British & Irish Women Writers of Fiction 1910-1960 (A)

For more information about this list, please see the introduction, linked below. 

INTRODUCTION
A	BA–BH	BI-BO	BR-BY	CA-CLA
CLE-CU	D	E-FI	FL-GI	GL-HAR
HAS-HOL	HOO-I	J-K	L	MA
MC-MY	N-O	P-Q	R	SA-SM
SN-SY	T	U-WE	WH-Z
KEY & CITATIONS

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

 

ABBOTT, K[ATE]. N[ELSON]. (28 Mar 1874 – 24 Feb 1931) 1930s Author of a single children's title, The Camp at Sea View Meadow (1929), subtitled "A Girl Guide Story," as well as several stories included in collections of girls' stories.

ABBOTT, NINA (1860 - 1930) (pseudonym of Selina Sara Jacob, née Collinson, aka Nana Collinson) 1930s - 1940s Mother of novelist and memoirist Naomi JACOB. Her claim to be on this list is shaky. Although she is credited as the author of three novels—Look at the Clock: A Yorkshire Novel (1939), Shadow Drama (1940), and Balance Suspended (1942)—it seems that the first was completed by her daughter after her death, and the other two were written entirely by Jacob from Abbott's notes. Jacob wrote about her in her memoir Robert, Nana and—Me: A Family Chronicle (1952).

ABBYFORDE, JOHN (1878 – 1933) (pseudonym of Edith May Hollinshead, née Jenkin) 1920s Author of a single novel, The Flaw (1929), about industrial life in Yorkshire. She reportedly also published a number of periodical stories using the same pseudonym.

Aberconway, Baroness           see MACLAREN, CHRISTABEL

ABERCROMBIE, P. B. (20 Jul 1917 – 7 May 2003) (pseudonym of Patricia Barnes, née Abercrombie) 1950s – 1970s Author of eight novels, some of which received acclaim from the likes of John Betjeman, Marghanita Laski, and Angus Wilson, the last of whom called her "the most interesting of our young novelists." Much of her work is humorous, with darker underlying themes. I reviewed The Little Difference (1959), set in and around a girls' boarding school, here. Some of her later work, including Pity (1965), about a kidnapped child, is more serious. Her sixth novel, Fido Couchant (1961, aka The Grasshopper Heart), was reviewed at Neglected Books here. The other novels are The Rescuers (1952), A Lease of Life (1953), Victor and the Vanquished (1956), The Child of Fortune (1957), and The Brou-Ha-Ha (1972).

ABRAHALL, CLARE [CONSTANCE MARIA] HOSKYNS (31 Jan 1900 - 29 Nov 1990) (née Drury, aka C. M. Drury, aka Clare Constance Maria Drury) 1930s – 1970s Author of children's fiction and non-fiction. Kit Norris, Schoolgirl Pilot (1937), is in part a school story, as is Chris of Crighton's (1964). Other fiction includes From Serf to Page (1939) and Priscilla's Caravan (1939). In the 1940s she was divorced from her husband, who then married another girls' author, L[ois]. J[ennet]. OGLE.

Acland, Alice           see MARRECO, ANNE

ACLAND, ELEANOR [MARGARET] (1878 – 12 Dec 1933) (née Cropper, aka Margaret Burneside, aka Eleanor Cropper) 1890s – 1930s Friends, along with her husband, with E. M. Forster. Author, under her Burneside pseudonym, of The Delusion of Diana (1898), about a “spoiled and reckless heroine … a brilliant study of the modern up-to-date young woman.” Under her maiden name, Eleanor Cropper, she published In the Straits of Hope (1904), about the romance of a young artist in Chelsea. Under her married name, she published Dark Side Out (1921), a multi-generational family saga about Westmorland mill-owners. Goodbye for the Present (1935), published posthumously, is a pair of memoirs, the first of Acland’s own childhood, and the second of her daughter Ellen, who had died in 1924, aged eleven.

ADAIR, HAZEL (30 May 1900 - 1 Oct 1990) (pseudonym of Hazel Iris Addis, née Wilson, aka A. J. Heritage, aka H. I. Addis) 1930s – 1950s Often confused with Hazel Joyce Willett below. Author of more than 20 novels, which seem to be mainly light tales of romance and social life. Mistress Mary (1936) is described as the “story of how a woman, a self-admitted social outcast, shocked a village yet won approval in the end.” Mahogany and Deal (1940, aka One for the Money) is “a delightfully-told romance concerning two twins, one of whom carries out an elaborate system of swindling at the expense of her more honest sister.” And Quoth the Raven (1947) is about a woman who brings her children to live in an English village, only to find her secret past catching up with her. Other titles include Wanted a Son (1935), A Torch Is Lit (1936), All the Trumpets (1937), Red Bunting (1938), Over the Stile (1938), Sparrow Market (1938), Cockadays (1940), The Enamelled Bird-Cage (1945), Challenge to Seven (1949), and No Bells Rang (1953). Her one novel as A. J. Heritage, The Happy Years (1938), is about the tragedies and sorrows visited upon a woman with second sight. As H. I. Addis, she collaborated on New Plays for Wolf Cubs (1935). See here for information on both Hazel Adairs.

ADAIR, HAZEL (9 July 1920 – 22 Nov 2015) (pseudonym of Hazel Joyce Willett, married names Mackenzie, Hamblin, and Marriott, aka Clare Nicol) 1950s, 1980s Television actress, producer, and writer, sometimes confused with Hazel Iris Addis above. She co-wrote two novelizations from television programs, Stranger from Space (1953) and Life in Emergency Ward 10 (1959). Later, she published an additional novel, as Clare Nicol, Blitz on Balaclava Street (1983), about an ambulance driver in WWII. See here for more information on both Hazel Adairs.

Adair, Cecil           see EVERETT-GREEN, EVELYN

ADAM, RUTH [AUGUSTA] (14 Dec 1907 – 3 Feb 1977) (née King) 1930s – 1960s Journalist, historian, and author of nine socially conscious novels. Her debut, War on Saturday Week (1937), follows a group of siblings from childhood during World War I to the outbreak of World War II (only a fear at the time the novel was published, but it must have seemed inevitable). I'm Not Complaining (1938), which was reprinted by Virago in the 1980s, is about a schoolteacher's growing political involvement in Depression-era England. There Needs No Ghost (1939), humorously contrasts the reactions of villagers and Bloomsburyites to the Munich Crisis. Murder in the Home Guard (1942) is Adam's only experiment with a murder mystery, set in an English village which faces its first bombing raid and the murder of a Home Guardsman on the same night. A House in the Country (1957) is a humorous look at a group of friends living together in a former manor house. Her other novels, often reflecting her concern about children of broken or unhappy homes, are Set to Partners (1947), So Sweet a Changeling (1954), Fetch Her Away (1954), and Look Who's Talking (1960). Adam also published the important historical survey A Woman’s Place, 1910-1975 (1975, reprinted by Persephone), and two girls' stories—A Stepmother for Susan of St. Bride's (1958) and Susan and the Wrong Baby (1961). From 1944-1976, Adam wrote a women's page for the Church of England Newspaper, and her perspective as a Christian socialist feminist was undoubtedly surprising on occasion for that readership, but apparently popular, as she continued for more than three decades. A House in the Country was reprinted by Dean Street Press as a Furrowed Middlebrow book in 2020. I've written about Adam several times here.

ADAMS, AGNES [LOUISE LOGAN] (10 Aug 1891 – 6 Jun 1951) (aka Agnes Logan) 1920s – 1930s Author of more than a dozen works of fiction for children and adults. Doddles (1920) and Doddles Makes Things Hum (1927) are two school-related stories mentioned by Sims & Clare. Other children's titles include Our Lil: A Village Story (1923), The Cottage in the Woods (1925), and Those Shepton Children (1928). Her three adult novels, published under her pseudonym (using her mother's maiden name), were The Necessary Man (1929), about a Bedfordshire farming family, There Is a Tide (1930), and Comfort Me with Apples (1936), about apple growing, possibly based on that of the village of Cockayne Hatley in Bedfordshire.

