For more information about
this list, please see the introduction, linked below.
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You can download the entire list in a single PDF.
Clicking on the link below will open a Google Docs page displaying the entire
list in PDF. To save a copy of the PDF, just click on the little down arrow in
the upper left. You can also print the list from the Google Docs page, but be
warned that it now weighs in at 472 pages!
[Current total: 2,103 writers]
UPDATED 10/11/2019
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(née Bennett)
1940s
Born in Wales and immigrating to the U.S. after her
marriage, Laing is primarily known as a poet—her Collected Poems appeared in 1967—but she published one novel, The Great Year (1948), about three
generations of a Vermont fishing community.
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LAING, JANET
[RUSSELL] (1870 - 1953)
(née Carstairs)
1900s – 1920s
Author of
eight novels, some of which appear to be light, humorous tales. Before the Wind (1918) is an energetic
comedy about a young girl serving as companion to two eccentric women in
wartime Scotland, while Wintergreen
(1921) deals with a middle-aged servant who, having survived the sinking of
the Lusitania, decides to begin a new life in the immediate postwar period. The others are The Wizard's Aunt (1903), The
Borderlanders (1904), The Man with
the Lamp (1919), The Honeycombers
(1922), The Moment More (1924), and
The Villa Jane (1929).
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LAIRD, DOROTHY [STEVENSON] (25 Jun 1912 – 21 Jan
2000)
1930s
Best known for her biography of the Queen, How the Queen Reigns (1959) a later
bio of the Queen Mother (1975), and
for her adventurous life in boating and horse racing, Laird also published
two early novels, Double Cherry
(1934), described as a romance, and Opening
Meet (1934)
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LAKE, EDNA
[JANE] (18 Dec 1884 – 13 Dec 1968)
1920s – 1940s
Niece of Bessie MARCHANT.
Schoolteacher and author of just over a dozen children's books, including
four school stories—The Right Rowena
(1924), The Wraith of Raeburn
(1925), The Mystery of Tower House
School (1928), and Pamela of
Peter's (1931). Other titles include The
Merry Five And 'Toronto' (1920), The
Mystery of the Manor (1924), Nan
and the Rest (1927), Two Torments
and Torrid (1927), and Mavis the
Mysterious (1941). She seems to have also published serial fiction in the
1910s. Lake worked as a schoolteacher in Lancashire for many years. [Thanks
to Christine Poole for sharing family information about Lake.]
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LAKE,
ELIZABETH (c1915 - 1976)
(pseudonym of Inez Pearn,
married names Spender and Madge, aka Inez Madge)
1940s – 1950s
Author of five novels. The
first two, Spanish Portrait (1945)
and Marguerite Reilly (1946), seem
to have appeared under her second married name, the other three, The Lovers Disturbed (1949), The First Rebellion (1952), and Siamese Counterpart (1958), under her
pseudonym. I reviewed The First
Rebellion, set in a girls' convent school, here. Her first marriage, to
poet Stephen Spender, lasted less than three years; she remarried Mass Observation
founder Charles Madge during World War II, and they remained together until
her premature death from cancer.
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Lake, Rozella
see LEWIN, RITA
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Lambe, Marjory E.
see
TRENERY, GLADYS GORDON
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LAMBERT, [ALICIA] DOROTHY (DOROTHEA) (17 Feb 1884 – 28 May 1967)
(née Irwin)
1920s –
1950s
Author of
more than two dozen novels, which sound like humorous romances. Titles
include Elizabeth, Who Wouldn't
(1929), Aunts in Arcady: An Irish Idyll
(1930), Moons and Magpies (1931), Scotch Mist (1936), Fish Out of Water (1937), Much Dithering: A Romance (1938), Two Birds and a Stone (1939), Birds on the Wing (1943), Music While You Work (1949), Harvest Home (1950), and Something in the Air (1953). I
reviewed Much Dithering here.
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LAMBERT, ELISABETH (17 Jun 1915 – 27 Oct 2003)
(full name Elisabeth Lambert Ortiz-Tinoco, aka
Elisabeth Lambert Ortiz)
1950s
Best known as a food writer, especially on Latin
American cuisine, Lambert was born in the UK but lived in Jamaica and
Australia in her childhood. She published poetry and two novels, The Sleeping House Party (1951), a
mystery set at an Australian artist's colony, and Father Couldn't Juggle (1954), about a girl growing up in
Jamaica.
