For more information about
this list, please see the introduction, linked below.
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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 472 pages!
[Current total: 2,103 writers]
UPDATED 10/11/2019
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1940s
Author of a single novel, Errand for a Lady (1940), which TLS called "a fine old-fashioned cloak-and-sword romance."
She later published a work of non-fiction, Salter: The Story of a Family Firm 1760-1960 (1960).
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BACON,
MARJORIE F[LORENCE]. (11 Feb 1885 – Oct 1946)
1940s
Author of two novels. Men Have Their Dreams (1941) is about
a teacher in a secretarial training school and the interactions and
relationships of some of her students. According to the Guardian, "Miss Bacon has held before her the ideal of being
unfailingly direct and amusing in the telling of her story, and as she ls
remarkably knowledgeable about the material with which she deals, witty, and
the mistress of an admirable narrative style she succeeds in holding our
attention." Her second novel, about which I've found no details, was The Devil's Shilling (1942).
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BAGNOLD,
ENID [ALGERINE] (27 Oct 1889 – 31 Mar 1981)
(married name Jones)
1910s – 1950s
Novelist and playwright,
most famous for National Velvet
(1935), the tale of a teenage girl who disguises herself as a boy to ride in
the Grand National. That book became a huge bestseller, was made into a
famous film starring Elizabeth Taylor, and has always been marketed as a
children's book, though Bagnold herself intended it for adults. Her career
began with a memoir of her wartime nursing experiences in a London hospital. A Diary Without Dates (1917) was a
success, but promptly got her fired from nursing, after which she became a
V.A.D. in France. Those experiences in turn helped inspire her first novel, The Happy Foreignor (1920), a
modernist work praised by the likes of Katherine Mansfield and Rebecca WEST.
Her scandalous (and thoroughly cringeworthy) second novel, Serena Blandish, or, The Difficulty of
Getting Married (1924), a work of flapper fiction, was published
anonymously. The Squire (1938,
reprinted by Persephone) is a sensitive, powerful novel about motherhood,
which I wrote about here. Her fifth and final
novel, The Loved and Envied (1951),
deals with an aging aristocratic woman (reportedly modelled on Bagnold's
friend Lady Diana Cooper) and her friends. Bagnold wrote one children's book,
Alice and Thomas and Jane (1930),
about two children having far-fetched adventures. Her Autobiography appeared in 1969. Apart from fiction, Bagnold wrote
a number of plays, scoring her biggest successes with The Chalk Garden (1955) and The
Chinese Prime Minister (1965).
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Baillie-Reynolds,
Mrs.
see REYNOLDS, GERTRUDE M[INNIE].
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BAINES, JOY
(1898 – 2 Aug 1942)
(aka Basil Carey, aka
Richard Hawke)
1920s – 1940s
Author of sixteen novels,
including light dramas under her own name and adventures or thrillers under
her two pseudonyms. Under her own name she wrote Wife to Hugo (1930), Seventh
Sin (1931), Bitter Comedy
(1933)—which reviewer Norah HOULT called "a trifle too familiar"
but "bright and efficient"—Fiddler's
Folly (1935), The Master of
Chetwynd (1937), and Sweet Briar
(1941). Using her masculine alter egos, she published The Dangerous Isles: A Romance of Pearl-Hunger (1926), Masquerade
(1926), The Dreaming God (1927), Mountain Gold (1929), Gray Amber (1930), Dead Man's Shadow (1931), Captain Christine (1932), The Secret Enterprise (1932), Left for Dead (1934), and The Secret of Ayanora (1937).
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BAKER, AMY J[OSEPHINE]. (27 Mar 1878 - 1966)
(married name Crawford)
1910s –
1960s
Author of 40 volumes of
romantic fiction spanning five decades, including I Too Have Known (1911), Dear
Yesterday (1917), Tyrian Purple: A
Romance of the Ancient World (1919), The
King's Passion (1920), The Painted
Lily (1921), The Crepe de Chine
Wife (1925), Aurora (1928), Six Merry Mummers: A Tale of India
(1930), Never Laugh at Love (1932),
Leaf in the Wind (1935), Fan Mail (1941), Pride of Yesterday (1943), Flower
of Jade (1948), Swing Low, Swing
High (1956), Golden Girl
(1959), and Summer Isles of Eden
(1962).
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BAKER,
DOROTHY (17 Oct 1891 – 15 Jan 1982)
(née Stoneham)
1940s – 1950s
Not to be confused with
the American novelist of the same name, who was known for Young Man with a Horn (1938) and Cassandra at the Wedding (1962). This
Dorothy Baker seems to have worked with the BBC and published only two
novels, Coast Town Tapestry (1946),
subtitled "a novel with a wartime background," and The Street (1951). Simon at Stuck in a
Book unearthed a copy of the latter and reviewed it here. According to the British
Library catalogue, she appears to have published one final book, A Short Guide to English Architecture
(1974).
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BAKER, EMILY [SARAH] (c1841 – 28 Dec 1924)
(aka E. S. B.)
1890s – 1910s
Author of several Christian-themed works, including
a boys' school story, Harry Winthrope's
School Days: A Tale of Old Blundell's School (1907). Other titles that
seem to be fiction are Jack Webster: A
Christian Soldier (1899), Joe Blake
(1900), and The Coming of Gwen
(1919). She also published Peggy
Gainsborough, The Great Painter's Daughter (1909), which looks like a
biography.
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BAKER,
MARGARET J[OYCE]. (21 May 1918 – 17 Jan 2010)
1940s – 1980s
Children's author whose
works are often set in Somerset and North Devon. Some of her work appears to
be for very young children, but a few titles are clearly for older readers,
including "Nonsense!" Said
the Tortoise (1949), Four Farthings
and a Thimble (1950), The Bright
High Flyer (1957), Castaway
Christmas (1963), and Cut Off from
Crumpets (1964).
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BALDWIN, MAY
(8 May 1862 – 3 Jan 1950)
1900s – 1930s
Important early girls'
school author. Sims and Clare note that though her work may seem conservative
and old-fashioned in some respects, she was a pioneer in the range of schools
she presented and the international locales she portrayed. Among her 40+
titles are A Popular Girl: A Tale of
School Life in Germany (1901), The
Sunset Rock (1903), The Girls of
St. Gabriel's, or, Life at a French School (1905), Dora: A High School Girl (1906), Golden Square High School (1908), Muriel and Her Aunt Lu, or, School and Art Life in Paris (1909), Two Schoolgirls of Florence (1910), The Girls' Eton (1911), Moll Meredyth, Madcap (1913), An English Schoolgirl in Moscow
(1915), Irene to the Rescue (1916),
A Riotous Term at St. Norbert's
(1920), The Brilliant Girls of the
School (1924), The School in the
Wilds (1925), Kenya Kiddies: A
Story of Settlers' Children in East Africa (1926), High-Jinks at Priory School (1929), and The Tarletons in Brittany (1931).
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BALDWIN,
MONICA (22 Feb 1893 – 17 Nov 1975)
1940s – 1960s
Neice of Prime Minister
Stanley Baldwin. A Catholic nun for 28 years, Baldwin left the convent in
late 1941, at one of the darkest periods of World War II, and wrote about her
experiences of culture shock—first in a memoir, I Leap Over the Wall: Contrasts and Impressions After Twenty-eight
Years in a Convent (1949), then in a novel, The Called and the Chosen (1957). She also published a travel
book, Goose in the Jungle (1965).
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BALFOUR,
EVELYN (EVA) BARBARA (16 Jul 1898 – 14 Jan 1990)
(aka Hearnden Balfour,
combined pseudonym with Beryl Hearnden)
1920s – 1930s
A pioneer of the organic
farming movement, Balfour is best remembered for The Living Soil (1943), considered a classic environmentalist
text. She also published three mystery novels with her significant other,
Beryl Hearnden—The Paper Chase
(1927, aka A Gentleman from Texas),
The Enterprising Burglar (1928),
and Anything Might Happen (1931,
aka Murder and the Red-Haired Girl)—all
featuring series character Inspector Jack Strickland.