ADAMS, DORIS SUTCLIFFE (1920 – 8 Aug 2015) (aka Grace Ingram) 1950s – 1970s Author of six well-regarded historical novels, the first four under her own name, the last two under her pseudonym. Desert Leopard (1958) and No Man's Son (1961) are set in the time of the Crusades, The Price of Blood (1962) in the days of Viking attacks on England, and Power of Darkness (1967) during the reign of King John. The two novels as Grace Ingram—Red Adam's Lady (1973) and Gilded Spurs (1978)—appear to have a bit more of a romantic focus.

Adams, Lily Moresby           see BARRINGTON, E.

ADAMSON, MARGOT ROBERT (1898 – 15 Feb 1979) 1930s – 1960s Scottish poet, travel writer, and novelist. She published two novels in the 1930s—Render Unto Caesar (1934) and Chapter & Verse (1937), the latter described as "[a] dramatic novel set in a Scottish Highland village"—then waited nearly three decades to publish her third and final novel, A Rope of Sand (1965), about Mary Queen of Scots.

ADCOCK, ALMEY ST. JOHN (15 Mar 1894 – 19 Feb 1986) (married name Arundel, aka Hilary March) 1920s – 1940s Sister of Marion St. John WEBB. Author of nearly a dozen novels under her own name and three under her pseudonym. Reviews suggest they tend toward the bleak. The Street Paved with Water (1930) deals with the romance and ultimate tragedy of the daughter of a canal boat operator. Other titles are The Man Who Lived Alone (1923), This Above All (1924), Master Where He Will (1926), Winter Wheat (1926), Wet Weather (1927), The Judas Tree (1928), Simon Wisdom (1929), Poacher's Moon (1929), A Widow on Richmond Green (1930), Up Hill (1932), The Woman at Iron Crag (1934), Tin Town (1939), and The Warped Mirror (1948).

Addis, H. I.           see ADAIR, HAZEL (1900-1990)

ADENEY, GLADYS ELLEN (39 Mar 1884 – 16 Jan 1977) (married name Easdale, aka Francis Adoney, aka Gladys Ellen Killin) 1950s Described in her archives as having spent her life "on the margins of the London literary and musical scene," Adeney numbered Virginia WOOLF and Vita SACKVILLE-WEST among her friends. Her colorful memoir, Middle Age, 1885-1932 (1935), was originally published anonymously, then under her Killin pseudonym. Her one novel, Don't Blame the Stars (1951), was published under her Adoney pseudonym.

ADENEY, [MARJORIE] NOËL (19 Dec 1890 – 24 Jan 1978) (née Gilford) 1950s Artist and author of a single novel, No Coward Soul (1956), based in part on her relationship with novelist and artist Denton Welch. She attended the Slade and was a member of the London Group of artists.

Adler, Irene           see STORR, CATHERINE

Adoney, Francis           see ADENEY, GLADYS ELLEN

AGAR, WINIFRED [MABEL] (11 Nov 1901 – 25 Apr 1984) (married name Mackintosh) 1930s - 1940 Born in Buenos Aires to mixed Irish/American/British parents, Agar later married a Brit and lived most of her adult life in London. Her first novel, Living Aloud (1938), was a biting, critically acclaimed satire of Bright Young Things. Her second, Mermaids Sleep Alone (1940), described as a comedy about an “economist who writes airy-fairy sentimental stories and articles under a woman’s name,” appeared after she had evacuated to the U.S. with her children.

AGNEW, [ALEXANDRA] GEORGETTE (11 Jun 1865 – 12 Jun 1957) (née Christian, aka Nevin Halys) 1890s – 1910s Playwright, poet, and author of five volumes of romantic fiction—Marianna and Other Stories (1899), The Countess: A Summer Idyll (1905), The Night that Brings Out Stars (1908), The Bread Upon the Waters (1911), and Elaine's Party (1913). After 1913, she appears to have written mostly poetry and drama, some using her pseudonym.

AGUTTER, KAY (KATHLEEN) [MARY MELITA] (19 Feb 1900 – 8 Feb 1965) (aka M. J. Stuart) 1920s - 1930s Journalist and author of four novels. Three novels appeared pseudonymously in the 1920s—The Valiant Gentleman (1924), about a young woman who finds herself divorced at 22, Grafted Stock (1925), about a man who tries to settle down on the family estate after years spent living in Morocco, and Brass Pot and Clay (1927), about the married lives of two sisters with very different attitudes. One final novel, Nothing Is Past (1939), is a dark tale of a man whose past traumas turn him into a murderer, appeared under her own name.

AIKEN, JOAN [DELANO] (4 Sept 1924 – 4 Jan 2004) (married names Brown and Goldstein) 1950s – 2000s Novelist and children's author whose first story collection, All You've Ever Wanted, appeared in 1953, thus qualifying her for this list. Best known for The Wolves of Willoughby Chase (1962), set in an alternate historical version of England, and the series of nearly a dozen sequels that followed it, Aiken also wrote ghost tales, gothic suspense, mystery novels, including Trouble with Product X (1966, aka Beware the Bouquet) and Foul Matter (1983), and a series of Jane Austen sequels.

Ainsworth, Harriet           see CADELL, ELIZABETH

Airlie, Catherine           see MACLEOD, JEAN SUTHERLAND

AITKEN, HANNAH [MARY] (3 May 1911 – 1977) 1940s – 1950s Scottish folklorist and author of four novels, often praised for their quiet plots and vivid characterization. In a Shaft of Sunlight (1947) is set in Edinburgh and deals with “an ordinary family linked from childhood with their unordinary friend, Victoria.” Whittans (1951) is a portrait of a Scots border village, while Seven, Napier Place (1952) is described as a family story set in post-war Edinburgh. Music for the Journey (1957), uniquely, is set amongst a group of travellers on holiday in Greece—“the mood of scene and place is delightfully evoked.” She edited an anthology, A Forgotten Heritage: Original Folk Tales of Lowland Scotland (1973). Her father was a Church of Scotland minister and her mother published four novels of her own under the pseudonym Jean Oliver RIDDELL. Tragically, Aitken disappeared during a forest walk in January 1977, and her body was only discovered six months later.

Alan, Jane           see CHISHOLM, LILIAN MARY

ALAN, MARJORIE (22 Jun 1905 – 25 May 1968) (pseudonym of Doris Marjorie Bumpus, aka Doris M. Bumpus) 1940s – 1950s Author of eight pseudonymous mystery novels, praised for their realism, focus on character, and attention to domestic detail, and two non-mystery novels under her real name. Masked Murder (1945, aka Dark Prophecy) is set at a prewar fancy dress ball, while Murder in November (1946, aka Rue the Day) features the murder of a boorish author. Murder at Puck's Cottage (1951) is about an apparent suicide deceptively occurring in a dwelling nicknamed “Suicide Cottage”. Dark Legacy (1953) deals with a body discovered during renovation of a country house. Murder Looks Back (1955) deals with a married couple stirring things up by re-examining an old murder. Murder in a Maze (1956) features an amnesiac taken up by criminals to obtain an elderly woman’s fortune. The others mysteries are Murder Next Door (1950) and The Ivory Locket (1951). Her non-mysteries are Pattern in Beads (1944), about a country girl’s experiences at boarding-school and then in London, including during the Blitz, and The Dorians (1952), about a pompous playwright’s encounter with an impoverished provincial family.