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Lamour, André
see BURKE, NORAH AILEEN
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Lancaster, Vicky
see ANSLE, DOROTHY PHOEBE
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Lance, Leslie
see
SWATRIDGE, IRENE MAUDE
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LANDALE, [ALICE] MARY [FRANCES] (28 May 1903 – 19
Dec 1990)
(née Ashton-Jinks)
1930s
Author of a single novel, Gregory's Daughter (1935), about a family ruled over by a
tyrannical father.
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LANE, JANE (27 May 1905 – 6 Jan 1978)
(pseudonym of Elaine Dakers, née Kidner)
1930s – 1970s
Biographer, children's author, and author of three
dozen historical novels known for their meticulous research and vivid detail.
These include Undaunted (1934), Sir Devil-May-Care (1937), He Stooped to Conquer (1943), Gin and Bitters (1945, aka Madame Geneva), His Fight Is Ours
(1946), London Goes to Heaven
(1947), Parcel of Rogues (1948),
about Mary Queen of Scots, Fortress in
the Forth (1950), Thunder on St.
Paul's Day (1954), Cat Among the
Pigeons (1959), A Wind through the
Heather (1965), The Questing Beast
(1970), and A Secret Chronicle
(1977). She also published ten children's titles, including Escape of the King (1950), Desperate Battle (1953), The Escape of the Princess (1962), and
The Champion of the King (1966).
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LANE,
MARGARET [WINIFRED] (23 Jun 1906 – 14 Feb 1994)
(married names Wallace and
Hastings)
1930s – 1960s
Journalist, biographer, children’s author, and author of nine novels. She was one of the
few female journalists in London in the 1920s. Her novels are Faith, Hope,
No Charity (1935), which won the Prix Femina-Vie Heureuse, At Last the
Island (1937), Walk into My Parlor (1941), about a bogus
spiritualist, Where Helen Lies (1944), A Crown of Convolvulus
(1954), A Calabash of Diamonds (1961), A Night at Sea (1964), A
Smell of Burning (1965), and The Day of the Feast (1968). Her
short-lived first marriage was to the son of thriller writer Edgar Wallace,
who became the subject of her first biography. She later published bios of
Beatrix Potter and the Brontës, among others.
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Lane, Temple
see LESLIE, MARY ISABEL
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Lang, Frances
see MANTLE, WINIFRED
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LANGBRIDGE,
ROSAMOND (18 Jul 1880 – 2 Jul 1964)
(married name Fletcher)
1900s – 1920s
Wife of mystery writer J. S. (Joseph Smith)
Fletcher. Author of eight novels, largely "marriage problem novels of a
mildly racy kind" (OCEF).
Titles are The Flame and the Flood
(1903), The Third Experiment
(1904), The Ambush of Young Days
(1906), The Stars Beyond (1907), Imperial Richenda: A Fantastic Comedy
(1908), The Single Eye (1924), The Golden Egg (1927), and The Green Banks of Shannon (1929). The Land of the Ever Young (1920)
might be children's fiction.
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Langford, Jane
see MANTLE, WINIFRED
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LANGMAID,
MARGARET (8 Aug 1903 – 27 Oct 1972)
(née Tegetmeier)
1930s
Author of five novels which appear to be humorous
romances—This Charming Property
(1934) is about village tensions surrounding a new housing development, The Yes Man (1935) deals with the
uneven romance of a schoolteacher, and MacAdam
and Eve (1936) is about the pairing of a Scottish doctor and a cheerful
young actress. The others are Related
by Marriage (1938) and Precious
Burden (1938).
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LANGSLOW, JANE (dates unknown)
(possibly pseudonym of Maud Diver?)
1930s
Unidentified co-author, with Margaret Rivers
LARMINIE, of a single novel, Gory
Knight (1937), a parody of the kind of "round robin" detective
novels popular at the time. Martin Edwards discusses the novel here, along with the possibility that she is actually
Larminie's sister, Maud DIVER.
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LANGTON, JOY (9 Feb 1916 – 13 Apr 1991)
(pseudonym of Edith Hermione Veryl Gordon Langton,
married name Morris)
1930s - 1950
Author of seven novels, including Cannibal Feast (1937), set in the New
Hebrides and based on the adventures of artist Charles Gordon-Frazer, an
uncle of Langton. The others are Blind
Arrows (1938), Sabina (1943), Pro Tem (1945), Broken Circle (1946), Thin
Bread and Butter (1948), and Halt
(1950).
