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BACHE, [FRANCES] MARY (5 Aug 1904 – 5 Sept 1982)
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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BALL, OONA H[OWARD]. (25 Jan 1867 – 8
May 1941)
(née Butlin, aka Barbara Burke)
1900s – 1910s
Poet, biographer, and travel writer. Barbara
Goes to Oxford (1907) is a charming travel novel in the form of a diary
by a wealthy young woman of her trip to Oxford with a companion, exploring
the city and finding romance. Their
Oxford Year (1909) is similar in structure, but by a woman writing to her
grandfather back in Canada. Her third work of fiction, A Quiet Holiday (1912), is a more serious tale of an orphan
girl's stay on a farm in the Cotswolds. She was married to an Oxford
lecturer, about whom she wrote Sidney
Ball: Memories and Impressions of 'An Ideal Don' (1922). She later
published one further travel book, Dalmatia
(1932), presumably having gained knowledge from her daughter's marriage to a
native of Mostar in what is now Bosnia.
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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, DAPHNE [DOROTHY CRISP] (14 Aug 1913 – 23
Sept 1985)
(née Binny)
1950s – 1960s
Author of two novels—Amedeo (1958),
described in a review as "a moving story of the search by an
illegitimate Italian boy, brought up in a convent, for the mother he never
knew," and Pennypatch (1965),
about which details are lacking. A review notes that Daphne was partly
educated in Rome, as well as living there for a time with her husband, Lt.
Col. Walter Patrick Barclay of the Scottish Black Watch. The couple had twins
in 1940, but sadly her husband was killed in Tunisia in 1943.
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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, [ANNA] ELIZABETH (20 Sept 1905 – 21 Apr
1976)
(married name Davie, sometimes Davie-Thornhill)
1930s
Author of a single novel, Green
Pleasure (1931), about "the bright young people of the
'County'", which received positive reviews. [I found it too perky and
snooty, and with a dash of virulent racism.]
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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, aka Louis Moresby)
1920s
Having travelled widely for most of her life, Barrington 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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BATCHELOR, MAUD [ALICE] (19 Sept 1874 - 1952)
(née Batty)
1930s
Author of a single novel, The Woman of
the House (1934), a humorous diary of the life of a well-to-do London
lady, which I reviewed here.
Batchelor was herself a "Lady" as her husband was Stanley Lockhart
Batchelor, a High Court judge in India.
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BATCHELOR, PAULA [VIVIENNE] (1923 – 3 Jan 2013)
(married names Gibbs and Lansberry)
1950s
Author of two novels—Bed Majestical
(1954, aka If This Be Virtue),
about a young girl trying to preserve her virtue at the court of an 18th
century German Grand Duke, and Angel
with Bright Hair (1957), which seems to be about the wife of Dante
Gabriel Rossetti. One review states that the first draft of her first novel
was written at age 15, while another says that she wrote her novels because
she found most historical fiction unsatisfactory. In 1956, she was reportedly
married to a schoolmaster and had two small sons.
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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, ISABELLA [FLORENCE] (27 May 1913 – 2001)
(pseudonym of
Isabelle Bayne-Powell)
1940s – 1950s
Daughter of Rosamond BAYNE-POWELL. Nurse and author of three mystery novels—Death Enters the Ward (1947), Death and Benedict (1952), and Cruel as the Grave (1956). The first,
at least, appears to make use of her nursing experience. Her parents'
pre-marriage names were Bayne and Powell, but it seems they both hyphenated
the names after they married, as records show both as
"Bayne-Powell" thereafter.
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BAYNE-POWELL, ROSAMOND [ALICIA] (25 Nov 1879 – 8 May 1960)
(née Bayne, married name
Powell)
1940s
Mother of Isabella BAYNE. 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. She and her husband
appear to have been ahead of their time in hyphenating their names after
marriage.
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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, KATHERINE (13 Feb 1882 – 7 Jan 1937) &
HELEN [GILL EDE] (27 Jan 1880 – 1 Sept 1973)
1940s
Authors of a single novel, Winter Wind
(1946), described as "vivid pen pictures of life in rural Antrim."
The authors were sisters, and a review of the book mentions that Katherine
died before the books publication—perhaps Helen finished a book the two had
begun, or possibly the publication was delayed due to World War II.
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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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BELL, [EMMA] MARY (17 Jan 1913 – 26 Sept 1994)
(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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BELLAMY, KATHLEEN S[OMERS]. (21 Feb 1912 – 2002)
(married names Tomkinson and White)
1940s
Author of two novels, Jacaranda
(1940) and The Cage (1942), the
latter of which takes place at least partially during World War II—an Observer review summarizes it: "a
futile young woman, a poet, who lives with her sister, knows a number of
other drifters, and picks up a lover whom she marries. … She leaves him,
knocks about in air raids, and at last can stand separation no longer. So she
goes to Scotland, where his unit of the R.A.F. is stationed, and there is a
half-hearted reconciliation." Bellamy was latterly married to Sir Dick
Goldsmith White, senior British Intelligence officer. She may have been born
in Argentina, where her father had business.
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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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