ALBANESI, ADELAIDE MARIA (1859 – 16 Oct 1936) (pseudonym of Effie Albanesi, née Henderson, aka Effie Rowlands) 1890s – 1930s Author of more than 200 romantic novels, which seem to have been characterized by gushing prose and fainting heroines. Titles include Peter, A Parasite (1901), The Brown Eyes of Mary (1905), The Mistress of the Farm (1910), Poppies in the Corn (1911), The House That Jane Built (1921), Out of a Clear Sky (1925), Claire and Circumstances (1928), Princess Charming (1931), and The Top of the Tree (1937).

ALCOCK, DEBORAH (1835 – 15 Jan 1913) 1870s – 1910s Victorian novelist whose final works appeared in 1910. Her most famous novel, The Spanish Brothers (1870), dealt with Protestant martyrs in the 16th century. Others include The Roman Students (1883), Geneviève (1889), By Far Euphrates (1897), Done and Dared in Old France (1907), No Cross, No Crown (1910), and The King's Service (1910).

ALDINGTON, [JESSIE] MAY (1872 - 1954) (née Godfree, later married name Watkins) 1900s – 1910s Mother of novelist Richard Aldington and innkeeper at the Mermaid Inn in Rye. Author of several novels of Kentish village life, including Love Letters That Caused a Divorce (1905), Meg of the Salt-Pans (1909), A Man of Kent (1913), and The King Called Love (1913).

ALEXANDER, MIRIAM (1879 - ????) (married name Stokes) 1910s – 1920s Author of five novels, at least some of them historical in theme and most focused on Ireland. Her debut, The House of Lisronan (1912, aka Beyond the Law), set during the 17th century Williamite War, went through six editions in 1912 alone. Others are The Port of Dreams (1912), The Ripple (1913), Miss O'Corra, M.F.H. (1915), and The Green Altar (1924). We’ve been able to trace her birth and marriage records, but after that she vanishes from radar.

ALEXANDER, RUTH (1879 – 18 Aug 1958) (married name Rogers) 1920s – 1950s Editor, literary agent, travel writer, and novelist. Author of more than a dozen novels in all, though several of her earliest works were among the first novelizations of plays and films, including Blackmail (1929), Rome Express (1932), Morning Glory (1934), and The Man Who Knew Too Much (1936). Her own novels include Thirst (1925), The Human Element (1926), Give Me Your Heart (1944), Engagement with a Star (1945), What Thing Is Fairest (1947), Beyond the Desert (1948), The Heart's Journey (1950), and Comes in the Light (1951). Her husband died young, after which she lived for many years in South America, the setting of several of her books, and taught at a girls’ school.

Alien           see DAWSON, LOUISA ALICE

ALLAN, DOT (13 May 1886 – 3 Dec 1964) (pseudonym of Eliza McNaughton Luke Allan) 1920s – 1950s Scottish author of 10 novels. Hunger March (1934) explores class in Glasgow during the Depression, while Makeshift (1928) is about the troubled adolescence of an aspiring writer. The others are The Syrens (1921), described as a nautical adventure, The Deans (1929), Deepening River (1932), about a Glasgow shipbuilding family, Virgin Fire (1935), John Mathew, Papermaker (1948), which makes use of her own family’s paper-making history, and three late historical novels about Scotland, Mother of Millions (1953), The Passionate Sisters (1955), and Charity Begins at Home (1958). See here for more information.

ALLAN, MABEL ESTHER (11 Feb 1915 – 14 May 1998) (aka Jean Estoril, aka Priscilla Hagon, aka Anne Pilgrim) 1940s – 1990s Prolific author of nearly 200 books, many of them for children and young girls, including school stories (often focused on progressive schools and unconventional heroines), career stories, coming-of-age tales, holiday adventures, ballet stories, murder mysteries, and suspense. Some of her children's titles have been reprinted by Girls Gone By and Fidra in recent years, and several previously unpublished works for adults were released by Greyladies. Titles include The Glen Castle Mystery (1948), Over the Sea to School (1950), The MacIains of Glen Gillean (1952), Here We Go Round (1954), Margaret Finds a Future (1954), The Vine-Clad Hill (1956, aka Swiss Holiday), Black Forest Summer (1957), Catrin in Wales (1959), The Ballet Family (1963), and many, many more. As Priscilla Hagon, she published fiction for older girls, often romantic and/or suspenseful. She is also particularly famous for her "Drina" series of ballet stories, written under her Jean Estoril pseudonym. I've written about some of her work here.

ALLAN, MEA (MARY ELEANOR) (23 Jun 1909 – 29 Aug 1982) 1940s – 1960s Journalist, war correspondent, editor, writer on gardening and botany, and author of four novels. According to Wikipedia, Allan "was the first female war correspondent accredited by the British military and the first female news editor on Fleet Street." Lonely (1942) is about a sexagenarian who finds love for the first time, while Change of Heart (1943) imagines the Allies winning WWII only to find Nazism regaining ground. Rose Cottage (1961) and Base Rumour (1962) seem to be interrelated, and deal with romance on the Suffolk coast. Later work includes several books about gardening, as well as biographical works about well-known botanists and gardeners, such as The Tradescants: Their Plants, Gardens and Museum, 1570-1662 (1964) and The Hookers of Kew, 1785-1911 (1967).

ALLARDICE, ANNE (8 Jan 1895 – 8 Dec 1983) (pseudonym of Alice Maude Ellen Sampson) 1930s Author of two novels—Unwillingly to School (1930), about a schoolmistress in a Bristol elementary school, based on the author’s own experiences, and The Opening Gate (1932), which follows the experiences of a young girl before and during World War I.

Allardyce, Paula           see TORDAY, URSULA

ALLATINI, ROSE [LAURE] (23 Jan 1890 – 22 Nov 1980) (aka R. Allatini, aka A. T. Fitzroy, aka Eunice Buckley, aka Lucian Wainwright, aka Mrs. Cyril Scott) 1910s – 1970s Author of nearly 40 novels over a staggering 64 year career, most under her several pseudonyms and many highlighting enlightened views on social issues. Best known for her pacifist novel Despised and Rejected (1918), also an early sympathetic portrayal of homosexuality, which was widely banned. During World War II, she published a thematically-linked trilogy of novels about Jewish refugees from Hitler, including Family from Vienna (1941), Destination Unknown (1942), and Blue Danube (1943). I reviewed the first of these here. A number of her other works deal to a greater or lesser extent with her beliefs in Theosophy. Other titles include Happy Ever After (1914), Requiem (1919), When I Was a Queen in Babylon (1921), Girl of a Good Family (1935), Oracle (1937), Rhapsody for Strings (1945), Dark Rainbow (1955), Instead of a Rocking Horse (1957), Conjuring Trick (1963), Wonder-Worker (1975), and Work of Art (1978). She was the companion of Melanie MILLS for a number of years.

ALLCOCK, FLORENCE B[EATRICE]. (7 Aug 1864 – 10 Nov 1944) (married names Tweeddale and Pearce) 1910s – 1930s Author of around a dozen romantic novels, beginning with My Facsimile, or, Isa's Story (1912). Facts and Fiction (1927) seems to be historical in subject. In The Soul of a Hunchback (1931), the title character "sought to win the love of Greta" and "for her sake is called on to make a great sacrifice," and Crikey (1938) also features "a poor lame man of excellent character" who "takes the hero's role, solving the problems of" the opera-singer heroine. Other titles are A Modern Cinderella (1915), Mollie: An Unvarnished Story (1924), Full Stop! (1928), Cenerentola, or, The Course of True Love (1930), Glary O'More, The Film Star (1933), Equality (1934), and What's in a Laugh? (1936). It would be interesting to know more about Allcock’s life, as she seems to have lived quietly at home with her family until she was at least in her 40s, after which she began writing, married for the first time at 58, and later married a second time at age 75, this time to an artist.