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BALFOUR-BROWN,
E[LIZABETH]. M[AGDALENE]. C[AROLINE]. (1876 – 21 Jan 1968)
1920s – 1930s
Author of one novel, The Beetaley Jewels (1901), which may
be a mystery, and two story collections—Solway
Tides and Other Tales (1928) and "If
All Tales…" (1936). We've not managed to locate significant
information about her or her work, except that she seems to have lived in
Dumfries later in life.
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BALL, HYLDA
(1874 – 17 Feb 1954)
(née Rhodes)
1910s – 1930s
Sister of Kathlyn RHODES
and author of ten novels, about which little information is available. Titles
are A Vase of Clay (1914), A Star Astray (1916), The Secret Bond (1917), The Unhallowed Vow (1918), What Snow Conceals (1919), The Secret Bond (1919), Of Finer Clay (1920), Peep o' Day (1929), Young Ambition (1930), and A Moorland Vendetta (1934).
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BANCO (dates unknown)
(pseudonym of unknown author, probably but not
certainly a woman)
1910s – 1920s
Unidentified author of at least six novels. The Outrage (1915) was about a woman
novelist trapped in a Belgian town when the Germans arrive, and was
criticized by one reviewer for excessive violence. Other known works are The Boy Who Didn't (1914), Lil of the Lounge: Being the Story of a
City Man's Folly (1917), The Only
Woman (1918), Kit of the Kitchen
(1919), and Doll of the Dance
(1921).
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BANCROFT, MARIE EFFIE (12 Jan 1839 – 22 May 1921)
(née Wilton)
1910s
Stage actress and theatre manager, known for several
popular boys' roles (Dickens wrote of seeing her in one). She published
several memoirs with her husband Squire Bancroft, as well as one novel, The Shadow of Neeme (1912).
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BANKES,
VIOLA [FLORENCE GERALDINE] (11 Feb 1900 – 30 Aug 1989)
(married name Hall)
1920s
Daughter of the Bankes family whose estate, Kingston
Lacy, she later memorialized
in A Dorset Heritage (1953) and in
her short memoir A Kingston Lacy
Childhood (1986). Her novel Shadow-Show
(1922) was a runner-up for a John Long Best First Novel contest. A second
novel, Men for Pieces, was
advertised but seems never to have appeared.
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BANKS, LYNNE
[BELINDA] REID (31 Jul 1929-
)
1960s – 1990s
Novelist, playwright, and
children's author best known for The
Indian in the Cupboard (1980) and its sequels. She began as an adult
novelist, with the well-known (and often reprinted) The L-Shaped Room (1960), an edgy tale of a young woman,
unmarried and pregnant, unemployed and living in a dingy flat. Two subsequent
novels, The Backward Shadow (1970)
and Two Is Lonely (1974), continue
the character's story. Other novels for adults include An End to Running (1962), Children
at the Gate (1968), Dark Quartet:
The Story of the Brontës (1976), The
Warning Bell (1984), and Fair
Exchange (1998).
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Baptist, R.
Hernekin
see LEWIS, ETHELREDA
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BARCLAY,
FLORENCE L[OUISA] (2 Dec 1862 – 10 Mar 1921)
(née Charlesworth, aka
Brandon Roy)
1890s – 1910s
Mother of Vera
Charlesworth BARCLAY. Author of romantic novels with a Christian component,
in which pristine female characters are apparently often seen as the
redeemers of men. Her most successful work was The Rosary (1909), which sold 150,000 copies in hardcover and
remained a bestseller for decades. Barclay is reputed to have donated her
profits from the blockbuster to charity. Other titles include Guy Mervyn (1891, written under her
pseudonym), A Notable Prisoner
(1905), The Following of the Star
(1911), The Upas Tree (1912), The Broken Halo (1913), The White Ladies of Worcester (1917),
and Returned Empty (1920).
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BARCLAY,
MRS. HUBERT (24 Dec 1871 – 16 Jun 1952)
(pseudonym of Edith Noel
Daniell Barclay, née Daniell)
1910s
Author of five romances—Trevor Lordship (1911), A Dream of Blue Roses (1912), The Giant Fisher (1912), East of the Shadows (1913), and The Taste of Brine (1914). She
published one book of poetry and a non-fiction work called The Queen's Cause: Scottish Narrative
1561-1587: A Biographical Romance (1938).
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BARCLAY, VERA CHARLESWORTH (10 Nov 1893 – 19 Sept 1989)
(aka Margaret Beech)
1910s –
1940s
Daughter of Florence
BARCLAY. A pioneer of the Scout movement, Barclay was also a prolific
children's author, best known for her Jane series which included Jane Versus Jonathan (1937) and Jane Will You Behave (1944), and for
various works on scouting and collections of campfire tales. Other titles
include Danny the Detective: A Story
for Wolf Cubs (1918), The Mysterious
Tramp (1921), Peter the Cub
(1928, under her pseudonym), Knave of
Hearts (1933, under her pseudonym), and They Met a Wizard (1947).
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Barcynska, Countess Hélène
see SANDYS, OLIVER
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BARFORD, DORA (26 Dec 1901 – 27 Jan 1985)
(middle name alternately given as Madeline,
Madaline, or Madelaine)
1930s
Author of five historical novels—Mr. Corrington (1931), The Golden Cargazon (1932), set in the
time of James II, Tricolor (1933),
set during the French revolution, Greek
Fire (1936), set in 1922 around the burning of Smyrna, and Evasion (1936), about an escaped
convict from Devil's Island.
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BARING, RUBY
[FLORENCE MARY] (26 Sept 1886 – 5 Nov 1961)
(née
Elliot-Murray-Kynynmound, aka Ruby Cromer)
1920s – 1930s
Countess of Cromer (her
husband was Lord Chamberlain in the 1920s and was briefly portrayed on Downton Abbey) and author of a memoir,
Such Were These Years (1939), a
collection of tales, Lamuriac and Other
Sketches (1927), and what appears to be a novel, Unfettered Ways (1935), as well as a historical work, The Hospital of St. John in Jerusalem
(1961).
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BARKAS,
NATALIE (13 Aug 1899 – 27 Sept 1979)
(née Webb)
1940s, 1960s
Wife of filmmaker and WWII camouflage expert
Geoffrey Barkas and author of several non-fiction books about his work,
including Behind the Camera:
Reminiscences of Film-Making in West Africa (1934), and Thirty Thousand Miles for the Films: The
Story of the Filming of "Soldiers Three" and "Rhodes of
Africa" (1937). She also published two children's books, The Quest of the Bellamy Jewels (1949),
based on a play by Michael Berrenger, and The
Gold Hunters (1963).
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BARKER,
A[UDREY]. L[ILLIAN]. (13 Apr 1918 – 21 Feb 2002)
1940s – 1990s
Author of eleven novels and nearly as many story
collections. She is particularly acclaimed for the latter, which include Innocents: Variations on a Theme
(1947), Novelette with Other Stories
(1951), The Joy-Ride and After
(1963), Lost upon the Roundabouts
(1964), Femina Real (1971), Life Stories (1981), No Word of Love (1985), and Submerged: Selected Stories (2002).
Among her novels her most famous was The
Gooseboy (1987), reportedly based in part on the life of actor/writer
Dirk Bogarde. Others include Apology
for a Hero (1950), A Case Examined (1965), John Brown's Body (1969), Relative Successes (1984), and The Woman Who Talked to Herself
(1989). ODNB referred to her work
as "oblique, strange, and shot through with mysticism."
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BARKER,
KATHLEEN FRANCES (2 Jan 1901 – 1 Apr 1963)
1930s – 1960s
Children's author and
illustrator, particularly known for her drawings of dogs and horses. Barker
also wrote children's fiction about animals, including Bellman: The Story of a Beagle (1933), Bellman Carries On (1933), Traveller's
Joy (1934), and The Wood by the
Water (1957).
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Barling, Charles
see BARRINGTON, PAMELA
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BARLOW,
HILARĖ EDITH (1856 – 30 Dec 1938)
1910s
Little information about her work is available, but
Barlow appears to have published two mystery novels—The Sentence of the Judge (1912) and The Mystery of Jeanne Marie (1913)—as well as one
children's book, "Waldmann":
The Autobiography of a Dachsund (1910).