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LARGE, DOROTHY M[ABEL]. (1891 – 21 Apr 1942)
(née Lumley, aka D. M. Large)
1930s – 1940s
Poet, children's author, and novelist whose work
often focuses on Anglo-Irish life in the country. Novels include Cloonagh (1932), The Open Arms (1933), Man
of the House (1939), The Onlooker
(1940), and The Quiet Place (1941),
the last of which is set in an Irish boarding house among English folk
fleeing German bombs. Her Irish-themed tales were collected in Irish Airs (1932), An Irish Medley (1934), and Talk in the Townlands (1937). The Kind Companion (1936) and The Glen of the Sheep (1938) appear to
be for children.
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LARKINS,
VIOLA [MAUD] (28 Oct 1886 – 1953)
1920s – 1930s
Author of four novels—The Everlasting Hills (1924), Windflower (1925), To-Morrow Fair (1931), and The Glory and the Dream (1932). A
blurb for the last describes it as about "a man and a woman who because
of their selfish intolerance and narrowness of vision, bring disaster on
themselves."
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LARMINIE,
MARGARET RIVERS (6 Sept 1885 – 31 Mar 1964)
(married name Tragett)
1920s – 1930s
Cousin of mystery writer
Margaret YORKE and author of eight novels.
Bookman called her 1924 novel Deep
Meadows a "very long novel concerning marriage and its
ramifications." The others are Search
(1922), Echo (1923), Soames Green (1925), Galatea (1928), The Visiting Moon (1932), Doctor
Sam (1933), and Gory Knight
(1937). The last is a parody mystery—see Martin Edwards' discussion of it here. Edwards—reading the
novel with Yorke, a distant cousin of Larminie's—concluded: "The story
parodies the celebrated detectives Hercule Poirot, Lord Peter Wimsey (and his
manservant Bunter), Reggie Fortune, Dr Priestley and Inspector
French—although the French character appears only in the final stages of the
book. The sleuths gather, by improbable means, in an English country house,
and are immediately greeted by the disappearance of the cook (the eponymous
Ms Knight.) It is an entertaining piece of work. The plot is slight, and
stretched out excessively, but to my mind there is much pleasure to be had in
the way MRL and ‘Jane Langslow’ render the eccentricities of Poirot, Wimsey
and Bunter in particular."
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LASKI, MARGHANITA (24 Oct 1915 – 6 Feb 1988)
(née Esther Pearl Laski,
married name Howard, aka Sarah Russell)
1940s – 1950s
Novelist, broadcaster,
playwright, critic, biographer, and religious scholar. Though best known in
her lifetime for her work as a BBC broadcaster on The Brains Trust and other programs, she is now known as one of
Persephone's major rediscoveries. She wrote six extraordinarily diverse
novels. Love on the Supertax (1944)
is a satirical wartime work dealing with the decline of the upper classes and
the wartime black market. To Bed with
Grand Music (1946), written under her pseudonym, is the darker tale of a
young wife whose boredom, while her husband is serving abroad, leads her into
a series of affairs. Tory Heaven
(1948, inexplicably published in the US as Toasted English) is a rollicking "mock utopia" set in a
postwar world in which traditional class structures have been codified into
law. Little Boy Lost (1949) is about a father searching for his missing son in postwar France. The
Village (1952), my personal favorite, is about the aftermath of the war's
breakdown of class relations, in the form of two families—an upper crust
family and that of their former housekeeper—who have to come to terms with
being united by marriage. And The Victorian Chaise-Longue (1953) is a
harrowing novella about a woman who falls asleep on a chaise-longue and
awakens in the body of a Victorian woman. Along similar lines, her short
story, "The Tower" (1955), which appeared in Cynthia Asquith's The Third Ghost Book, is a terrifying
timeslip tale of black magic haunting a tower in Italy. Apologies (1955) is a collection of humorous magazine pieces,
with "apologies" indicating the clichés and pleasantries people use
to avoid serious issues. I wrote about "The Tower" and Apologies here.
Laski was reportedly horrified by the 1953 film version of Little Boy Lost, which unfathomably
reinterpreted it as a musical starring Bing Crosby. Laski wrote one play, The Offshore Island (1959), set after
a nuclear holocaust, several works of criticism, including works about George
Eliot, Jane Austen, and Rudyard Kipling, and several intellectual works about
religion, approached from the perspective of her own atheism. For several
decades, Laski, was a voluntary reader for the Oxford English Dictionary supplement, researching old sales
catalogues, crime fiction, periodicals, and other sources for arcane terms.