ALLDRIDGE, ELISABETH (dates unknown) 1940s Illustrator of Barbara Euphan Todd's Wurzel Gummidge books and author of a single children's title of her own, The Blue Feather Club (1940), about London children discovering the wonders of the countryside. Despite her well-known work in the Gummidge books, attempts to identify her have so far failed.

ALLEN, ALICE MAUD (24 Jan 1881 – 22 Oct 1965) (aka Allen Havens) 1920s – 1930s Author of at least four novels, including the politically-engaged Silhouette (1923), set at a post-WWI "Working Women's Conference," and The Trap (1931), which focuses on a wide range of characters and their experiences with and reactions to the war. The latter was published by the Hogarth Press. Others include Baxters o' the Moor (1922), One Tree (1926), a volume of poetry, The Upland Field (1937), and a biography of Sophy Sanger (1958).

Allen, Barbara           see FINLAY, VIOLET VIVIAN

Allen, C. M.           see ESCOTT, MARGARET

ALLEN, GWENDOLINE (dates unknown) 1940s Untraced author of one girls' school story, The Fourth Form at White Abbey (1945), which was reprinted later the same year in an expanded edition.

ALLEN, PHOEBE [ANNE] (1850 – 18 Feb 1933) 1870s – 1930 Author of more than 30 volumes of fiction for children and adults. Her debut, Gilmory (1876), appeared while she was in her teens. Other titles include The Black Witch of Honeycritch (1886), The Boys of Prior's Dean (1891), Whispering Tongues (1896), Mafeking Day (1901), Granfer Garland (1906), The Mystery of Coxfolly (1908), and Minon, or, The Cat That the King Looked At (1930).

ALLINGHAM, EMMIE [EMILY JANE] (1879 – 5 Mar 1960) (née Hughes) 1920s Mother of mystery writer Margery ALLINGHAM and author of nine novels—Betty's Triumph (1925), The Quiet One of the Family (1926), The Path She Chose (1928), The Opening Door (1928), The One She Betrayed (1928), and Joyce the Second (1929).

ALLINGHAM, MARGERY [LOUISE] (20 May 1904 – 30 Jun 1966) (aka Maxwell March, née Hughes) 1920s – 1960s Prominent "Golden Age" mystery writer, best known for her series featuring detective Albert Campion (and his manservant, Lugg), of which The Tiger in the Smoke (1952), which vividly portrays the underworld of postwar London, is often considered her best. Allingham's own favorite was reportedly The Beckoning Lady (1955), which may have been partially autobiographical. Other mysteries include The Crime at Black Dudley (1929), Police at the Funeral (1931), Sweet Danger (1933), The Fashion in Shrouds (1938), Traitor's Purse (1941), More Work for the Undertaker (1949), and Hide My Eyes (1958). During WWII, she wrote three books not featuring Campion—the thriller Black Plumes (1940), a historical family tale, Dance of the Years (1943), and The Oaken Heart (1941), a non-fiction look at the early days of the war in a small Essex village.

ALLINSON, FRANCESCA (20 Aug 1902 – 7 Apr 1945) (pseudonym of Enid Ellen Pulvermacher Allinson, nicknamed Fresca) 1930s Musician, composer, and scholar of English folk songs, Allinson's single autobiographical novel, A Childhood (1937), was published by Virginia and Leonard Woolf at Hogarth Press. A biography of Allinson appeared in 2017.

Amber, Miles           see COBDEN, ELLEN

Ames, Rachel           see GAINHAM, SARAH [RACHEL STAINER]

AN OLD GIRL (dates unknown) (pseudonym of ????) 1920s Pseudonym of an unknown author who published a single school story some time in the 1920s (even the exact date is elusive) called Susie's Schooldays in France.

ANCROFT, AGNES (3 Aug 1890 – 20 Sept 1982) (pseudonym of Agnes Mary Batty) 1930s Sister of Anne HEPPLE and author of three novels—As One of the Family (1938), No Divorce (1939), and Boarding House (1940). Reviewing the last of these, the Observer said it was "in the same delightful style as her famous sister's novels, and displays a flair for clever characterization."

Anderson, Ella           see MACLEOD, ELLEN JANE

Anderson, Flavia           see GIFFARD, FLAVIA

ANDERSON, HELEN M[AUD]. (25 Jun 1879 – 8 Dec 1947) 1920s – 1930s Scottish author of four novels of the 1920s and 1930s—Domenico (1922), Kelston of Kells (1927), Golden Lads (1928), and Sons of the Forge (1932). Not to be confused with Helen Anderson, American author of the lesbian-themed Pity for Women (1937).

ANDERSON, KATHLEEN [AGNES CICELY] (21 Jan 1888 – 14 Apr 1972) (aka Sister Mary Catherine) 1930s – 1940s Biographer and author of four novels, including Brother Petroc's Return (1937), The Dark Wheel (1939), The Spark in the Reeds (1941), and The Flight and the Song: A Tale of Old Devon (1946), the last co-written with her sister, novelist Lilian M. ANDERSON. She also wrote four biographies—Henry Suso, Saint and Poet (1947), Steward of Souls: A Portrait of Mother Margaret Hallahan (1952), Margaret, Princess of Hungary (1954), and The Chronicles of Thomas Frith (1957).

ANDERSON, LILIAN M[AY]. (7 Nov 1889 – 30 Dec 1984) (married name Robertson) 1920s – 1930s Sister of Kathleen ANDERSON and author of a dozen novels, presumably romantic in nature. Titles are The Taming of Becky (1920), A Lass Worth Winning (1920), The Rainbow Girl (1921), Breaking Her In (1921), Solo Voyager (1921), A Little Nobody (1922), A Contract of Marriage (1927), Misjudged (1929), Motherless Beauty (1931), The Village Vamp (1934), Betty Miller (1934), and Second Best (1937).

ANDERSON, RUTH [MARY CLEMENTI] (26 Mar 1908 – 18 Feb 1986) (married name Fasnacht) 1930s Author of a single novel, Commercial Hotel (1936), praised by the likes of Cyril Connolly and L. P. Hartley, about the comings and goings in a Midlands hotel over the course of one week. She also published The Roads of England (1932), subtitled "Being a Review of the Roads, of Travellers, and of Traffic in England, from the Days of the Ancient Trackways to the Modern Motoring Era."

ANDERSON, VERILY (12 Jan 1915 – 16 Jul 2010) (née Bruce, later married name Paget) 1950s – 1970s Author of six humorous memoirs, including Spam Tomorrow (1956), about her adventures in World War II, and subsequent tales of family and school life—Our Square (1957), Beware of Children (1958), Daughters of Divinity (1960), The Flo Affair (1963), and Scrambled Egg for Christmas (1970). I wrote about most of those titles here, and Spam Tomorrow has been reprinted as a Furrowed Middlebrow book by Dean Street Press. She also wrote the Brownies series of children’s fiction (1960-1977), three children's books focused on the York family—Vanload to Venice (1961), Nine Times Never (1962), and The Yorks in London (1964)—a girls' story called Clover Cloverdale (1974), and three biographical works about her own family's history—The Northrepps Grandchildren (1968), The Last of the Eccentrics: A Life of Rosslyn Bruce (1972), Friends and Relations (1980), and The De Veres of Castle Hedingham (1993). Beware of Children, about the Andersons' time running a holiday home for children, was filmed as No Kidding in 1960, and, oddly, featured Geraldine McEwan in the lead and Joan Hickson as the cook who liked her drink rather too much. Both actresses, of course, are best known now for playing Agatha Christie's Miss Marple in two different television adaptations of the novels.

ANDREW, PRUDENCE [HASTINGS] (23 May 1924 -                      ) (née Petch) 1960s – 1980s Novelist and author of children's titles, including works for reluctant readers. Her Ginger series, beginning with Ginger over the Wall (1962) focuses on a group of working class children, and was among the first British series to prominently feature black characters. Later books, though acclaimed for their compelling plots, also wrestle with social issues, disability, and neglect. She published several novels for adults, some historical in subject, including The Hooded Falcon (1960)—which qualifies her for this list, A Question of Choice (1962), A New Creature (1968), and A Man with Your Advantages (1970). Her last publication was in 1984, but from public records it seems possible she is still alive.

