1935). Her other fiction is How Many Miles to Babylon? (1913), Come Out to Play (1914), Out of the House (1916), Who Will Remember? (1924), Knock Four Times (1927), Fire Down Below (1928), None So Pretty (1930), Royal Flush: The Story of Minette
(1932), The Proud Servant: The Story of
Montrose (1934), The Stranger
Prince: The Story of Rupert of the Rhine (1937), The Bride: The Story of Louise and Montrose (1939), Mrs. Oliver Cromwell and Other Stories
(1940), The Gay Galliard: The Love
Story of Mary Queen of Scots (1941), and Bloodstock and Other Stories (1953). She published one biography,
The Great Lucifer: A Portrait of Sir
Walter Raleigh (1936), and one other very short work, South Molton Street (1927), with the
subtitle, “Then as Now, the Favoured Resort of Modish Mayfair,” and includes
details of William Blake’s time living on that street.
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Averil Ives
see IDA [JULIE] POLLOCK
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Where is Eva Ibbotson? She is described on Wikipedia as a British novelist born in Austria. I knew her short stories, which often appeared in the UK Good Housekeeping magazine in the 60s and 70s - I know she has written many novels too.
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