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 435 pages!
[Current total: 1,966 writers]
UPDATED 2/2/2018
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(pseudonym of Nancy White,
married name Naumann)
1930s
Author of a single novel, Lost Content (1937). Little is known
about book or author, except that Napier was born in the UK and emigrated to
the US as an adult.
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NAPIER, ELMA
(23 Mar 1892 – 12 Nov 1973)
(née Gordon-Cummin, earlier
married name Gibbs, aka Elizabeth Garner)
1930s
Novelist and travel writer who spent much of her life in
Australia and Dominica, publishing two novels under her pseudonym—Duet in Discord (1936), a melodramatic
romance with autobiographical overtones, and A Flying Fish Whispered (1938)—as well as a travel book, Nothing So Blue (1927). She also wrote
three volumes of memoirs—Youth Is a
Blunder (1948), Winter Is in July
(1949), and Black and White Sands
(1962).
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NAPIER, EVA
MARIE LOUISA (1846 – 7 Feb 1930)
(née MacDonald, earlier
married name Langham, aka Baroness Napier of Magdala)
1900s – 1910s
Author of eight novels of
romantic melodrama—OCEF says
"Her speciality was the moral contamination of innocent young women by
their worldly elders." Titles are As
The Sparks Fly Upward (1905), A
Stormy Morning (1908), Fiona
(1909), How She Played the Game
(1910), Can Man Put Asunder? (1911),
Muddling Through (1912), To the Third and Fourth Generations
(1913), and Half a Lie (1916).
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NAPIER, [JANE] ROSAMOND (Jul 1879 – 16 Feb 1976)
(married name Lawrence)
1900s – 1930s
Author of eight romantic novels spread over nearly 30
years, including The Heart of a Gypsy
(1909), The Faithful Failure
(1910), Letters to Patty (1911), Tamsie (1912), Tess Harcourt (1913), Release
(1921), Conversation in Heaven
(1936), and Alpine Episode (1938). Indian Embers (1949) is a memoir of
her life in India with her husband, a member of the Indian Civil Service.
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NASH, FRANCES [OLIVIA HARTOPP] (c1887 – 22 Dec 1953)
1920s – 1950s
Author of more than a dozen girls' stories,
including many with Guiding themes. Titles include How Audrey Became a Guide (1922) and several Audrey sequels, Rosie the Peddler (1925), Richenda and the Mystery Girl (1928)
and at least one Richenda sequel, Kattie
of the Balkans (1931), Celia Steps
In (1946), and Second Class Judy
(1952).
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Nash, Newlyn
see HOWE, DORIS [KATHLEEN] HOWE
& HOWE, MURIEL
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Nayler, Eliot
see FRANKAU, PAMELA
[SYDNEY]
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NEEDHAM, [AMY] VIOLET (5 Jun 1876 – 8 Jun 1967)
1930s – 1950s
Author of nearly 20
children's titles. Her most famous works are her "Stormy Petrel"
sequence of eight Ruritanian adventures,
comprised of The Black Riders
(1939), The Emerald Crown (1940), The Stormy Petrel (1942), The House of the Paladin (1945), The Betrayer (1950), Richard and the Golden Horse Shoe
(1954), The Secret of the White Peacock
(1956), and The Red Rose of Ruvina
(1957). The Woods of Windri (1944)
and The Changeling of Monte Lucio
(1946) are also Ruritanian in them, while The
Boy in Red (1948) and The Avenue
(1952) focus on the Glorious Revolution. She also wrote five books with
contemporary settings and some overlapping of characters—these are The Horn of Merlyns (1943), The Bell of the Four Evangelists
(1947), Pandora of Parrham Royal
(1951), How Many Miles to Babylon?
(1953), and The Great House of
Estraville (1955). Many of Needham's books have been reprinted by Girls
Gone By in recent years. Some of her previously unpublished work appeared as The Sword of St. Cyprian and Other Stories.
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NEILL,
MARGARET P[ENELOPE]. (23 Aug 1870 – 2 Jun 1952)
(née Munro)
1930s – 1940s
Author of several
Christian-themed children's titles, including the school story Beauty for Ashes, or, The Sploancos and What
They Did (1930). Other titles are Gwyneth
at Work (1935), Secrets at Sidleigh
(1936), Gowanbraes (1937), Jean's Plan of Campaign (1937), The Murrays of Moorsfoot (1939), Enid's Discoveries (1946), and Lady Gerrie's Dilemma (1946). The last
might be a novel for adults. According to John Herrington's research, Neill
apparently lived alternately in England and India, and appears to have
qualified as a doctor.