ANDREWS, LUCILLA [MATHEW] (21 Nov 1919 – 3 Oct 2006) (aka Diana Gordon, aka Joanna Marcus, aka Lucilla Crichton) 1950s – 1990s Author of more than 30 romances, most with hospital settings, and of a powerful memoir, No Time for Romance (1977), about nursing in London during World War II, heavily relied upon by Ian McEwan in writing Atonement and reviewed by me here. She was reportedly asked by her publisher to revise her first novel, The Print Petticoat (1954), to remove intense wartime content based on her own experiences. However, she was later able to set several novels in wartime, including One Night in London (1979) The Phoenix Syndrome (1987), and Frontline 1940 (1990). Other works include The Quiet Wards (1956), A House for Sister Mary (1966), Highland Interlude (1968), In Storm and In Calm (1975), A Weekend in the Garden (1981), and The Sinister Side (1996).

ANNESLEY, MAUDE (11 Jan 1871 – 6 Nov 1930) (pseudonym of Maude Gertrude Webster-Wedderburn, married names Hadden, Rider, and Brownlow) 1900s – 1920s Author of at least ten novels, most famously The Wine of Life (1907), about a divorced woman, which was accused of "flagrant outrages against good taste," and Wind Along the Waste (1910), both of which became early silent films. If online accounts can be believed, her personal life was a dramatic one, including adultery, drugs, and the occult, and she apparently died in an asylum. Her other novels are The Door of Darkness (1908), This Day's Madness (1909), Shadow Shapes (1911), All Awry (1911), Nights and Days (1912), The Sphinx in the Labyrinth (1913), Blind Understanding (1916), and Where I Made One (1923). She also wrote a memoir, My Parisian Year: A Woman's Point of View (1912).

ANONYMOUS WAAC (dates unknown) 1930s Apparently still unidentified anonymous author of four novels (clearly identified as such by their publisher) detailing a young woman’s experiences as a WAAC during and after World War I. WAAC: The Woman's Story of the War (1930) was praised for its realism about the tragedies of war, but also seems to have had a significant romantic component, and ends, fairy-tale like, with the heroine inheriting a fortune from her beau who is killed in service. WAAC Demobilized, published later in 1930, shows her jet-setting with numerous admirers to forget her past sorrows, and finally settling down to a be a fabulously successful businesswoman in France. My Journey's End (1932) and Hell Triumphant! (1935) continued her story. Of course, she might well not be British at all, but until someone trawls through the T. Werner Laurie archives to find the author’s identity, we can’t be sure.

ANSLE, DOROTHY PHOEBE (27 Jul 1890 – 7 Jan 1983) (married name Keogh, aka Laura Conway, aka Hebe Elsna, aka Vicky Lancaster, aka Lyndon Snow) 1920s – 1970s Prolific author, under multiple pseudonyms, of romantic fiction, including such titles as Child of Passion (1928), Other People's Fires (1930), All Swans (1932), Brief Heroine (1937), This Clay Suburb (1938), Sometimes Spring Returns (1940), Everybody Loves Lorraine (1941), None Can Return (1942), The Happy Cinderella (1943), The Gilded Ladder (1945, reviewed by Leaves & Pages here), The Door Between (1950), Strange Visitor (1956), and Minstrel's Court (1963).

ANSON, KATHLEEN (30 Oct 1870 – 22 Jan 1955) (pseudonym of Katharine Addison) 1920s Author of a single novel, Deep Waters (1922), about which little information is available.

ANSTRUTHER. E[ILEEN]. H[ARRIET]. (25 Jun 1884 – 17 May 1970) (née Wilkinson, aka Mrs. J. C. Squire) 1910s – 1920s Author of three novels—The Farm Servant (1916), a love story set partly in pre-war Paris, The Husband (1919), which deals humorously with women's suffrage, and Five in Family (1924), which seems to be a humorous family story. A contemporary review suggests that all three may feature the same family or at least overlapping characters.

ANTHONY, EVELYN (3 Jul 1928 – 25 Sept 2018) (pseudonym of Evelyn Bridgett Patricia Ward-Thomas, née Stephens) 1950s – 1990s Author of nearly three dozen volumes of historical fiction and romantic suspense. Her career began with a "Romanov trilogy" comprised of Imperial Highness (1953, aka Rebel Princess), Curse Not the King (1954, aka Royal Intrigue), and Far Flies the Eagle (1955, aka Far Fly the Eagles). Regarding her later suspense fiction, the St. James Guide to Crime and Mystery Writers noted: "The action of her plots often involves more romance than intrigue. … Anthony's lovers in each novel are immediately identifiable to the reader by the strong and immutable sexual attraction they feel for each other. No matter how the book ends, the characters have no choice but to be motivated and controlled by that attraction." Other titles include Charles the King (1961), The Heiress (1964), Anne of Austria (1968, aka The Cardinal and the Queen), The Assassin (1970), The Silver Falcon (1977), Albatross (1982), The Relic (1991), and Bloodstones (1994). Her 1971 novel The Tamarind Seed was made into a film starring Julie Andrews and Omar Sharif.

ANTONY, JONQUIL (5 Oct 1912 – 6 Dec 1980) (married name Wyse) 1940s – 1950s Best known as the main scriptwriter for "Mrs Dale's Diary," a popular BBC radio serial for more than two decades, Antony also published several novels, some linked to the series, such as Mrs. Dale at Home (1952). Other titles include The Robinson Family (1948, co-written with Lesley Wilson), The Malindens (1951), and Paradise Square (1952).

ANTROBUS, C[LARA]. L[OUISA]. (Oct 1846 - 5 Feb 1919) (née Rogers) 1890s - 1910 Author of three novels and one story collection. Antrobus began publishing only when she was nearly 50, but achieved considerable claim for her somewhat Brontëesque-sounding fiction, most set in or around Lancashire (and most apparently make generous use of dialect). Wildersmoor (1895) opens with the murder of a disreputable young man on a wild, dark moor in Lancashire, and the love story of the man who might be his killer. Quality Corner (1901) is subtitled “A Study in Remorse” but is nevertheless singled out for its abounding humour—the Sheffield Telegraph compared it favorably with Mary CHOLMONDELEY’s Red Pottage. The Stone Ezel (1910), which qualifies her for this list, deals with events surrounding “an old boundary-stone with a sinister reputation.” Her story collection is The Wine of Finvarra and Other Stories (1902). She married in 1871, but her husband sadly died the following year.

APPLETON, MARJORIE [IRENE] (17 Jan 1897 – 21 Aug 1963) 1940s Journalist, historian, and author of at least two novels, Anything Can Happen (1942), about a domestic servant conscripted into work in a munitions factory, and Under One Roof (1943), about which I've found no details. She also published a non-fiction work, East of Singapore (1942), and a later work of history, They Came to New Zealand: An Account of New Zealand from the Earliest Times up to the Middle of the Nineteenth Century (1958).

ARBOR, JANE (8 Sept 1903 – 4 Feb 1994) (pseudonym of Eileen Norah Owbridge) 1940s – 1980s Author of more than two dozen romantic novels, including This Second Spring (1948), No Lease for Love (1950), Flower of the Nettle (1953), City Nurse (1956), Lake of Shadows (1964), The Other Miss Donne (1971), Roman Summer (1973), and Handmaid to Midas (1982).