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BARLOW, JANE
(1857 – 17 Apr 1917)
1890s – 1910s
Poet and novelist known
for verse and fiction about Irish farm life and often incorporating Irish
dialect. Titles include Irish Idylls
(1892), Kerrigan's Quality (1894),
which "describes the effect of the famine and evictions from the
viewpoint of a returned Irish-Australian emigrant," Maureen's Fairing and Other Stories (1895), The Founding of Fortunes (1902), By Beach and Bogland (1905), Flaws
(1911), "a satirical view of middle- and upper-class Anglicized
protestants in the south of Ireland," and In Mio's Youth (1917).
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BARLTROP, MABEL (11 Jan 1866 – 17 Oct 1934)
(née Andrews, aka Octavia, aka Besma)
1920s – 1930s
"Prophet" and founder of the Panacea
Society, known as Octavia. She purported to receive daily messages from
beyond. Her best-known books were religious works and memoirs, but her final
two, Wrong at the Root, or, The
Bishop's Chaplain (1929) and The
Rest House, or, The Bishop's Secret (1934), appear to be fiction.
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BARNE,
[MARION] KITTY (CATHERINE) (17 Nov 1882 – 3 Feb 1961)
(married name Streatfeild)
1930s – 1950s
An in-law of Noel
STREATFEILD, and reportedly encouraged by her to try her hand at writing for
children, Barne is now best known for her children's fiction, especially She Shall Have Music (1938) and Visitors from London (1940). She
focused early in her career on more than a dozen plays, none of which
achieved major success. She published six novels for adults—Mother at Large (1938), While the Music Lasted (1943)—a sequel
to She Shall Have Music, reprinted
in 2016 by Greyladies—Enter Two
Musicians (1944), Duet for Sisters
(1947), Vespa (1950), and Music Perhaps (1957). Other children's
titles include The Amber Gate
(1933), The Easter Holidays (1935),
Family Footlights (1939), We'll Meet in England (1942), Three and a Pigeon (1944), Musical Honours (1947), a postwar
family tale, Dusty's Windmill
(1949), Tann's Boarders (1955), and
two horse stories, Rosina Copper, the
Mystery Mare (1954) and Rosina and
Son (1956). I've written about several of her books—see here.
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BARNES, DOROTHY (dates unknown)
1930s
Untraced author of one short romantic novel, A Kiss for Fun (1932).
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BARNES, MARGARET CAMPBELL (7 Sept 1891 – 1 Apr 1962)
1940s – 1960s
Prominent historical novelist known for her
carefully researched and well-written fiction, often about kings and queens.
She published nearly a dozen in all, and several of her books remain in
print. Titles are Within the Hollow
Crown: A Novel of Richard II (1941), Like
Us, They Lived (1944, aka The
Passionate Brood), My Lady of
Cleves: A Novel of Henry VIII and Anne of Cleeves (1946), Brief Gaudy Hour: A Novel of Anne Boleyn
(1949), With All My Heart: The Love
Story of Catherine of Braganza (1951), The Tudor Rose (1953), Mary
of Carisbrooke (1956), Isabel the
Fair: The Passionate Novel of Isabel Capet, Wife of Edward II (1957), The King's Fool (1959), The King's Bed: A Novel of the Time of
Richard III (1961), and Lady on the
Coin (1963).
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BARNES,
WINIFRED (dates unknown)
1940s
Untraced author of story
books for small children and books on English grammar, as well as two girls'
school stories, The Jewels and Jenny
(1948) and Jenny at St Julien's
(1949).
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BARNES-GRUNDY,
MABEL [SARAH] (1 Jan 1869 – 16 Jan 1952)
(née Gaskell, second
married name Wileman)
1900s – 1940s
Author of two dozen humorous romances characterized,
according to OCEF, by their
"extraordinary cheerfulness." Titles include A Thames Camp (1902), described as "a wife's gossipy diary
of outings on the Thames and at the seaside," The Vacillations of Hazel (1905), Hilary on Her Own (1908), The
Third Miss Wenderby (1911), An
Undressed Heroine (1916), A Girl
for Sale (1920), Sleeping Dogs
(1924), The Strategy of Suzanne
(1929), Sally in a Service Flat
(1934), Paying Pests (1941), and The Two Miss Speckles (1946). The last
is about two sisters living in Bath during World War II.
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BARNETTE,
IDA [MILLICENT] (13 Aug 1889 – 14 Oct 1977)
1930s – 1960s
Author of nearly three
dozen romance and romantic suspense novels, including Innocence (1934), Pretence
and Peril (1938), Maiden in Danger (1951), Love May Not Last (1953), Stained Inheritance (1956), Love Me Tomorrow (1958), Love May Cheat Us (1958), Love on a Cruise (1959), Maiden in Peril (1962), Kiss in the Moonlight (1964), The Heart Must Pause (1965), And Love Is Fire (1967), and The Glamorous Goddess (1969).
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BARON,
F[????]. (dates unknown)
1940s
Untraced author of several
children's titles, including one girls' school story, The Mystery of the Silver Statuette (1948), as well as Olive Dawson's Secret (1946), Pip Kin Seeks the Wizard (1946), The Flodden Rubies (1947), The King Works Magic (1947), and Chums Divided (1947).
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BARR, AMELIA [EDITH] (29 Mar 1831 – 10 Mar 1919)
(née Huddleston)
1880s – 1910s
Born in England and emigrated to the U.S. in her
twenties. Author of nearly 30 novels, including Romance and Reality (1872), A
Daughter of Fife (1886), A Bow of
Orange Ribbon (1886), A Border
Shepherdess (1887), A Rose of a
Hundred Leaves (1891), Bernicia
(1895), The Maid of Maiden Lane
(1900), Thyra Varrick (1903), Cecilia's Lovers (1906), The Strawberry Handkerchief (1908), A Reconstructed Marriage (1910), Sheila Vedder (1911), and The Measure of a Man (1915). Her memoir, All
the Days of My Life, appeared in
1913.
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BARRATT,
KATHLEEN [IRENE] (20 Sept 1910 – 28 Dec 2003)
(uncertain but probable
identification)
1940s – 1950s
Author of four novels. Her
first, To Fight Another Day (1947),
is set in a girls' high school and deals with the conflicts between the
senior mistress and a new headmistress, both of whom are alumni of the
school. Her second, The Fault Undone
(1949), is about an unmarried mother—one review called it a “[s]low, frigid,
unromantic romance of a pedagogue and a girl who once made a mistake.” Her
other two, about which information is lacking, are The Bright Lantern (1954) and Future
in the Past (1956). If our identification of her is correct (and Kathleen
Irene Barratt was indeed a schoolteacher, which fits well with her debut's
themes), then she must be the Kathleen Irene Barratt who published an earlier
volume of poetry, Visions & Fancies
in Verse (1926).
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BARRETT,
ANNE [MAINWARING] (7 May 1911 – 20 Dec 1986)
(née Gillett, earlier
married name Boxer)
1950s – 1960s
Author of seven children's titles. Her debut, Caterpillar Hill (1950), seems to have
fantasy and time travel elements. Stolen
Summer (1951) is the story of a girl and her widowed mother spending a
summer in Dorset, while The Dark Island
(1952) is about children on holiday in Ireland. The Journey of Johnny Rew (1954), also set in Dorset, is about a
boy orphaned in the Blitz searching for his parents' origins. Songberd's Grove (1957), a runner up
for the Carnegie Medal, is about two children fighting a neighborhood bully
in London—the Guardian reviewer
said the climactic scene was "as wild and ingenius as any Ealing comedy."
Her other books were Sheila Burton:
Dental Assistant (1956) and Midway
(1967). Barrett's daughter came across some fascinating recollections her
mother wrote about life in the A.T.S. in wartime Weymouth and shared them here.
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BARRETT, JOAN (1868 - ????)
(pseudonym of Rose Davis, née Aburrow)
1920s
Wife of author Frank Barrett (really Frank Davis)
and author of one early story collection, Monte
Carlo Stories (1896), one children's book, The Story of a Cat and Two Naughty Magpies (1923), and one novel,
The Pretty Nobody (1927), about
which I have no details. You can read more about Barrett and her husband here.