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NEILSON, SHEILA M. (dates unknown)
1930s
Untraced author of a single romantic novel, Destiny's Daughter (1932).
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NELSON, MURIEL (dates unknown)
1920s – 1930s
Untraced author of nearly thirty romances, probably
newsprint or dime novels. Titles include Her
Second Honeymoon (1920), Her
Haunted Honeymoon (1921), Married—And
Done For! (1922), The Way of a Jilt
(1925), A Loveless Wooing (1926), A Marriage of Hatred (1930), The Woman Hater (1934), Thou Shalt Not Judge (1937), and People Throw Stones (1938).
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NELSON, VALERIE K. (28 Jan 1905 - 1980)
(pseudonym of Cecilia Lacey)
1920s – 1960s
Author of more than 50 romantic novels, all but the
first for Mills & Boon. Titles include The Pampas Rose (1929), Matching
Chiffon (1936), Mignon Means
Darling (1937), Yesterday's Wife
(1940), Verena Fayre—Probationer
(1943), Adventure for Flora (1948),
Poppies in the Corn (1951), Mr. Arrogance (1960), and Refugee from Love (1967).
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NEPEAN,
[MARY] EDITH (1876 – 23 Mar 1960)
(née Bellis)
1910s – 1950s
Author of about three
dozen romantic novels, often set in Wales. Titles include Gwyneth of the Welsh Hills (1917), Petals in the Wind (1922), Moonlight Madness (1926), Sweetheart of the Valley (1927), Fires of Longing (1940), Forbidden Rapture (1949), and Starlit Folly (1955).
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NESBIT, E[DITH].
(15 Aug 1858 – 4 May 1924)
(married names Bland and
Tucker)
1880s – 1920s
Children's writer and
novelist, author of as many as 60 volumes of fiction in all. She is best
known today for her children's fiction and her ghost and horror stories for
adults, but she also wrote several novels for adults, including The Red House (1902), The Incomplete
Amorist (1906), Daphne in Fitzroy
Street (1909), the fantasy-themed Dormant
(1911), The Incredible Honeymoon (1916),
and The Lark (1922), the last a cheerful, humorous tale of two young women
attempting to make a living on their own. Among her best-known children's
works are a series about the Bastable family, including The Story of the Treasure Seekers (1899), The Wouldbegoods (1901), and The
New Treasure Seekers (1904), the Psammead series, including Five Children and It (1902), The Phoenix and the Carpet (1904), and
The Story of the Amulet (1906),
and, perhaps most famously, The Railway
Children (1906), which has been adapted multiple times for film and
television. Among her ghost and horror stories are those contained in Something Wrong (1893), Grim Tales (1893), and Fear (1910). One of Nesbit's earliest
novels, The Marden Mystery (1896),
has become so rare that it's possible no copies survive. I reviewed The Lark here and it has been reprinted
as a Furrowed Middlebrow book from Dean Street Press.
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NETHERSOLE, SUSIE
COLYER (1869 – 21 May 1956)
1900s - 1930
Author of eight Mills
& Boon titles, which appear to be romantic tales of country life—Mary Up at Gaffries and Letitia Her Friend
(1909), Ripe Corn (1911), Wilsam (1913), The Game of the Tangled Web (1916), Take Joy Home (1919), And
Pleasant, His Wife (1928), and Pounce,
the Miller (1930). She also published a story collection, Time o' Lilacs, and Other Times
(1922).
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NEVILL, DOROTHY
M[ARY]. (1912 - 1990)
(married name Alcock)
1930s
Author of a single book, Mrs. Moore's Mishaps and Other Humorous
Short Stories (1933), compiled from her stories which first appeared in a
local paper in Leek, Staffordshire. Nevill went on to a career in psychiatric
nursing. Thanks to David Alcock, Nevill's son, for sharing information about
his mother.
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NEVILLE, MAY F[????]. (dates unknown)
1900s, 1920s –
1940s
Untraced author of numerous "newsprint novels,"
including A Soul's Bondage (1923), Love in a Lilac Lane (1936), Her Sister's Secret (1937), Her Wedding Day (1941), A Runaway Wife (1942), and Only the Governess (1943).
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NEWMAN, ANNA
(dates unknown)
1940s
Untraced author of a
single girls' school story, Jenny &
Co. in the Haunted Wing (1949).
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NEWMAN,
MARJORIE W[INIFRED]. (13 Sept 1903 – 17 Sept 1983)
(uncertain but probable
identification)
1920s – 1930s
Author of five girls'
school stories, which Sims & Clare describe as "competent, if
undistinguished." Titles are Scoring
for the School (1929), Jean's Great
Race (1929), Edna's Second Chance
(1934), Sybil Makes Good (1936),
and Jennifer Takes the Lead (1939).