ARCHER, [GERTRUDE] MARGARET (5 Dec 1913 - 2001) (née Temple) 1940s – 1950s Author of eight novels, at least five of which are fairly straightforward mysteries. Canter's Chase (1945) is set in a country house occupied by bombed-out Londoners. Gull Yard (1947) is historical, set in the Victorian period. Flowers for Teacher (1948) is set in an English village, with one critic bemoaning their “indefatigably rustic dialect.” The Silent Sisters (1950) is about the murder of a young actress in a seaside house in Suffolk, owned by elderly twin sisters who haven't spoken for 25 years. The Gentle Rain (1952) has a hospital setting, with the poisoning of a doctor’s wayward fiancée. Jonathan Guest (1952) may be more of an adventure, featuring “a French girl who bolted from a convent straight into the arms of a smuggler." See a Fine Lady (1955) is “the delightful story of a woman with a large heart, a narrow pocket and an unquenchable zest for living." And Pardoned in Heaven (1956) is about a bored salesman inspired to thoughts of adventure by a young woman—“it is a light and pleasant story of ordinary people which has a good deal to recommend it.”

ARDEN, CLIVE (8 Feb 1888 – 4 Oct 1973) (pseudonym of Lily Clive Nutt) 1920s – 1930s Author of eight novels, which look like melodrama. Sinners in Heaven (1923), according to a blurb, contrasts "life in a country village with its smallness of outlook, snobbishness, and spite, and life in the wild places of the world, where convention and tradition are unknown." That novel and her follow-up, Enticement (1925), were made into films. The others are The Veil of Glamour (1926), The Spider and the Fly (1928), The Fetters of Eve (1931), The Enchanted Spring (1935), The Eagle's Wing (1938), and Anthony Keeps Tryst (1940).

ARDEN, MARY (26 Dec 1900 – 30 Mar 1931) (pseudonym of Violet Murry, née le Maistre) 1920s Second wife of John Middleton Murry (the first being Katherine Mansfield). Murry published only one story collection, Luck and Other Stories (1927), reviewed warmly by Naomi ROYDE-SMITH, before she—like Mansfield—succumbed to tuberculosis. Not to be confused with the untraced author from the 1940s, below.

ARDEN, MARY (dates unknown) 1940s Untraced author of two wartime novels, The House of Mystery (1940) and The Woman in Black (1944), which seem literally to only exist in the British Library. She is unidentified, but cannot be Violet Murry, who published one story collection as Mary Arden (see above). Murry, second wife of Katherine Mansfield's widower, died in 1931.

ARLEN, TRUDI (dates unknown) (pseudonym of ??????) 1930s – 1940s Author of two entries in the "Shirley Flight, Air Hostess" series, as well as at least two romantic novels, Beware My Heart (1956) and Never Love Me Less (date unknown). Arlen is credited with Shirley Flight, Air Hostess in Hawaiian Mystery (1960) and Shirley Flight, Air Hostess in Spain (1960), while other titles in the series were credited to Judith Dale, a known pseudonym of Edward Reginald Home-Gall. Several sources note that Arlen is also a pseudonym, but his/her true identity has so far eluded me.

ARMISTEAD, LORNA [MARGARET] (27 May 1906 – 25 Sept 2001) (married name Marsden) 1930s Author of one novel, Death of Henrietta (1934), a dark tale of war and family life which was scathingly reviewed in The Bookman. The critic bemoaned the fact that authors were still producing the type of book satirized by Stella GIBBONS in Cold Comfort Farm.

ARMITAGE, MARIGOLD [PATRICIA] (29 Nov 1920 – 29 Nov 2001) (née Harris) 1950s – 1960s Daughter of Sir Arthur “Bomber” Harris and author of two novels of postwar Irish hunting life—A Long Way to Go (1952), described by Lionel Gamlin as a "vastly entertaining story of a gloriously unbalanced hunting community in County Tipperary," and its sequel, A Motley to the View (1961). She reportedly worked on a third volume, to be called A Run for My Money, but it was never completed.

ARMOUR, MARGARET (10 Sept 1860 – 13 Oct 1943) (married name MacDougall) 1910s, 1940s Scottish poet, novelist, and compiler of a significant ghost story compilation, The Eerie Book (1898). She appears to have written only two novels—Agnes of Edinburgh (1911), which deals with women's suffrage, and the much later The Imposter and the Poodle (1940).

ARMSTRONG, MAVIS (dates unknown) 1930s Untraced author of two novels, presumably romantic in nature—Her Wonderful Love (1930) and An Empty Triumph (1932).

ARMSTRONG, M. VERA (dates unknown) 1940s - 1950s Author of the school story Maris of Glenside (1953) and of two other books for children that were focused on Guiding—Twenty Tales (1949) and Rival Camps (1950). She could conceivably be the Mary Vera Armstrong (22 Apr 1904 – 1992), but there are other possibilities.

ARNOLD, MRS. J[OHN]. O[LIVER]. (1860 - 1933) (pseudonym of Adelaide Victoria Arnold, née England [listed in British Library catalogue as "Mrs. A. V. Arnold"]) 1910s – 1920s Author of ten novels. The Fiddler (1911) is about the turmoil that results from two mismatched couplings. Fire i' the Flint (1911) was called Hardyesque and is about a country girl who makes in big in London and must choose between two men. Honours Easy (1912) deals with a scientist who offers a prize in his will to fund the completion of his life's work, and a young man who falls in love with the scientist’s stepdaughter while striving to win it. Requital (1913) features two men in love with the same woman. Megan of the Dark Isle (1914) is set on Anglesey and tells of an adventurer ensnared by a local witch. Garth (1921) is an occult thriller set at a country house with a dark history of smuggling and slave trading, in which a sensitive guest is inspired to write a ghost's confessions. The Woman in Blue (1922) is about a young woman seemingly possessed by the figure in a painting—a critic summed it up as “a tale of mystery murder and past evil doings, affecting the present.” ‘Scutcheon Farm (1926), set in the Lake District, is about an unmarried mother who turns up in the village of her dead lover’s family. The Clue (1927) seems to be historical, a retelling of “the tragedy of Marie Antoinette and the little Daupin.” And The Merlewood Mystery (1928) is “a tale of an unsolved robbery and murder and the missing South African diamonds,” and may also incorporate ghosts and the occult.

ARNOLD, LILIAN S[ARAH]. (22 Jan 1872 – 5 Oct 1950) 1900s – 1930s Author of nine novels, about which little information is available. Titles are Liege Lady (1903), Also Joan (1911), The Storm-Dog: A Romance of Cornwall (1912), The Enchanting Distance (1915), The Something Better (1921), Draped Idols (1923), The Second Wife (1924), The Sinner that Repented (1925), and Earthquake in Surrey (1932).

Arnold, Lyn           see WOOD, MOLLY

ARNOLD, MARGOT (1 Aug 1879 – 1 Dec 1969) (full name Marguerite Marie Dominique Arnold, née Monro, aka Mrs. Matthew Arnold) 1930s – 1940s Author of six novels which are very scarce and about which little information is available. Titles are The Wall (1935), Evolution of Elizabeth (1936), Fun for Felicity (1937), "—I Had No Shoes" (1938), Birds of Sadness (1940), and A Different Drummer (1941). A later title, Portrait of Caroline (1958), may also be by Arnold. She is not, however, to be confused with American author Petronelle Cook, who wrote a mystery series and other novels under the name Margot Arnold. On the 1939 England & Wales Register, she reported her birth year as 1881, but as she's on the 1881 census, age 2, she was clearly adjusting her age a bit.

Arnold, Mrs. Matthew           see ARNOLD, MARGOT

ARTHUR, FRANCES BROWNE (c1855 – 16 Feb 1920) (aka Ray Cunningham) 1880s – 1930s Niece of poet Frances Browne. Author of Scottish-themed novels and children's fiction under her own name and her pseudonym. Titles include Two Little Travellers (1903), The Laidlaws of Lammerlaw (1913), Mother Maud (1922). Several titles published in the 1930s, well after Arthur's death, appear to be reprints or serial stories published separately.