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Barrie, Susan
see POLLOCK, IDA [JULIE]
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BARRINGTON,
E. (1862 – 3 Jan 1931)
(pseudonym of Eliza Louisa
Beck, née Moresby, earlier married name Hodgkinson, aka Lily Moresby Adams,
aka Lily Adams Beck)
1920s
Having travelled widely
for most of her life, Moresby only began writing at age 60, after which she
explored themes of spirituality, romance, and the supernatural, often with
Asian settings. She has been described as the first female fantasy writer in
Canada (following her relocation there in 1919). Titles include The Key of Dreams (1922), Dreams and Delights (1922), The Divine Lady (1924), made into a
film in 1929, The Way of Stars (1925), The
Exquisite Perdita (1926) The
Thunderer (1927), The Laughing
Queen (1929).
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BARRINGTON, EMILIE [ISABEL] (1841 – 9 Mar 1933)
(née Wilson, aka Mrs. Russell Barrington)
1890s, 1920s
Author of biographies, travel writing, and other
non-fiction, as well as two early novels, Lena's
Picture: A Story of Love (1893) and Helen's
Ordeal (1894), and what appears to be one more later novel, A St. Luke of the Nineteenth Century
(1922).
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BARRINGTON, MARGARET [LOUISA] (10 May 1896 – 8 Mar 1982)
(married names Curtis and O'Flaherty)
1930s, 1980s
Wife of author Liam O'Flaherty. Author of a single
novel, My Cousin Justin (1939,
published in the U.S. as Turn Ever
Northward), which was reprinted in 1990, and which, according to the
cover blurb, "races through the World War, the Irish Rebellion, the
hectic conspiracies of the Irish patriots, and the post-war years in
England." Her only other published work appears to be a story
collection, David's Daughter, Tamar
(1982), which appeared in the year of her death.
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BARRINGTON,
PAMELA (8 Aug 1904 – 12 Apr 1986)
(pseudonym of Muriel Vere
Barling, née Mant, aka Charles Barling, aka P. V. Barrington)
1930s – 1960s
Author of more than two
dozen mystery novels, including White
Pierrot (1932), Saga of a Scoundrel
(1947), The Changing Heart (1948), The Triangle Has Four Sides (1949), Forty-Three Candles for Mr Beamish
(1950), Mr Hedley’s Private Hell
(1950), The Rest Is Silence (1951),
The Mortimer Story (1952), Account Rendered (1953), Among Those Present (1953), The Fourth Victim (1958), Night of Violence (1959), By Some Person Unknown (1960), The Gentle Killer (1961), Final Judgement (1964), Cage Without Bars (1966), A Game of Murder (1967), Slow Poison (1967), Accessory to Murder (1968), and My Friend Judas (1968). Confusingly,
she also wrote 8 late mysteries using her husband's name, Charles Barling,
including Afternoon of Violence
(1963), Motive for Murder (1963), Appointment with Death (1964), Time to Kill (1965), The Crime Against Judy Bishop (1966), Confession of Murder (1967), Death of a Shrew (1968), and A Marked Man (1968). Account Rendered was made into a film,
and The Gentle Killer was
dramatized for BBC Radio.
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BARRY, IRIS
[SYLVIA] (25 Mar 1895 – 22 Dec 1969)
(married names Porter and
Abbott)
1920s
Film critic and pioneer of
film restoration, also known for her relationship with modernist writer
Wyndham Lewis, with whom she had two children. She was hired in the 1930s by
the Museum of Modern Art to build its Film Library, and her volume of film
criticism, Let's Go to the Pictures
(1926), presented, in the words of The
New Yorker, her "fascinating philosophical ideas about the
history, aesthetics, and potential of film." Barry also wrote two
novels—Splashing Into Society
(1923), described by the Spectator
as "a very amusing satire on modern Mayfair, writter by a
super-civilized and sophisticated adult in the manner of The Young Visiters," and Here
Is Thy Victory (1930, aka The Last
Enemy), which imagines the repercussions if people suddenly stopped
dying. You can read more about her here.
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BARTLETT, [PRIMROSE] MARIE (30 Jun 1912 – 14 Nov 1991)
(née Swan, earlier married names Austin and Marks,
aka Valerie Rift, aka Rowena Lee, aka Sara Linden)
1950s – 1970s
Author of more than 30 romantic novels under her
various pseudonyms. Some of the novels were historical, and she was obviously
fond of the word "diadem." Titles include Tides of Zhimoni (1955), Wake
of a Moonbeam (1956), So Low the
Stars (1956), Singing Volcanoes
(1958) Dangerous Delight (1959), Sweet Pledge of Love (1960), The Spanish Garden (1962), Tread Softly, My Love (1963), A Diadem for Philippa (1964), A Diadem in Jeopardy (1966), Corinna's Diadem (1967), A Coil of Sun (1968), and The Diadems of a Duchess (1972). Under
her own name, she published the evocatively-titled The Rhino Stayed for Breakfast (1958), a memoir of her life in
Kenya.
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BARTON, ANN (dates unknown)
1950s
Unidentified author of a single girls' career story,
Kate in Advertising (1955).
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Barton, Oliver
see WOODGATE, MILDRED VIOLET
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BARWELL, PEGGY [MABEL] (6 Oct 1909 – 2 Dec 1997)
(married names Morland and Mason)
1950s
Playwright and author of a single novel, Cadenza (1950). In the 1930s and 1940s
she was married to prolific mystery novelist Nigel Morland.
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BASKERVILLE, BEATRICE [CATHERINE] (1876 – 22 Jun 1955)
(married name Guichard)
1900s – 1930s
Journalist, translator, and author of nine novels. Her fiction—sometimes
focused on Jewish life in Poland and Russia—includes Their Yesterday: A Chronicle of Mistakes (1909), When Summer Comes Again (1915), Baldwin's Kingdom: A Story of Russian Life
(1917), Love and Sacrifice (1918), Passover (1920), and The Enchanted Garden (1921). She then
wrote three novels in collaboration with Elliot Monk—By Whose Hand (1922), The
Amethyst Button (1926), and The St.
Cloud Affair (1931)—which may be mysteries.
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BATCHELOR,
MARGARET (24 Sept 1876 – 8 May 1955)
(married name Phillpotts)
1910s – 1920s
Author of six girls'
stories, about which little information is available. The titles are Sallie's Children (1912), Six Devonshire Dumplings (1920), A Little Rhodesian (1922), The Children of Sunshine Mine: A Story of
Rhodesia (1923), Gwenda's Friend
from Home (1924), and Morwenna's
Prince (1926).
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BATT,
ELISABETH [NOEL] (25 Dec 1908 – 27 Apr 1988)
(née Monck)
1950s – 1970s
Author of more than twenty
works of Christian-themed children's fiction, including a unique school story
set in Jamaica called A Jamaican
Schoolgirl (1962). Others include The
House with the Blind Window (1955), In
Search of Simon (1956), Gillian and
the Garden (1958), The Other House
(1960), The Smallest Island (1961),
The Birthday Plan (1964), The Scarlet Runners (1967), The Secret Tunnel (1970), The Boy Who Broke Things (1974), and The Garden Feast (1976).
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BATTEN, JOYCE MORTIMER (21 Nov 1919 - 1999)
(pseudonym of Joyce Kells Mankowska, née Batten)
1930s, 1960s
Author of two books—a children's book, Chang: The Life Story of a Pekingese
(1935) and a much later novel, Isle of
Mists (1960), about which I've found no information.
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BAUMANN, [IRENE SARAH] MARGARET (23 Apr 1905 – 16
Feb 1990)
(married names Gladstone Ogumefu and Lees, aka
Marguerite Lees, aka M. L. Ogumefu)
1950s – 1980s
Author of more than 40 works of fiction, including
romantic novels and a few story collections. Many of her novels are set in
hospitals and were published under her Lees pseudonym. Titles include A Case for Nurse Clare (1955), Secret Star (1956), Ann Carsdaile, Almoner (1958), The Sun and the Sea (1958), Village Nurse (1960), Stevie, Student Nurse (1962), General Hospital (1963), Nurse Barby's Secret Love (1964), Still Waters (1969), The Secret Song (1976), Bridal Flowers (1980), and Rendezvous with a Dream (1981). She
also wrote books on Yoruba folk tales as M. L. Ogumefu.