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Nicholson, Jane
see STEEN, MARGUERITE
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NICHOLSON,
MARY (1906 - 1980)
(pseudonym of Ursula
Frankau)
1930s
Granddaughter of Julia FRANKAU
and sister of Pamela FRANKAU. Poet and author of three novels—Ask the Brave Soldier (1935), Horseman on Foot (1937), and These Were the Young (1938)—which
received wildly mixed reviews and seem to have focused on social criticism of
the wealthy and the status quo.
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NICHOLSON,
[ELEANOR] MARY [LLOYD] (11 Jan 1908 – 17 Feb 1995)
(née Crawford, aka L. E.
Martin, aka Anne Finch, aka Mary Crawford)
1930s, 1950s
Biographer and author of six novels. Her two early
novels—Sublunary (1932) and Turn Again (1934)—were published under
her L. E. Martin pseudonym. Of the first, L. P. Hartley said that it
"inspires the reader with mingled fear, admiration, and respect."
In the 1950s, she published four more under the pseudonym Mary Crawford—Laugh or Cry (1951), Roses Are Red (1952), Itself to Please (1953), and No Bedtime Story (1958). Her Anne
Finch pseudonym was used only for her Essay
on Marriage (1946). She later co-wrote Dear Miss Weaver (1970), a biography of modernist publisher and
journal editor Harriet Weaver. Nicholson's work is documented in some depth here.
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NICKALLS, ETHEL PATTESON (1867 – 5 Mar 1948)
1920s
Author of one poetry collection, Piper's Hill and Other Poems (1922),
and one novel, The Challenge of Life
(1927).
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Nickson, Hila
see PRESSLEY, HILDA
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Nicol, Clare
see ADAIR, HAZEL (1920-2015)
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NICOL, NORMA
(dates unknown)
1920s
Untraced author of a
single girls' school story, Her School
Godmother (1921). A contemporary newspaper article says this is "the
pen name adopted by a young North Shields lady possessed of considerable
literary talent," and the same name appears on fashion journalism a few
years later, but no clues as to her real identity.
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NISOT, ELIZABETH
[MAVIS] (Jul 1893 – 12 Apr 1973)
(née Hocking, aka William
Penmare)
1920s – 1930s
Daughter of novelist
Joseph Hocking and sister of Anne HOCKING and Joan Carew SHILL. Author of at
least 10 mystery novels. Her first three books appeared under the Penmare pseudonym—The Black Swan (1928), The Man Who Could Stop War (1929), and
The Scorpion (1929). Under her own
name she published Alixe Derring
(1933), Shortly Before Midnight
(1934), Twelve to Dine (1935), Hazardous Holiday (1936), Extenuating Circumstances (1937), False Witness (1938), and Unnatural Deeds (1939).
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NIXON, BARBARA (1908 - ????)
(married name Dobb)
1940s
Wife of Cambridge economist Maurice Dobb and actress
in the Cambridge Festival Theatre. Nixon was an air raid warden during the
Blitz and wrote dramatically of her experiences in Raiders Overhead (1943). She also wrote what appears to be a
children's book, Jinnifer of London (1948),
which qualifies her for this list.
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NIXON, FLORENCE GWYNNE (1863 – 6 Aug 1946)
1930s
Author of more than a dozen novels, probably dime
romances, including Foul Play
(1931), Warned Off! (1932), He Never Backed a Winner (1932), The Eleventh Hour Lover (1932), The Owner's Counter-Plot (1935), Was He False? (1937), Always on a Loser (1938), and Romping Rory's Win (1939). She shows
on census records as a author as early as 1901, so she may have published
serials, stories, or fiction under other names.
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NIXON, MARIAN
E[SSLEY]. (c1865 - 1945)
(possibly née Tamlyn,
earlier married name Essley)
1930s
Author of one poetry collection,
Four Wishes and Other Poems (1931),
and one novel, Martha (1933), the
latter described by the Londonderry
Sentinel as "full of events, sometimes mirthful and sometimes sad,
always gripping." She appears to have emigrated to the U.S. and later to
Canada.