Arundel, Edith           see MAYBURY, ANNE

ARUNDALE, PAMELA [CONSTANCE] (22 Apr 1919 – 28 Oct 2003) (née Paige) 1950s Author of a single novel, Bread and Olives: A Light-Hearted Tale of a Mediterranean Island (1957), set in a village on Cyprus, the main character of which The Spectator compared to Aunt Dot from Rose MACAULAY's The Towers of Trebizond.

ARUNDEL, MARY (dates unknown) 1950s Unidentified author of six romantic novels. Happiness Comes Home (1950) seems to center around a doctor’s reception room, while the heroine of But Not for Love (1958) works in a bookshop. Other titles are You'll Love Me Yet (1952), So Red the Rose (1955), This Man, That Man (1955), and Dreams to Mend (1957).

Ashby, R[uby]. C[onstance].           see FERGUSON, RUBY

ASHE, ELIZABETH (3 Dec 1924 – 14 Feb 1987) (pseudonym of Lavender Beryl Hyde, née Lloyd) 1950s Author of a single novel, One Man's Island (1959), about a man running away from domestic difficulties to an island in the Indian Ocean, only to find greater problems there. Born to British parents in Peshawar, Pakistan.

Ashe, Mary Ann           see BRAND, CHRISTIANNA

ASHFORD, DAISY (7 Apr 1881 – 15 Jan 1972) (nickname of Margaret Mary Julia Ashford, married name Devlin) 1910s Best known for The Young Visiters (1919), a short novel written when she was 9 years old, published—spelling errors and misunderstanding of adult culture intact—to enormous success when she was in her late 20s. It was reprinted 18 times the year it was published, and was dramatized and made into a musical and a film. Several of her other childhood writings appeared in Daisy Ashford: Her Book (1920) and The Hangman's Daughter and Other Stories (1983). Ashford was reportedly rather bewildered by the phenomenal success of her work, and felt that the praise belonged "to a Daisy Ashford of so long ago that she seems almost another person." She did not publish as an adult, though she began a memoir late in life, which she destroyed before her death.

ASHLEY, CHRISTINE (dates unknown) 1920s – 1930s Untraced author of more than a dozen romantic novels, including The Marriage Lie (1921), A Just Impediment (1924), For Better, For Worse (1925), Her Wastrel Wooer (1928), The Price of Her Silence (1928), The Heart of a Humbug (1929), The Man She Wanted (1930), and Her Tangled Life (1931).

ASHTON, HELEN [ROSALINE] (18 Oct 1891 – 27 Jun 1959) (married name Jordan) 1910s – 1950s A trained doctor (though she stopped practicing when she married) and author of nearly 30 novels. Pierrot in Town (1913) and Almain (1914) deal with bohemian life in London, while several later titles have hospital settings, including the bestseller Doctor Serocold (1930), a Book-of-the-Month Club selection, Hornets' Nest (1935), and Yeoman's Hospital (1944, later filmed as White Corridors). Bricks and Mortar (1932, reprinted by Persephone), is about the life of a London architect, while The Half-Crown House (1956), which I discussed here, is about a dramatic day in the life of a family struggling to maintain its estate. I also discussed her wartime novel Joanna at Littlefold (1942)—see here. A Background for Caroline (1928) reportedly draws on Ashton's own experiences nursing during WWI. Several later novels are fictionalized biographies, including William and Dorothy (1938), about the Wordsworths, and Parson Austen's Daughter (1949), about Jane herself. Other titles include Marshdikes (1917), A Lot of Talk (1927), Far Enough (1928), Mackerel Sky: A Conversation Piece (1931), Belinda Grove (1933), People in Cages (1937), Tadpole Hall (1941), Footman in Powder: A Panorama (1954), and Return to Cheltenham (1958).

ASHTON, MARY GRACE (11 Aug 1908 – 9 Jul 1980) (married name Hills) 1920s – 1930s Author of six novels, several of which, including her acclaimed debut Race (1927) and her third novel, The Sons of Jacob (1929), deal with relations between Jews and Gentiles in England. The others are Shackles of the Free (1928), The Lonely Journey (1931), The Eye of a Needle (1938), and The Gates of Luthany (1939).

ASHTON-JINKS, [ALICE] CICELY (4 Nov 1881 – 24 Oct 1972) (née Hawley, married name Jinks [she added the Ashton], originally Alice Jane Hawley, she legally changed name to Alice Cecilia, which morphed into Alice Cicely) 1940s Author of three historical novels—Child of Promise (1944), about Richard III and Anne Neville, A Heart Like Mine (1946), about Louise de la Vallière, mistress of Louis XIV, and The Rise of Françoise Scarron (1950), featuring the second wife of Louis XIV and the child murderer Catherine Voisin.

ASKEW, ALICE [JANE DE COURCY] (18 Jun 1874 – 6 Oct 1917) (née Leake) 1900s – 1910s Novelist who co-authored with her husband Claude an astonishing 90+ popular novels between 1904 and their deaths in 1917. Titles include The Shulamite (1904), Eve—and the Law (1905), The Plains of Silence (1907), The Devil and the Crusader (1909), Scarlet Town (1910), Helen of the Moor (1911), Bess of Bentley's: A True Shop-Girl Story (1912), The Golden Girl (1913), The Tocsin: A Romance of the Great War (1915), Nurse (1916), The Inscrutable Miss Stone (1917), Lavender's Inheritance (1920), and Evelyn (1924). In WWI, they worked together in a British field hospital in Serbia, publishing a memoir of their experience, The Stricken Land: Serbia as We Saw It (1916), and they were killed the following year when their ship was torpedoed by a German submarine.

ASKWITH, BETTY [ELLEN] (26 Jun 1909 – 10 Apr 1995) (married name Jones) 1930s – 1960s Biographer, poet, humorist, and novelist. She published five successful works with Theodora BENSON, including the novels Lobster Quadrille (1930) and Seven Basketfuls (1932) and three works of humor, beginning with Foreigners: or, The World in a Nutshell (1935). She published eight novels on her own—If This Be Error (1932), Green Corn (1933), Erinna (1937), The Admiral's Daughters (1947), A Broken Engagement (1950), The Blossoming Tree (1954), The Tangled Web (1960), and A Step Out of Time (1966). I wrote about the last here. Late in her career, she focused on biography, particularly of prominent Victorian families. Askwith was the daughter of Edwardian novelist Ellen Graham, who published two novels as Mrs. Henry Graham, using her first husband's name.

ASPINALL, [HONOR] RUTH [ALASTAIR] (31 May 1922 – 13 Nov 2012) 1950s – 1970s Daughter of Clare SCARLETT. Author of more than a dozen novels, most romantic in nature. Her debut, Mine Own to Give (1955) is set in Cornwall and follows three friends from their idyllic childhood to a more troubled adulthood. In High Hunter (1957), a young woman takes a job as secretary to a successful author, while in A Song on the Wind (1967), a young woman gives up her job as a secretary and takes a job as a gardener for a mysterious singer who has a breakdown. Some of Aspinall's plots seem to border on melodrama, as with The Dark Side of Magic (1971), about the terrible consequences of a woman's decision to attend a pot party. Others include Hellweather (1959), Yesterday's Kingdom (1961), Cross Current (1964), Sin, and Nicholas Vernon (1966), Lee Shore (1975), and The Sand Clock (1979)

ASQUITH, CYNTHIA [MARY EVELYN] (27 Sept 1887 – 31 Mar 1960) (née Charteris) 1910s – 1940s Daughter-in-law of Prime Minister Herbert Asquith, best remembered for her Diaries 1915-1918 (1968), an important addition to World War I literature, and for her popular anthologies of ghost stories, including The Ghost Book (1926), Shudders (1929), When Churchyards Yawn (1931), The Second Ghost Book (1952), and The Third Ghost Book (1955). She published two novels—The Spring House (1936), set during WWI and focused on the emotional turmoil of a soldier's wife, and One Sparkling Wave (1943), about four generations of women.