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BAWDEN, NINA
(19 Jan 1925 – 22 Aug 2012)
(née Mabey)
1950s – 2000s
Author of more than 40
volumes of fiction for children and adults. Her acclaimed novels include Who Calls the Tune (1953), Just Like a Lady (1960, aka Glass Slippers Always Pinch), Tortoise by Candlelight (1963), A Little Love, a Little Learning
(1965), A Woman of My Age (1967), The Grain of Truth (1968), The Birds on the Trees (1970), Anna Apparent (1972), The Afternoon of a Good Woman (1976), Familiar Passions (1979), Circles of Deceit (1987, shortlisted
for the Booker Prize), Family Money
(1991), and A Nice Change (1997). Among her children's
works, Bawden is best known for Carrie's War (1973),
about a young girl's evacuation to a Welsh village during World War II, which
has been dramatized for television twice (1974 and 2004) and adapted for the
stage (2006). She published a memoir, In
My Own Time: Almost an Autobiography, in 1994. Her final published work
was Dear Austen (2005), a poignant
memoir of her husband, who had been killed in a train derailment in which she
was also badly injured.
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BAWN, MARY (16 Feb 1917 - 1993)
(pseudonym of Mary Pamela Godwin, married name
Wright)
1950s – 1960s
Author of more than a dozen novels, many of which
appear to be historical and Scottish-themed. Titles are Son of the Robber Clan (1958), Scarlet for Tartan (1958), Price
of Rebellion (1959), Against the
Tide (1960), Lady Jean's Father
(1960), The Stone of Drumaroo
(1960), Pass of the Foxes (1961), Rogue Tide (1962), Galleon's Grave (1963), Thunder of Cavaliers (1964), Brother's Blood (1964), Men of the Bay (1965), and Sword in the Hills (1966).
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Baxter, Olive
see EASTWOOD, HELEN
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BAYLEY,
VIOLA [CLARE WINGFIELD] (7 Jan 1911 – 11 Jan 1997)
(née Powles)
1930s – 1980s
Author of two dozen
children's books, mostly adventure stories set in a variety of international
locales. Titles include The Wings of
the Morning (1936), The Dark
Lantern (1952), White Holiday
(1953), Storm on the Marsh (1953), Paris Adventure (1954), Lebanon Adventure (1955), Corsican Adventure (1957), Turkish Adventure (1957), Shadow on the Wall (1958), Swedish Adventure (1959), London Adventure (1962), Italian Adventure (1964), Scottish Adventure (1965), Welsh Adventure (1966), Caribbean Adventure (1971), and Shadows on the Cape (1985).
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BAYNE-POWELL,
ROSAMOND [ALICIA] (25 Nov 1879 – 8 May 1960)
(née Bayne, married name
Powell)
1940s
Author of several popular
historical works on 18th century England, including Eighteenth-Century London Life (1937) and The English Child in the Eighteenth Century (1939). She later
published two crime novels, The Crime
at Cloysters (1947) and The Crime
at Porches Hill (1950), about which little information is available.
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BEAMISH,
NOEL DE VIC (30 Apr 1883 – 1 Aug 1969)
(pseudonym of Annie
O'Meara de Vic Beamish)
1920s – 1970s
Founder and director of European language schools
and author of more than two dozen volumes of fiction, many of them historical
novels. Titles include Tweet
(1925), Miss Perfection (1932), Beatrice in Babel (1933), Fair Fat Lady (1937), Lady Beyond the Walls (1956), Tudor Girl (1960), The Blooming of the Rose (1962), The Wayward Wench (1963), The Peerless Popinjay (1964), A Royal Scandal (1966), The King's Sister (1967), The Queen's Jester (1969), and The Unfortunate Queen Matilda (1971).
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BEARNE, CATHERINE MARY (1844 – 9 May 1923)
(née Charlton)
1920s
Primarily known for her biographies about prominent
women in French court circles, including A
Queen of Napoleon's Court: Life-Story of Désirée Bernadotte (1905) and A Sister of Marie Antoinette: The
Life-Story of Maria Caroline, Queen of Naples (1907), her final
publication was a novel, In Perilous
Days: A Tale of the French Revolution (1920).
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BEATTY, MABEL (1879 – 13 Jan 1932)
(full name Rose Mabel Beatty, née Chappell)
1920s
Author of mystical works, including one subtitled
"Being a Series of Teachings Sent by the White Brotherhood Through the
Hand of Mabel Beatty", and a single novel, The Resurrection of Merion Lloyd (1929), in which an
"[i]mprisoned murderer practices astral projection, possesses body of
suicide and finds redemption in new life."
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BEATY, BETTY [JOAN CAMPBELL] (16 Jul 1919 – 22 Jul
2014)
(née Smith, aka Karen Campbell, aka Catherine Ross)
1950s – 1990s
Author of more than thirty romantic novels (and
perhaps, judging from titles, one or more mysteries) under her own name and
her two pseudonyms. Titles include Maiden
Flight (1956), The Atlantic Sky
(1957), The Butternut Tree (1958), The Colours of Night (1962), The Path of the Moonfish (1964), The Trysting Tower (1964), Miss Miranda's Walk (1967), Suddenly in the Air (1969), The Swallows of San Fedora (1974), Love and the Kentish Maid (1975), Death Descending (1976), The Bells of St. Martin (1979), The Missionary's Daughter (1983), and The Shadow of the Peak (1985).
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BEAUCHAMP, BARBARA [PROCTOR] (25 Jan 1909 – 25 Aug
1974)
1930s – 1950s
Partner of novelist Norah C. JAMES for many years
and author of seven novels herself. She and James published a cookbook
together, Greenfingers and the Gourmet
(1949). Her novels are Fair Exchange
(1939), Without Comment (1939), The Paragons (1940), Wine of Honour (1946), Ride the Wind (1947), Virtue in the Sun (1949), and The Girl in the Fog (1958). I reviewed
Wine of Honour here, and it was reprinted in 2019 as a Furrowed
Middlebrow book from Dean Street Press.
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BEAUCLERK,
HELEN [DE VERE] (20 Sept 1892 – 8 Jul 1969)
(pseudonym of Helen Mary
Dorothea Bellingham)
1920s – 1940s
Translator from French
(including works by Colette) and author of seven novels. Her early works have
elements of fantasy combined with philosophy. The Green Lacquer Pavilion (1926) is about an Oriental screen
that transports an entire dinner party into a fantasy realm. The Love of the Foolish Angel (1929)
and The Mountain and the Tree
(1935) deal with Christian and Greek mythology respectively. Her remaining
four novels—So Frail a Thing
(1940), Shadows on the Wall (1941),
Where the Treasure Is (1944), and There Were Three Men (1949)—are
described by the Orlando Project as "depicting the lives of men and
women as they intertwine during World War II."
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Beaufort, Jane
see POLLOCK, IDA [JULIE]
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Beaumont,
Isabel
see SMITH, CONSTANCE ISABEL
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Becket, Lavinia
see MANSBRIDGE, PAMELA
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BECKWITH,
LILLIAN (25 Apri 1916 – 3 Jan 2004)
(pseudonym of Lillian
Comber, née Lloyd)
1950s – 2000s
Author of more than a
dozen novels. Seven of these are semi-autobiographical humorous tales of her
relocation to an isolated community in the Hebrides. In order, these are The Hills is Lonely (1959), The Sea for Breakfast (1961), The Loud Halo (1964), A Rope - In Case (1968), Lightly Poached (1973), Beautiful Just! (1976), and Bruach Blend (1978). Her other novels
include Green Hand (1967), The Spuddy (1974), A Shine of Rainbows (1984, made into a
film), A Proper Woman (1986), The Small Party (1989), An Island Apart (1992), and A Breath of Autumn (2002). She also
published a Hebridean Cookbook
(1976).