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NOBLE, BARBARA
(1907 - 2001)
1920s – 1950s
Author of six novels—The Years That Take the Best Away
(1929), The Wave Breaks (1932), Down by the Salley Gardens (1935), The House Opposite (1943), Doreen (1946, reprinted by
Persephone), about a young evacuee in World War II, and Another Man's Life (1952). According to Persephone's bio of her,
she worked for nearly 20 years for 20th Century Fox, followed by an equally
long stint running the London office of Doubleday, "becoming one of the
most esteemed figures in London publishing and presiding over a very happy
all-women office."
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Noel,
Christopher
see MOCATTA, FRANCES
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NOKES, ETHEL
(dates unknown)
1930s – 1950s
Author of more than 20
works for children, including three girls' school stories praised by Sims
& Clare—The Fourth Form Gang
(1932), The Fourth Form Gang Again
(1935), and Sally of the Fourth Form
Gang (1938). Other titles include Grace
Give-Away (1931), Three Girls on
Holiday (1932), The House of Many
Pages (1934), The Girl Who Didn't
Belong (1935), That Ass Neddy
(1948), and Winking Windows (1954).
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Nomad
see CRAFTON SMITH, ADELE
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Noose, Melita
see STRANGE, NORA K[ATHLEEN BEGBIE].
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NORLING, WINIFRED
(19 Aug 1905 – 5 Nov 1979)
(pseudonym of Winifred
Mary Jakobsson)
1930s – 1950s
Author of more than 30
children's titles, most of them girls' school stories, which Sims & Clare
find implausible but never boring. Titles include Monica of St Monica's (1934), The
Riddle of St Rolf's (1935), The
Third's Thrilling Term (1936), Six
Sinners at St Swithun's (1938), St
Ann's on the Anvil (1947), and Pat
of Perry's (1950).
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NORMAN, MRS.
GEORGE (1871 – 25 Dec 1967)
(pseudonym of Melesina
Mary Blount, née Mackenzie)
1900s – 1920s
Author of nearly
a dozen light romantic novels, including Delphine
Caifrey (1911), The Silver Dress
(1912), The Wonderful Adventure
(1914), and The Town on the Hill
(1927). Her sister Margaret Mackenzie was responsible for unearthing Daisy
ASHFORD's The Young Visitors and
helping to get it published.
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NORMAN, SYLVA (1 Nov 1901 – 7 May 1971)
(pseudonym of Hermine Silva Nahabedian, married name
Blunden)
1920s – 1930s,
1950s
Scholar (especially on Shelley), biographer, and novelist.
Her debut, Nature Has No Tune
(1929), was published by the Hogarth Press. Cat Without Substance (1931), about a family's misfortunes, was described
as both a comedy and as influenced by Woolfish introspection. She then
co-wrote a work with then-husband, poet and critic Edmund Blunden, called We'll Shift Our Ground, or Two on a Tour:
Almost a Novel (1933). Nearly a quarter of a century later, she produced
one final novel, Tongues of Angels
(1957), a comedy set at an international congress in aid of culture. She also
published a biography, Mary Shelley:
Novelist and Dramatist (1938).
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NORRIS, PHYLLIS IRENE (7 May 1909 – 27 Mar 2004)
1930s – 1950s
Cousin of Gwendoline COURTNEY and author of eight
children's titles—The Mystery of the
White Ties (1937), The Nasturtium
Club (1939), The Duffer's Brigade
(1939), The House of the Lady-Bird
(1946), Meet the Kilburys (1947), The Cranstons at Sandly Bay (1949), The Polkerrin Mystery (1949), and The Harlands Go Hunting (1951).
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NORTON, LENA (dates unknown)
1930s
Untraced author of two short romances—She Wanted to Shine (1931) and The Golden Bait (1931).
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NORTON,
[KATHLEEN] MARY (10 Dec 1903 – 29 Aug 1992)
(née Pearson)
1940s – 1980s
Children's author best known for her Borrowers series of children’s books (six
volumes 1952-1982). Her early titles The
Magic Bed-knob (1943) and Bonfires
and Broomsticks (1947), about a spinster with magical powers, were the
inspiration for Disney's Bedknobs and
Broomsticks. Virago issued some
of her other work as Bread and Butter
Stories (1998).
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NORTON, S.
H. (1903 - ?c1982)
(pseudonym of Mary
Kathleen Richardson)
1950s
Author of numerous
biographies of religious figures and religious-themed books for younger
children. She also wrote one school story, Annals of St Audrey's (1956), and another work of children's
fiction, Odds and Ends (1959),
about which I could find no details.
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NOTT, KATHLEEN
[CECILIA] (19 Feb 1905 – 20 Feb 1999)
1930s – 1940s, 1960s
Mainly known for
her philosophical writings, Nott also published poetry and five novels—Mile End (1938), The Dry
Deluge (1947), a
work of science-fiction, Private Fires (1960), A Clean Well-Lighted Place (1961), and
An Elderly Retired Man (1963).