ASQUITH, MARGOT (MARGARET) [EMMA ALICE] (2 Feb 1864 – 28 Jul 1945) (née Tennant) 1920s Wife of Prime Minister Herbert Henry Asquith and mother of Elizabeth BIBESCO. Best known for her Autobiography (Volume 1, 1920, Volume 2, 1922), which was based on her diaries. Those diaries have now begun to be published as well, with the WWI diaries released in 2014. She also wrote a single novel, the semi-autobiographical Octavia (1928). She published several other memoirs, including My Impressions of America (1922), Places & Persons (1925), Lay Sermons (1927), More Memories (1933), and More or Less About Myself (1934). Rumor has it that she was the inspiration for E. F. Benson's Dodo.

Astley, Juliet           see LOFTS, NORAH

ATHEN, ASTOR (dates unknown) 1940s Unidentified author of a single thriller, The Ladies Leave the Castle (1948) set in a castle in the Austrian Tyrol and featuring a young woman in peril. Although the author is unidentified and the name is probably a pseudonym, I'm confident having read it that the author is a woman.

ATKINSON, MARY EVELYN (20 June 1899 – 3 Dec 1974) (married name Frankau) 1930s – 1960s Author of more than 20 children's titles, including a series featuring the Lockett children, beginning with August Adventure (1936), and a later series featuring Fricka Hammond and her cousins, beginning with Castaway Camp (1951). Others include Mystery Manor (1937), The Compass Points North (1938), Challenge to Adventure (1941), The Monster of Widgeon Weir (1943), Chimney Cottage (1947), Hunter's Moon (1952), Unexpected Adventure (1955), and Where There's a Will (1961). Atkinson also wrote numerous one-act plays for women.

ATTENBOROUGH, G[LADYS]. M[ARY]. (7 Feb 1879 – 17 Feb 1954) (married name Linaker) 1920s - 1930s Author of seven romantic novels, of one of which the Guardian said, "The author gives us a little, select world, full of sweetness, romance, and whimsicality." Titles are The Rich Young Man (1929), Lady of Daylight (1930), The Little Virgin (1932), Honeymoon House (1934), Uncle Charles to Cherubina (1935), Hoop of Cold (1936), and Unfinished Song (1937).

Aunt Naomi           see LANDA, GERTRUDE

AUSTEN-LEIGH, LOIS [EMMA] (10 Jul 1883 – 14 Feb 1968) 1930s Granddaughter of Jane Austen's favorite nephew, Austen-Leigh published four crime novels. The Incredible Crime (1931), which takes place in a fictional college at Cambridge and in a Suffolk country house, was reprinted in the British Library Crime Classics series. The Haunted Farm (1932) was praised as “a powerful, well-told story of murder and blackmail” and as “delightfully written”, though one critic felt it wasn’t quite “fair play”. Rude Justice (1936), set in a Suffolk village and involving smuggling, a ghost story, and a murder the origins of which are in the distant past, was called slow-paced and verging on sentimentality by one critic, while another said "excitement runs high throughout the book, while the authoress's deep knowledge and obviously profound love of the county … lends added colour and conviction to her tale." And The Gobblecock Mystery (1938) involves a murder near an air-base and a possible threat to national security.

AUSTIN, ALMA (dates unknown) 1920s – 1930s Untraced author of five romantic novels—Miss Magnificent (1923), A Laggard in Love (1929), Beth Plays Up (1932), The Make-Believe Heiress (1933), and A Hard Man's Daughter (1933).

AUSTIN, PHYLLIS M[URIEL MARY]. (4 Apr 1888 - 1979) (married name Coke, aka Rigby [husband's stage name]) 1920s – 1930s Wife of actor Edward Rigby and author of around 20 novels, most if not all cheerful romantic comedies. Titles include The Grass Eater (1921), The Gold Fish Bowl (1922), The Lovable Lunatic (1923), The Dream-Spell (1924), Valentine (1926), The Sloping Garden (1931), Sunblinds (1932), Concerto (1934), and Punch and Judas (1937).

AUTUMN, AGNESE (dates unknown) (probable pseudonym of unknown author) 1930s Unidentified author of one novel, The Gold and Copper Delamonds (1930), an “interesting and ingeniously invented” mystery with supernatural elements, about murder at a fancy dress ball—possibly committed or inspired by a portrait which vanishes thereafter. Hubin says the name is a pseudonym, but I’ve made it no further.

AVERY, ELIZABETH (15 Sept 1913 - 2005) (pseudonym of Nancy Edith Scott, née Avery) 1950s – 1960s Registered nurse and author of four novels which make use of her professional experiences, including The Margaret Days (1959), The Marigold Summer (1960), Nurse Has Four Cases (1961), and Sister Bollard (1963). She was the wife of novelist Paul Scott. Scott's Wikipedia page includes this sad tidbit: "Scott's wife Penny had supported him throughout the writing of The Raj Quartet, despite his heavy drinking and sometimes violent behaviour, but once it was complete she left him and filed for divorce."

AVERY, GILLIAN [ELISE] (30 Sept 1926 – 31 Jan 2016) (married name Cockshut) 1950s – 1980s Author of nearly 20 children's books, including The Warden's Niece (1957), about a Victorian girl fighting for an education and having adventures in and around Oxford, and The Elephant War (1960), also set in Victorian Oxford, about a girl whose aunt recruits her into a campaign to save a London Zoo elephant from being sent to the circus. Others include Trespassers at Charlcote (1958), The Greatest Gresham (1962), The Italian Spring (1964), A Likely Lad (1971), and Sixpence! (1979). In the early 1980s, she stopped writing children's fiction and published two adult novels, The Lost Railway (1980) and Onlookers (1983), then turned her attention to history and criticism. Non-fiction includes Nineteenth Century Children: Heroes and Heroines in English Children's Stories 1780-1900 (1965), Childhood's Pattern: A Study of the Heroes and Heroines of Children's Fiction 1770-1950 (1975), The Best Type of Girl: A History of the Girls' Independent Schools (1991), and Behold the Child: A History of American Children and Their Books 1621-1922 (1994).

AYRES, RUBY M[ILDRED] (28 Jan 1883 – 14 Nov 1955) (married name Pocock) 1920s – 1950s Bestselling author of well over 100 romantic novels (publishing as many as 12 novels in a single year). She had her first major success with Richard Chatterton, V.C. (1915), a wartime romance which spawned a sequel later the same year, The Long Lane to Happiness (1915). Other notable titles are Castles in Spain (1912), Invalided Out (1918), A Bachelor Husband (1920), The Second Honeymoon (1921), The Uphill Road (1921), The Man the Women Loved (1923), The Man Without a Heart (1923), Wynne of Windwhistle (1926), Spoilt Music (1927), By the Gate of Pity (1927), Life Steps In (1928), Heartbreak Marriage (1929), Silver Wedding (1937), The Little Sinner (1940), Nothing Lovelier (1942), Love Comes Unseen (1943), Love Without Wings (1953), and Dark Gentleman (1953). Many of her titles were reprinted decades after her death with only minor revisions to update them.

AYRTON, ELISABETH [EVELYN] (2 Feb 1910 – 15 Nov 1991) (née Walshe, other married name Balchin) 1950s – 1970s Best known for her cookbooks—among the first to utilize an historical approach—Ayrton also wrote four novels, including The Cook’s Tale (1957), described as “a love story with recipes,” The Cretan (1963), a darker novel of peasant life on Crete, Two Years in My Afternoon (1972), about a woman facing up to her husband's extramarital affairs, and Day Eight (1978), set in Kenya.