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BEDFORD, H[ANNAH]. LOUISA (26 Dec 1847 – 29 Jul
1942)
1890s – 1910s
Author of more than two dozen novels and children's
works, including several in collaboration with Evelyn EVERETT-GREEN. Titles
include His Choice—and Hers (1895),
Miss Chilcott's Legacy (1896), Prue the Poetess (1897), The Twins that Did Not Pair (1898), The Village by the River (1900), Robin the Rebel (1903), Under One Standard (1906), The Deerhurst Girls (1907), Love and a Will o' the Wisp (1908), Drusilla the Second (1910), Maids in Many Moods (1912), A Home in the Bush (1913), The Ventures of Hope (1914), and The Siege of Mr Johnson (1915).
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Bedford, John
see HASTINGS, PHYLLIS [DORA]
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BEHRENS, MARGARET [ELIZABETH] (4 Oct 1885 – 12 Jan
1968)
(née Davidson)
1930s
Author of five novels—In Masquerade (1930), Puck
in Petticoats (1931), Miss Mackay
(1932), House of Dreams (1932), and
Half a Loaf (1933)—about which
information is scarce, as well as a later children's title, Monkey Behave (1958). She appears to
have been a neighbor of T. S. Eliot in Surrey around the beginning of World
War II.
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BEITH,
[EVELYN BEATRICE] JANET (17 Jul 1906 – 10 Nov 1995)
(married name Melland)
1930s, 1950s
Author of three novels,
including a highly praised debut, No
Second Spring (1933), described as a tragic love story set on a Scottish
manse, a well-received second novel, Sand
Castle (1936), about "two young Highlanders, striving to adapt
themselves to Manchester and the world of trade," and a belated third
novel, The Corbies (1955), about
which little information is available.
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BELL, EVA
MARY (16 Oct 1877 - 11 Feb 1959)
(née Hamilton, aka Mrs. G.
H. Bell, aka John Travers)
1910s – 1930s
Author of just over a dozen novels, including five
under her Travers pseudonym. Titles are Sahib-Log
(1910), In the World of Bewilderment
(1912), Second Nature (1914), Happiness (1916), A Servant When He Reigneth (1921), The Mortimers (1922), Those
Young Married People (1924), In the
Long Run (1925), Jean, a Halo, and
Some Circles (1926), Safe Conduct
(1927), The Foreigner (1928), Hot Water (1929), and Taking a Liberty (1931). She was also
the editor of The Hamwood Papers of the
Ladies of Llangollen (1930), featuring diaries and papers of Sarah
Ponsonby and Eleanor Butler.
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BELL, MRS.
HUGH (9 Sept 1851 – 16 May 1930)
(pseudonym of Florence
Eveleen Eleanore Olliffe Bell, née Olliffe)
1890s – 1920s
Stepmother of
archaeologist and author Gertrude Bell, whose letters she edited. Author of
fiction for adults and children, as well as readers, songbooks, French
language guides, and how-to books about making conversation in society.
Novels include the New Woman tale The
Story of Ursula (1895), Miss Tod
and the Prophets (1898), about a spinster taken in by doomsday prophets, The Arbiter (1901), about an invalid
who becomes the force behind her husband's career, Down with the Tariff! A Tale of Free Trade (1908), and The Good Ship Brompton Castle (1915).
She is also remembered for At the Works
(1907), her study of her husband's workforce in Middlesborough, which was
reprinted by Virago in 1985. Reportedly, the two main characters in Henry
James's story "Nona Vincent" (1891) are based on Bell and her close
friend, American novelist Elizabeth Robins.
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Bell, Jean
see SHAW, JANE
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BELL,
JOSEPHINE (8 Dec 1897 – 24 Apr 1987)
(pseudonym of Doris Bell
Ball, née Collier)
1930s – 1980s
Author of more than 40
mysteries, often reflecting her own experiences as a doctor for more than 30
years, including at the University College Hospital in London. Her mysteries
are known for leisurely pacing, realistic characters, and clever puzzles,
though she remains less well known than contemporaries like Agatha CHRISTIE,
Ngaio Marsh, and Dorothy L. SAYERS. Mystery titles include Murder in Hospital (1937), The Port of London Murders (1938), Death at Half-Term (1938), Trouble at Wrekin Farm (1942), Death at the Medical Board (1944), The Summer School Mystery (1950), Fiasco in Fulham (1963), The Upfold Witch (1964), A Hydra with Six Heads (1970), and The Innocent (1982, aka A Deadly Place to Live). Catholic World called another of her
titles, Death in Retirement (1956),
a "remarkably ingenious and suspenseful mystery story, one rich in
character and atmosphere," and Shirley Neilson discussed New People at the Hollies (1961) in
the first issue of The Scribbler.
Bell also published nearly 20 non-mystery novels, many of them historical in
subject. Titles include The Bottom of
the Well (1940), Martin Croft
(1941), Compassionate Adventure
(1946), Total War at Haverington
(1947), The Convalescent (1960), Tudor Pilgrimage (1967), and In the King's Absence (1973).
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Bell,
Marguerite
see POLLOCK, IDA [JULIE]
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(married names MacDonald and Arbuthnot)
1950s
Author of Summer’s
Day (1951), a novel for adults set in a girls’ school, which was
reprinted by Greyladies and which I discussed here. An earlier short romance
called Broken Bonds (1946) may be by the same author. She
suffered personal tragedy shortly after publication of Summer's Day, which may be part of the reason she stopped
writing.
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BELL, MARY
HAYLEY (22 Jan 1911 – 1 Dec 2005)
(married name Mills)
1950s
Wife of actor Sir John
Mills and mother of actress Hayley Mills. Actress, playwright and novelist
best known for her first two stage hits Men
in Shadow (1942), about the French Resistance, and Duet for Two Hands (1945), about a surgeon who transplants a
murderer's hands onto an unsuspecting patient. Later plays, including Angel (1947) and The Uninvited Guest (1953), were less successful, and she turned
to fiction with the novels Avolena
(1957) and Whistle Down the Wind
(1958). The latter, about three children who come across an escaped murderer
and believe he's Jesus, was made into a film in 1961, and has the dubious
distinction of having been made, in 1996, into one of Andrew Lloyd Webber's
less successful musicals. Bell's memoir, What
Shall We Do Tomorrow?, appeared in 1968.
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Bell, Ramsay
see COOPER, AGNES ROSEMARY
& WELLER, MARY [ELIZABETH
PHYLLIS]
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Bellairs, Pearl
see JEPSON, MARGARET
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Bellasis,
Margaret
see MARTON, FRANCESCA
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BELLERBY,
FRANCES (29 Aug 1899 – 30 Jul 1975)
(née Parker)
1930s – 1940s
Poet whose work appeared regularly on the BBC in the
1950s, and author of two novels. Shadowy
Bricks (1932), according to the Orlando Project, "might be better
described as an educational tract. … The idealistic young heroine of this
text is a teacher at a progressive school in the Dorset countryside."
Somewhat better known was Hath the Rain a Father?
(1946), a novel about mourning the losses of World War I, in which her
brother was killed. She published five collections of poems and three
collections of stories—Come to an End (1939), The Acorn and the Cup
(1948), and A Breathless Child (1952). Two different volumes of
selected poems appeared in 1970 and 1986, and her Selected Stories was
published in 1986.
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BELLHOUSE,
LUCY W[ILFRED]. (1 Apr 1900 – 9 Jun 1961)
(née Allan)
1930s - 1960
Author of ten volumes of
fiction for children, including a series about a family living in a caravan.
Titles include The Caravan Children
(1935), The Coming of George
(1937), The Queen's Crown (1938), Strange Places of the Bible (1939), The Caravan Again (1943), The Caravan Goes West (1948), The Caravan Comes Home (1951), The Christmas Caravan (1955), The Helicopter Children (1956), The Helicopter Flies Again (1957), and
The Winter Caravan (1960). The
British Library shows her unusual middle name as Wilered, but various
records, including a customs card she completed for a trip to the U.S.,
clearly show Wilfred. She was born in Edinburgh.