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NOVY, PRISCILLA (1918 - ?2012)
(pseudonym of Mary Lucy Novy, née Feare, later
married name MacNamara)
Author of a single children's title, The Lincoln Imp (1948), as well as an
earlier domestic guide, Housework
Without Tears (1945).
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O'BRIEN, DEIRDRE
(1902 - ?1969)
(pseudonym of Mary
Elizabeth McNally, née Ryan, aka D. V. O'Brien)
1930s – 1940s
Author of more than two
dozen Mills & Boon romances, including Love Knows No Death (1931), Only
My Dreams (1932), Wives Are Like
That (1936), and Unwanted Wife
(1939). She later published two girls' school stories, The Three at St Christopher's (1944) and New Girls at Lowmead (1945, with Grace COUCH). The death date
shown is uncertain but probable.
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O'BRIEN, EDNA (15 Dec 1930 - )
(married name Gebler)
1960s – 2010s
Acclaimed Irish novelist, dramatist, screenwriter,
and biographer, best known for her Country
Girls trilogy—The Country Girls
(1960), The Lonely Girl (1962), and
Girls in Their Married Bliss (1964)—which
was controversial in its exploration of sexuality and social issues. Other
fiction includes Casualties of Peace
(1966), A Pagan Place (1970), A Fanatic Heart (1984), The High Road (1988), Lantern Slides (1990), House of Splendid Isolation (1994),
and In the Forest (2002). O'Brien
published a memoir, Country Girl,
in 2012.
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O'BRIEN,
KATE (KATHLEEN) [MARY LOUISE] (3 Dec 1897 – 13 Aug 1974)
1930s – 1960s
Playwright and novelist who often focused on gender,
women struggling for independence, and female sexuality. She published nine
novels in all. Her debut, Without My
Cloak (1931), which traces three generations of one Irish family in the
19th century, won both the James Tait Black Prize and the Hawthornden Prize. The Anteroom (1934) is set during
three days in 1880. Mary Lavelle
(1936) deals with an Irish governess living in Spain in the 1920s, and That Lady (1947) has a historical
Spanish setting. The Land of Spices
(1941), according to Susan Vander Closter in British Novelists, 1930-1959, is "a slow-paced, graceful,
and thoughtful examination of an intellect which makes a frightened escape
into the austere but safe arms of the convent." The others are Pray for the Wanderer (1938), The Last of Summer (1943), The Flower of May (1953), and As Music and Splendour (1958). She
also published two travel books—Farewell
Spain (1937) and My Ireland
(1962).
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O'DONOGHUE, ELINOR
MARY (1898 - 1961)
(aka Annabel Lee, aka E.
M. Oddie)
1930s – 1940s
Author, under her Lee pseudonym, of more than 30
Mills & Boon romances, including Lumberjack
Jill (1932), A Quixote Against His
Will (1933), Blue Flax (1936), Triangle with a Difference (1938), Divorce without Drama (1940), and Wastrel with Wings (1941). As Oddie,
she published three novels—April Folly
(1928), Portrait and Original
(1933), and The Slitting of Mr.
Crispe's Nose (1940), as well as several biographies.
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O'FAOLAIN,
EILEEN (1902 – 1988)
(née Gould)
1940s – 1960s
Wife of author Sean
O'Faolain and mother of author Julia O'Faolain. Irish author of children's
books, particularly known for fairy and fantasy stories and for retellings
from Irish mythology. Titles include The
Little Black Hen (1940), The King
of the Cats (1941), Miss
Pennyfeather and the Pooka (1942), The
Children of Crooked Castle (1945), May
Eve in Fairyland (1945), Miss
Pennyfeather in the Springtime (1946), The Shadowy Man (1949), The
White Rabbit's Road (1950), Irish
Sagas and Folk-Tales (1954), High
Sang the Sword (1959), and Children
of the Salmon and Other Irish Folktales (1965).
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O'FARRELL, KATHLEEN
(1924 - )
1940s – 1960s
Author of more than a
dozen children's books, including
Silver
Birches (1949), Polly of Primrose Hill (1956), All Because of Posy (1957), The Camerons Lead the Way (1957), Aunt Biddy Began It (1960), Number One, Victoria Terrace (1962),
and Sally Anne Sees It Through
(1967).