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LATHAM,
KATHERINE WRIGHT (29 Jun 1871 – 16 May 1941)
(née Murray, aka Mrs.
Albert G. Latham)
1900s – 1920s
Author of children’s
fiction—initially for younger readers, but later work includes books for
older readers, such as The Young
Crofters (1920), A Summer at “The
Barn” (1923), and Those Two and the
Queer Folk (1928).
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LAVERTY,
MAURA (15 May 1907 – 21 Jul 1966)
(née Kelly)
1940s
Novelist, journalist,
playwright, and soap opera screenwriter. Her first novel, Never No More (1942), based on her own
childhood in Kildare, was enormously successful and critically acclaimed. Its
sequel, No More Than Human (1944),
followed her time as a young governess in Spain in the 1920s. Her most
enduring work, however, was Lift up
your Gates (1946, aka Liffey Lane),
a novel about Dublin slum life which, along with additional plays continuing
the story, was adapted for stage and for a television soap opera as Tolka Row. Her other novel was Alone We Embark (1943, aka Touched by the Thorn), and she also
published two children's titles, The
Cottage in the Bog (1946, aka Gold
of Glanaree) and Green Orchard
(1949), and three cookbooks—the wartime Flour
Economy (1941), Kind Cooking
(1946), and Full and Plenty (1960),
the last of which was particularly successful. A collection of her fairy
tales, The Queen of Aran's Daughter,
was published in 1995 with illustrations by her daughter. A bit of trivia: In
her youth, Laverty worked for a time as secretary to Elizabeth BIBESCO.
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LAVIN, MARY
(11 Jun 1912 – 25 Mar 1996)
(married names Walsh and
Scott)
1940s – 1990s
Though born in the U.S., Lavin and her Irish parents
returned to Ireland while she was a child, and her work focuses on women's
lives in Ireland. She wrote primarily stories, publishing more than a dozen
collections in all, including the much-praised Tales from Bective Bridge (1942), but she did
publish two novels The House in Clewe
Street (1945) and Mary O'Grady
(1950), which were reprinted by Virago in the 1980s. In the 1950s and 1960s
Lavin published a series known as the "widow stories," featuring a
widow named Vera, based on Lavin's own experiences after her husband's death.
She also published three children's books—A
Likely Story (1957), The
Second-Best Children in the World (1972), and The Story of the Widow's Son (1993).
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LAVRIN, NORA
(10 Sept 1897 – 30 Aug 1985)
(née Fry)
1950s
Primarily known as an
artist and illustrator of children's books by other authors (including Hilda
LEWIS and Elisabeth KYLE) as well as adult novels, she also co-wrote, with
Molly THORP, a single children's novel, The
Hop Dog (1952), which was later filmed as Adventure in the Hopfields (1954). Some of her artworks
documenting the Women's Land Army in World War II are now in the collection
of the Imperial War Museum.
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LAW, JOHN (28 Feb 1854 – 10 Dec 1923)
(pseudonym of Margaret Elise Harkness)
Journalist and novelist involved with socialism in her youth
and later with the Salvation Army. Best known for In Darkest London (1890), focused on the Salvation Army and how
London's temptations can lead youth astray. She published at least seven
novels, many reflecting her interest in politics and labour, including A City Girl (1887), Out of Work (1888), set around the
events of "bloody Sunday", A
Manchester Shirtmaker (1890), George
Eastmont: Wanderer (1905), Captain
Lobe (1915), The Horoscope
(1915), set in Sri Lanka, and A
Curate's Promise: A Story of Three Weeks, September 14-October 5, 1917
(1921). She travelled a lot in India and published Glimpses of Hidden India (1909, revised as Indian Snapshots in 1912). She was a second cousin of Beatrice
Webb and trained with her to be a nurse.
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LAWFORD,
FLORENCE (18 Aug 1871 – 11 Sept 1946)
1920s – 1940s
Author of 17 romantic novels, some historical in
setting. According to blurbs, The
Bridge of Hope (1939) is set in a Swiss town above a ravine, while Dear Downlands (1941) traces
"three generations of middle-class family life in the nineteenth
century. Others include The Eyes of a
Hawk (1926), The Blue Pochette
(1929), "Merryheart"
(1932), Bogey Lane (1935), and Daffodil Terrace (1943). She also
published the non-fiction Flowers in
History (1933).