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Benedict, Peter
see PARGETER, EDITH
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BENNETT, DOROTHY (2 Jul 1919 – 1976)
(née Barnes)
1940s - 1970s
Author of six crime novels—The Curious Were Killed (1947), The Carrion Crows (1950), Stranger
in His Grave (1966), The Chaos
Makers (1968), State Puppet
(1971), and Game Without Winners
(1972). She is not to be confused with no fewer than three American authors
with similar names—children's author Dorothy A[gnes]. Bennett (1909-1999),
crime writer Dorothy [Evelyn] Bennett (1902-1992), and playwright Dorothy
Bennett (1907-1988).
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BENNETT, [ELIZA] TERTIA (17 Oct 1872 – 27 Dec 1949)
(married name Kennerley)
1890s – 1920s
Sister of novelist Arnold Bennett and apparently the
author of only three books scattered across a quarter century: Tiptail: The Adventures of a Black Kitten
(1899) and Gentleman Dash (1912)
are definitely children's books, but The
Mysterious Uncle (1924) could be for older readers. The Bennett papers at
Keele University include manuscripts of something called "The Peggy
Stories" by Tertia Bennett, but it's unclear whether these became one or
more of the published titles or are unpublished works.
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BENNETT,
FREDERICA J[ANE]. E[DITH]. (29 Mar 1880 – 4 Nov 1936)
(née Turle)
1920s – 1940s
Author of more than a
dozen works for children, including two girls' school stories—Gillian the Dauntless (1937) and Harum-Scarum Jill (1937). Her other
titles include Eight Weeks in the
"Saucy Sue" (1927), The
Boy Over the Way (1927), Kidnapped
by Smugglers (1931), The Mystery of
the Sinclairs (1932), The Nabob's
Garden (1933, reprinted 1960), The
Prince Passes (1935), Plain Jane
(1936), Fire and Hall (1937), Open Windows (1938), Augusta and the Boys (1939), and Glen Robin: A Story for Girls (1941).
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Bennett, Maisie
see MAYER-NIXSON, EDITH MAY
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BENNETT,
MARGOT (19 Jan 1912 – 6 Dec 1980)
1940s – 1960s
Author of nine novels, six
of them mysteries or thrillers which may be ripe for rediscovery—in
particular, The Widow of Bath
(1952) and The Man Who Didn't Fly
(1955) have received acclaim, the former from the likes of Julian Symons. Her
others in the genre were Time to Change
Hats (1946), Away Went the Little
Fish (1946), Someone from the Past
(1958), and Farewell Crown and Goodbye
King (1961). Intriguingly, she also tried her hand at science-fiction,
with The Long Way Back (1954),
about an England colonized by Africa. Her final novel, The Furious Masters (1968), also flirts with sci-fi, though its
subject—a possible UFO landing and the tourism and media mayhem it
inspires—sounds more like a satire than an alien invasion tale. Her remaining
novel was That Summer's Earthquake
(1964), set on a New Zealand sheep farm. Her only other publication appears
to have been the unusually titled The
Intelligent Woman's Guide to Atomic Radiation (1964). For a time, she
wrote for television, including several episodes of the Maigret mystery series. It's not known why she, like Dorothy L. SAYERS
and despite success in the genre, stopped publishing mysteries for the last
two decades of her life.
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BENSON,
STELLA (6 Jan 1892 – 6 Dec 1933)
(married name Anderson)
1910s – 1930s
Niece of Mary CHOLMONDELEY
and author of nine novels, many known for their use of fantasy elements to
comment on war, women's rights, and other issues. I Pose (1915) concerns the marriage of a suffragette to a
gardener. This Is the End (1917) is
about a young woman who runs away from her upper-crust family to work as a bus
conductor during World War I. Living
Alone (1919) incorporates witches, fairies, and dragons in "an
examination of human isolation." The
Poor Man (1922) features a deaf character (Benson herself was at least
hearing-impaired) and a harsh condemnation of Americans. Of Pipers and a Dancer (1924), Naomi
MITCHISON said "it is so infinitely more intelligent than the James
Joyce method." Goodbye Stranger
(1926) features three female performers and a male changeling in a Chinese
town (utilizing Benson's own experiences of living in China). The Far-Away Bride (1930, aka Tobit Transplanted) deals with White
Russians in Manchuria, Pull Devil, Pull
Baker (1933) is about the love life of a Knight of Malta, and Mundos (1935), left incomplete at
Benson's premature death, sounds like an unusual mystery: "The narrative
ends with a kidnapping and leaves a murder victim undiscovered, a murderer at
large, and a dwarf marooned on a cliff." She published several volumes
of short stories, and a Collected
Stories appeared in 1936. She also published poetry and two volumes of
travel writings—The Little World
(1925) and Worlds Within Worlds
(1928). Benson contracted pneumonia during a trip to French Indochina (now
Vietnam) and died at the age of 41.
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BENSON,
[ELEANOR] THEODORA [ROBY] (21 Aug 1906 – 25 Dec 1968)
1920s – 1950s
Humorist, travel writer
and author of ten novels, including two with collaborator Betty ASKWITH,
which, according to the Orlando Project, "present a cynical world of
failed romance, lost ideals, social foibles, and ruthless self-seeking."
These are Salad Days (1928), Glass Houses (1929), Lobster Quadrille (1930, with
Askwith), Which Way? (1931), Shallow Water (1931), Seven Basketfuls (1932, with Askwith),
Façade (1933), Concert Pitch (1934), The
Undertaker's Wife (1947), and Rehearsal
for Death (1954). Of The
Undertaker's Wife, her most ambitious novel, John Betjeman said it was
"[f]ull of acute feminine observation, drinks, jokes, talk in keeping
with its varied characters, atmosphere and mature wisdom." Rehearsal for Death was Benson's only
foray into mysteries, and took place among actors, with frequent
Shakespearean quotations. Benson and Askwith collaborated on three popular
books of humorous sketches—Foreigners,
or, The World in a Nutshell (1935), Muddling
Through, or, Britain in a Nutshell (1936), and How to Be Famous, or, The Great in a Nutshell (1937). In
addition, Benson wrote three travel books—Chip,
Chip, My Little Horse: The Story of an Air-Holiday (1934), about her
travels in Europe, The Unambitious Journey
(1935), about Greece, Yugoslavia, and Albania, and In the East My Pleasure Lies (1938), about her travels in
Asia—and numerous short stories, many of them, perhaps surprisingly, horror,
and only some of them collected in Best
Stories of Theodora Benson (1940) and The
Man from the Tunnel and Other Stories (1950). During World War II, she
published Sweethearts and Wives: Their
Part in War (1942), a short book illustrated with home front photographs,
encouraging women to take up war work in support of the men who were
fighting.
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BENTINCK, NORAH [IDA EMILY] (4 Jan 1881 – 23 May
1939)
(née Noel)
1920s
Author of a biographical work, The Ex-Kaiser in Exile (1921), a memoir, My Wanderings and Memories (1924), and two novels, The Ring of Straw (1925) and The Puzzled Wife (1926), about which
information is sparse.
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BENTLEY,
PHYLLIS [ELEANOR] (19 Nov 1894 – 27 Jun 1977)
1910s – 1970s
Biographer, novelist and children's author whose
works are primarily set in her native Yorkshire. She published 18 adult
novels in all, many of them historical, and she considered her trilogy—Inheritance (1932), The Rise of Henry Morcar (1946), and A Man of His Time (1966), which trace
several generations of three different families, all working in the cloth
trades, from the early 1800s to the postwar period—to be her finest work.
Other novels include Environment
(1922) and its sequel Cat-in-the-Manger
(1923), The Spinner of the Years
(1928), A Modern Tragedy (1934), Freedom, Farewell! (1936), which
attacked the rise of the Nazis in the guise of a tale of ancient Rome, The Power and the Glory (1940), set
during the American Civil War, Life
Story (1948), based on her mother's life, Noble in Reason (1955), her most autobiographical novel, and The House of Moreys (1953), described
as a gothic mystery/romance. Bentley also published several biographical and
scholarly works about the Brontës, and The
English Regional Novel (1941), an important critical work. Late in her
career, she published five tales of historical adventure for younger readers,
including The Adventures of Tom Leigh
(1964), Ned Carver in Danger
(1967), Gold Pieces (1968, aka Forgery), Sheep May Safely Graze (1972), and The New Venturers (1973).