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OAKLEY, DORIS (dates unknown)
1920s
Untraced author of nine dime romances, including The Ringleader (1922), The Girl in Brown (1924), Reckless Sadie (1925), The Spark (1925), A Daring Pair (1925), The
Impossible Girl (1925), The Titled
Tomboy (1925), The Amateur Widow
(1928), and Friends in Love (1929).
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OAKLEY,
NANCY (dates unknown)
1920s
Author of two mystery novels with John Oakley—The Clevedon Case (1923) and The Lint House Mystery (1925). She
could be the Annie Oakley née Rimmer (c1877-1949), but details are sketchy.
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OCKLEY, G. T. (1874 – 6 Sept 1955)
(pseudonym of Grace Thompson, née Milligan)
1930s
Sculptor and author of three crime novels—The Man Under the Window (1935), The Tempestuous Wooer (1936), and The Devil on Board (1937)—about which
little information seems to be available.
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Octavia
see BARLTROP, MABEL
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ODELL, CAROL [MAISRY] (23 Jul 1921 - 2013)
(née Foote, aka Gill Odell)
1950s – 1960s
Television screenwriter and presenter and author of
numerous children's book, mostly for younger children, but her one Gill Odell
book (co-authored with Traviss Gill), Mr.
Ozzle of Withery Wood (1959), appears to be for older children, and
perhaps Jimmy Hurley to the Rescue
(1965) is as well.
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Odell, Gill
see ODELL, CAROL
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Oertling,
Christine
ERTLING, CHRISTINE [VIOLET]
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OGLE, L[OIS]. J[ENNET]. (1902 - 1998)
(married name Hoskyns-Abrahall)
1950s
Author of a single girls' school story, The School by the Sea (1958), unusual
in that it is set in an African school and, according to Sims and Clare,
treats the girls' various nationalities and traditions in an unpatronising,
matter-of-fact way. She was the second wife of Clare ABRAHALL's divorced
husband.
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Ogumefu, M. L.
see BAUMANN, MARGARET
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OHLSON, E[DITH].
E[MILIE]. (c1865 - c1948)
1930s – 1940s
Author of a series of four
first-person novels which follow their main character, Pippa, from school
days to marriage, and which are praised by Sims & Clare. Titles are Pippa at Brighton (1937), Pippa in Switzerland (1938), Pippa at Home (1940), and Pippa and James (1943).
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OLDMEADOW, KATHARINE
LOUISE (10 Jun 1878 – 8 Jul 1963)
(aka Pamela Grant)
1910s – 1950s
Author of
girls' school stories and other girls' fiction. According to Sims and Clare,
her work is "far more varied than most of her contemporaries, and her
books are most attractive, conveying a sense of optimism and happiness while
never flinching from the ugliness of life." Titles include Madcap Judy (1919), Princess Charming (1923), Princess Elizabeth (1926), The Pimpernel Patrol (1927), Cheery Chums (1930), Schooldays of Prunella (1932), A Strange Adventure (1936), The Three Mary Anns (1948), Under the Mountain (1952), and The Fortunes of Jacky (1957). In the
1920s, she published three of her books pseudonymously.
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Oliver, G. Kent
see CARR, GERTRUDE KENT
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OLIVER, JANE
(12 Oct 1903 – 4 May 1970)
(pseudonym of Helen
Christine Rees, née Easson Evans, aka Joan Blair [with Ann STAFFORD])
1930s – 1970s
Author of more than sixty novels, some historical in
theme and some, written with Ann STAFFORD under the pseudonym Joan Blair,
romantic. Titles published under her own name include Tomorrow's Woods (1932), Mine is the Kingdom (1937), The Hour of the Angel
(1942), In No Strange Land (1944), Crown for a Prisoner (1953),
and Queen Most Fair (1959). The Hour of the Angel is a Blitz novel, whose main character's
husband is in the RAF. In No Strange Land appears to be primarily
historical but perhaps ends with the war? Jenny Hartley in Millions Like Us
says of it: "Sometimes it seems as though all roads must lead to war
and even a novel starting in Biblical times finishes in the RAF."
Oliver's concern for the RAF was personal—her husband, John Llewellyn Rhys,
had been in the RAF and had been killed in 1940. She later initiated the
literary prize bearing his name.
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Olivia
see STRACHEY, DOROTHY
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OLIVIER,
EDITH [MAUD] (31 Dec 1872 – 10 May 1948)
1920s – 1930s
Author of
five quirky, underrated novels. She began writing only in her fifties,
following the deaths of her father and sister. The Love-Child (1927) presents the coming to life of the main
character's childhood imaginary friend—still a playful child though the woman
herself is middle-aged. The Seraphim
Room (1932, published in the U.S. as Mr.
Chilvester's Daughters), centers around the maniacally old-fashioned Mr.
Chilvester, who refuses any and all changes and upgrades to his 18th century
house, with tragic consequences. The other novels are As Far as Jane's Grandmother's (1929), The Triumphant Footman (1930), and Dwarf's Blood (1931). Olivier’s memoir, Without Knowing Mr. Walkley (1938), is also particularly
memorable. She published one children's book, The Underground River (1928), and two biographies, The Eccentric Life of Alexander Cruden
(1934), about the compiler of the biblical concordance, and Mary Magdalen (1935) (though the
former is far more rigorously biographical than the latter). In World War I,
Olivier had helped to organize the Women's Land Army, for which she was
appointed MBE in 1920, though sadly she does not appeared to have written
about those experiences. During World War II, however, Olivier published the
somewhat autobiographical Night-Thoughts
of a Country Landlady (1943), a short work about the elderly Emma
Nightingale's experiences and thoughts about the war. More of Olivier's
reflections on the war are included in From
Her Journals, 1924-1948 (1989). She was a cousin of Sir Laurence Olivier,
though her branch of the family apparently pronounced the "r". I've
written about several of Olivier's books here.
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OMAN, CAROLA
[MARY ANIMA] (11 May 1897 – 11 Jun 1978)
(née Lenanton, aka C.
Lenanton)
1920s - 1940
Biographer, children's writer, and author of more
than a dozen novels, some of them historical, four of them under her
pseudonym. Nothing to Report (1940)
appears to be a domestic novel set in the early days of World War II. Her
other novels are Princess Amelia
(1924), The Road Royal (1924), King Heart (1926), Mrs. Newdigate's Window (1927), The Holiday (1928), Crouchback (1929), Miss Barrett's Elopement (1929), Fair Stood the Wind (1930), Major Grant (1931), The Empress (1932), The Best of His Family (1933), and Over the Water (1935). She published
several historical children's titles, as well as more than a dozen
biographies, including books about Elizabeth of Bohemia, Walter Scott, David
Garrick, and others. Her memoir is An
Oxford Childhood (1976).
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OPENSHAW,
MARY (c1875 – 28 Sept 1928)
(married name Binstead)
1900s – 1920s
Author of eight
novels, some historical and most partaking of melodramatic themes. Titles are
The Loser Pays: A Story of the French
Revolution (1908), The Cross of
Honour (1910), Little Grey Girl
(1913), Sunshine: The Story of a Pure
Heart (1914), Afterthoughts
(1915), Glory Everlasting: A Story of
the Times (1917), Laughter Street,
London (1920), and Madame Lucifer
(1924).
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ORANGE, URSULA
[MARGUERITE DOROTHEA] (28 Sept 1909 – 14 Oct 1955)
(married name Tindall)
1930s – 1940s
Author of six novels. Begin Again (1936) is about the anticlimactic working and family
lives of several young girls after their heady days at Oxford. To Sea in a Sieve (1937) is a comedy
about unconventional young lovers. Tom
Tiddler's Ground (1941, published in the U.S. as Ask Me No Questions) is probably her best work, a wartime tale of
a young mother evacuated to the countryside, who snoops into village affairs.
Company in the Evening (1944) is
about a divorced mother making a living while sharing a flat with her drab
widowed sister-in-law. Have Your Cake
(1942) is also set during wartime, and Portrait
of Adrian (1945) is described as a psychological drama. Orange dealt with
severe depression, and sadly died by her own hand in 1955. Her daughter Gillian
TINDALL wrote about her in her memoir Footprints
in Paris (2009). She was also the sister-in-law of Monica TINDALL. I
wrote about several of her books here, and Begin Again,
Tom Tiddler's Ground, and Company in the Evening have been
reprinted as Furrowed Middlebrow books by Dean Street Press.
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ORIGO, IRIS
[MARGARET] (15 Aug 1902 – 28 Jun 1988)
(née Cutting)
1950s
Biographer of prominent
Italian figures and author of a single children's book, Giovanni and Jane (1950). Origo, married to an Italian, remained
in Italy during World War II, helping refugee children and later escaped
Allied prisoners of war, a time she discussed in her memoir, War in Val d'Orcia (1947). She also
published a later memoir, Images and
Shadows: Part of a Life (1970).
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ORMISTON, MARGARET (14 May 1889 - 1983)
(pseudonym of Margaret Ormiston Curle)
1920s
Poet and author of two children's titles, Tancred the Hero and Other Fairy Tales
(1920) and Kerdac the Wanderer
(1924).