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BERESFORD, ELISABETH (6 Aug 1926 – 24 Dec 2010)
(married name Robertson)
1950s – 1990s
Best known as the creator of the Wombles series of
books and television shows, she also wrote numerous other children's books,
including The Flying Doctor Mystery
(1958), The Hidden Mill (1965), Dangerous Magic (1972), and The Ghosts of Lupus Street School
(1986). She also published more than a dozen romantic novels for adults,
including Paradise Island (1963), Escape to Happiness (1964), Roses Round the Door (1965), Saturday's Child (1968, aka Echoes of Love), Love and the S.S. Beatrice (1972, aka Thunder of Her Heart), Pandora
(1974), The Steadfast Lover (1980),
and Flight to Happiness (1983).
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BERG, LEILA
[RITA] (12 Nov 1917 – 17 Apr 2012)
(née Goller)
1940s – 1990s
Author of nearly 50
children's titles, as well as several works of non-fiction and translation.
Best known for editing and contributing to the "Nippers" series for
early readers, books innovative at the time for attempting to represent the
lives of working class and immigrant children and families. Of that series,
Berg's Guardian obit said:
"Family life involving such mundane yet never before represented
activities as eating fish and chips and doing the pools, or details such as
an unemployed father, was incorporated into chatty, playful narratives with
repetitive cadences and unexpected, humorous twists." Some critics,
however, found the works too realistic for young readers, or too stereotyped.
Her children's titles include The
Adventures of Chunky (1948), Little
Pete Stories (1952), The Hidden
Road (1958), A Box for Benny
(1958), Three Men Went to Work
(1960), Fish and Chips for Supper
(1968), Doing the Pools (1971), Hospital Day (1972), Plenty of Room (1975), and The Knee-high Man (1990). Notable
among her non-fiction is Risinghill:
Death of a Comprehensive School (1968), about a progressive school closed
down only five years after opening, despite its considerable successes,
because education authorities disapproved of the headmaster's liberal
approach.
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BERRIDGE,
ELIZABETH [EILEEN] (3 Dec 1919 – 2 Dec 2009)
(married name Graham)
1940s – 1990s
Longtime book critic for
the Daily Telegraph and author of
nine novels. The Story of Stanley Brent
(1945) was compared to Flaubert's Un
Coeur Simple. The House of Defence
(1945), set in the 1880s, is about a Welsh girl who comes to London as a
kitchen maid. Be Clean, Be Tidy
(1947, aka It Won't Be Flowers)
makes use of Berridge's time working at the Bank of England, while Upon Several Occasions (1953) deals
with village life and Rose Under Glass
(1961) is about a widow rebuilding her life among the artists and writers of
London. Across the Common (1964),
which I wrote about here, and Sing Me Who You Are (1967) are both about young women uncovering
disturbing family histories. People at
Play (1982) is set in the 1960s and deals again with fractured family
life, while her final novel, Touch and
Go (1995), which was adapted for BBC Radio, is about a middle-aged divorcée who inherits a house in her Welsh hometown
and decides to make a new start there. Berridge's early Selected Stories (1947) was reprinted by Persephone Books as Tell It to a Stranger and includes
several powerful wartime stories. Another collection, Family Matters, had appeared in 1980. Several of Berridge's
novels have been reissued by Faber Finds.
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BERRISFORD, JUDITH MARY (1921 - ????)
(married name Lewis, aka Amanda Hope)
1940s – 1980s
Author of more than 50 children's titles, especially
pony and other animal stories, such as Taff
the Sheepdog (1949), The Ponies
Next Door (1954), Ponies All Summer
(1956), A Pony in the Family
(1959), and others to the 1980s, as well as three romantic novels under her
Hope pseudonym—The Pengelly Face
(1977), Lord of Glenjerrick (1979),
and Mistress of Eden (1979). She
also published a variety of gardening books.
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Beresford, Max
see HOLDSWORTH, ANNIE E.
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BERRY, FLORA
E[LIZA]. (14 Feb 1873 – 7 Jun 1949)
1890s – 1930s
Author of one school
story, Monica's Choice (1904), and
three other titles about which information is sparse—In Small Corners (1899), Neta
Lyall (1903), and Lettice Martyn's
Crusade (1930).
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Bertram,
Rosamond
see MARGETSON, [ROSAMOND] ELISABETH
[BERTRAM]
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Besma
see BARLTROP, MABEL
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BEST, ANNA
(dates unknown)
1920s
Untraced author of two
girls' school stories—School Rivals
(1925), in which the heroine mostly rescues others from dangerous situations,
and Madge's Victory (1926), which
Sims and Clare describe as "unintentionally amusing" because of its
bewildering plot.
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BETHAM-EDWARDS, MATILDA (4 Mar 1836 – 4 Jan 1919)
1850s – 1910s
Victorian poet, memoirist, travel writer, and
novelist, whose 1916 work Hearts of
Alsace appears to be a novel and thus to qualify her for this list. Her
debut, The White House by the Sea (1857), was an
international bestseller, and some later works dealt with French life, based
on her frequent travels in that country.
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BETHUNE, MARY (13 Dec 1901 – 5 Nov 1987)
(pseudonym of Liliane Mary Catherine Clopet)
1950s
Practicing doctor and lifelong companion of mystery
writer Kathleen FREEMAN (aka Mary Fitt), Bethune published a single novel, Doctor Dear (1954), which appears to
be about a woman doctor, perhaps inspired by her own experiences.
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BETTANY,
[MARY] JEANNIE (JANE) [HICKLING] (25 Jan 1857 – 16 Feb 1941)
(née Gwynne, aka Mrs.
Coulson Kernahan or J. G. Kernahan)
1880s – 1940s
Prolific author of more
than 40 popular—if often implausible, judging from reviews—romantic adventure
and suspense novels. Titles include Two
Legacies (1886), Trewinnot of Guy's
(1898), The Avenging of Ruthanna
(1900), An Unwise Virgin (1903), The Sinnings of Seraphine (1906), The Mystery of Magdalen (1906), Ashes of Passion (1909), The House of Blight (1911), The Mystery of Mere Hall (1912), The Stolen Man (1915), The Trap (1917), The Temptation of Gideon Holt (1923), The Whip of the Will (1927), The
Blue Diamond (1932), A Village
Mystery (1934), The Woman Who
Understood (1935), and The Affair
of Maltravers (1949). Interestingly, she attended University College
London for four years after she was
married. She was also the mother of George Kernahan Gwynne Bettany, who
published mysteries in the 1930s and 1940s.
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BETTS,
P[HYLLIS]. Y[VONNE]. (21 Apr 1909 - 2005)
1930s
Best known now for her
late memoir People Who Say Goodbye
(1989), which was reprinted in recent years by Slightly Foxed and was her
first book in over five decades, following a single novel, French Polish, in 1933. That novel was
described by Flavorwire as "a funny and
sharply observed novel about a girls’ finishing school."
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BEVAN,
[KATHLEEN ELEANOR] MARJORIE (11 Feb 1900 – 8 Sept 1966)
(married name Bennetton)
1920s – 1940s
Author of nearly a dozen
volumes of children's fiction, including nine girls' school stories—Five of the Fourth (1926), The Priory League (1928), The Formidable Fifth (193?), Anne of the Veld (1934), The Fifth at Foley's (1936), Mystery Term at Moorleigh (1937), The Luck of the Veritys (1938), Merely Belinda (1939), and Madcaps of Manor School (1948). Sims
and Clare say that the first of these "can be charitably described as weak,"
but note that the later books like Anne
of the Veld and The Luck of the
Veritys are considerable improvements.
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Bevel, Nicholas
see HINE, MURIEL
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BEVERLY, ANN (18 Apr 1904 – 6 Sept 1994)
(pseudonym of Gretchen [sometimes Gertrude?] Edith
Breary)
1940s
Children's author who published around 10 titles for
younger children, as well as one, The
Runaway Four (1944), which seems to be for older children.
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Bhatia, June
see FORRESTER, HELEN
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