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ORMSBY,
[JOCELYN] IERNE (6 Jan 1883 – 12 Oct 1954)
(née Rainey)
1930s
Author of one girls'
school story, Jane of the Crow's Nest
(1936), an additional children's title, Wild
West Sally (1939), and two volumes of poetry. She was born in Canada, but
was living in England by age 12, so she's right on the borderline for
inclusion in this list.
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ORR, CHRISTINE
[GRANT MILLAR] (1899 – 18 May 1963)
1910s – 1950s
Poet,
playwright, and author of more than a dozen mostly Scottish-themed novels. The Glorious Thing (1919) is set in
Scotland during World War I. The others are Kate Curlew (1922), The
House of Joy (1926), Hogmanay
(1928), The Marriage of Maida
(1928), Artificial Silk (1929), The Price of Love (1929), The Gulf Between (1930), The Player King (1931), Immortal Memory: The Comedy of a
Reputation (1933), Tattered Feather
(1934), Hope Takes the High Road
(1935), Flying Scotswoman (1936), Catriona M'Leod (1937), Gentle Eagle: A Life of King James IV of
Scotland (1937), The Happy Woman
(1947), You Can't Give Them Presents
(1949), and Other People's Houses
(1951).
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Ortiz, Elisabeth
Lambert
see LAMBERT, ELISABETH
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O'SHEA, PRUDENCE
(12 Mar 1893 – 26 Jun 1982)
(pseudonym of Victoria
Jessamine/Jasmine Chatterton, née Merchant)
1930s – 1940s
Literary agent and author
of eight novels—Famine Alley
(1930), Silver Mountains (1936), Warm Autumn (1937), Scandalous Interlude (1938), Free and Fortunate (1938), Paradise for the Porretts (1940), The Cygnets (1947), and Wine and Roses (1948).
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OVERTON, JOHN
(dates unknown)
(pseudonym of Kathleen
Baker)
1910s – 1920s
Author
of at least five novels, some or all of which were historical romances. Titles
are Dickie Devon (1914), Hazard (1920), My Lady April
(1921), The Beckoning Unknown (1924), and Striped Roses (1925).
She wrote a few radio plays after that, then fell silent. John Herrington
found that she lived in a suburb of Birmingham, and came across a 1922
newspaper article referring to her as "a little woman daintily dressed
in a frock of crepe fabric, with a large rose-trimmed picture-hat" who
had enjoyed amateur acting, but he could not trace her birth or death.
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OWEN, JEAN ALLAN (1841 – 30 Jul 1922)
(née Pinder, later married name Visger)
1880s – 1910s
Author of Christian-themed fiction for children and
adults. Titles include Ethel's
Comforter (1880), Sea Blossom: A
Cornish Story (1884), After
Shipwreck (1889), West Dene Manor
(1895), Love Covers All (1910), and
Ruth Thornton, or, Two Girls and a
Summer (1915).
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OWENS, JOAN [MARGARET]
LLEWELYN (1919 - ????)
(married name Venner)
1950s
Author of both fiction and
non-fiction about career choices for girls. Her fiction is Sally Grayson: Wren (1954), Margaret Becomes a Doctor (1957), A Library Life for Deborah (1957), Sue Takes Up Physiotherapy (1958), and
Diana Seton: Veterinary Student
(1960).
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OWSLEY, SIBYL
BERTHA (1883 – 27 Mar 1968)
1910s – 1940s
Author of more
than two dozen children's books, among them school stories for both boys and
girls. Later titles tend to contain at least some Guiding content. Titles
include Eardley House (1912), Skimpy and the Saint (1923), The Upper Third Twins (1926), Dulcie Captains the School (1928), A Madcap Brownie (1929), The School Knight-Errant (1934), and The Guides of North Cliff (1944).
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OXENHAM, ELSIE (25 Nov 1880 – 9 Jan 1960)
(pseudonym of Elsie Jeanette Dunkerley)
1900s – 1950s
Prolific author of almost 90 titles for girls, including
the "Abbey Girls" series, which centers around a group of
schoolgirls and a romantic medieval abbey (modelled on Cleeve Abbey in
Somerset), and various interwoven "connector" titles featuring some
of the characters from the main series. The first Abbey title is Girls of the Hamlet Club (1914) and
the last is Tomboys at the Abbey
(1959). Her father was William Arthur Dunkerley, who published novels as John
Oxenham. Her sister Erica DUNKERLEY also published several novels. The Elsie
J. Oxenham Society has an informative website here.
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Oxenham, Erica
see DUNKERLEY, ERICA [ISABEL]
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