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LAWRENCE,
MARGERY (8 Aug 1889 – 13 Nov 1969)
(married name Towle)
1920s – 1970s
Author of more than three
dozen volumes of fiction, many featuring supernatural or uncanny themes.
These include the collections Nights of
the Round Table (1926), The
Terraces of Night, Being Further Chronicles of the Club of the Round Table
(1932), Strange Caravan (1941), and
Number Seven Queer Street (1945). The Madonna of Seven Moons (1931) is a
novel dealing with split personality, and The
Bridge of Wonder (1939) with spiritualism. The Rent in the Veil (1951) is a timeslip tale, and The Tomorrow of Yesterday (1966) deals
with Atlantis. Other fiction includes Red
Heels (1924), Fine Feathers
(1928), Madame Holle (1934), Emma of Alkistan (1953), Skivvy (1961), The Yellow Triangle (1965), and Autumn Rose (1971).
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LAWS, BETTY
(BESSIE) (17 Apr 1899 – 28 Jan 1981)
1920s – 1930s
Author of five girls'
school stories, the first four—The New
Head—and Barbara (1925), The Girls
of Dormitory Ten (1926), Pam and
the Fearless Fourth (1927), and The
Girls of Stornham Central (1929)—praised by Sims & Clare, the last—Kidnappers at Elmhurst School
(1939)—distinctly not.
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LAYCOCK,
MARGARET (dates unknown)
1930s
Untraced author of three
school stories which, according to Sims & Clare, are as focused on staff
as on students—Form IV Does Its Bit
(1934), Ann's Difficult Term
(1935), and Fifth Form Crisis
(1937). She was apparently a teacher herself in a London day school.
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Lazarus,
Marguerite
see GILBERT, ANNA
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LE BAS, MARY (dates unknown)
1930s
Unidentified author of two novels. A blurb describes
Castle Walk (1934) as "the
struggles of a charming young woman to earn her living in the big city",
and E. M. DELAFIELD called it "very fresh and amusing". Second Thoughts (1935) is about a
successful young novelist in London who falls in love and decides to stop
writing, but finds it more difficult than anticipated. If we assume the name
is not a pseudonym, the author could be Mary Louisa Le Bas, 1914-1986,
married name Turnbull, but I can't prove it.
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LE FEUVRE,
AMY (AMELIA) [SOPHIA] (1861 – 29 Apr 1929)
(aka Mary Thurston Dodge)
1890s – 1920s
Prolific author of fiction
for children and adults, most with Christian themes. Titles include On the Edge of a Moor (1897), The Carved Cupboard (1899), Odd Made Even (1902), The Chateau by the Lake (1907), Four Gates (1912), Joan's Handful (1915), and A Madcap Family, or, Sybil's Home
(1916).
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LE FLEMING, ROSALIND [BEATRICE BENEDICTA] (9 Jul
1901 – 11 Jan 1983)
(née Lees)
1930s
Author of two novels, Roast Beef on Sunday (1933) and Tomorrow to Fresh Woods (1936), about which little information is
available. The latter is set in British Malaya, where the author lived
following her marriage to artist and railway engineer Hugh Le Fleming.
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LE PLA,
LILLIE (18 Oct 1894 – 12 Feb 1957)
1920s
Author of seven children’s adventure tales—The Call of the Dawn (1922), Round the Corner (1924), The Secret Shore (1925), The Secret of Desborough House (1926),
Tangletrees (1927), The Treasure of Monk's Burn (1928),
and The Secret of the Wood (1928).
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LEA, JOCELYN
CLARE (23 Jul 1889 – 8 Jun 1971)
(née Lea)
1920s
Poet and author of four
humorous novelss—Bringing Up Dinah
(1927), Waste (1929), Cork the Conqueror (1929), described
by the Spectator as "wild
farce," and Cinderella's Country
House (1930), about a woman reluctantly running a residential hotel. Her
maiden and married names were the same because she married a cousin.
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LEACH, D[ORIS]. L[ILY]. (25 Feb 1897 – 21 May 1974)
(née Bark, earlier married name Cox)
1940s
Author of two novels—Cleveland View (1944), set in the Cleveland Hills in Yorkshire,
not in Cleveland, Ohio, and Restless
Tides (1947)—as well as one children's book, Sally the Hare (1947). Her brother was journalist and author
Conrad Voss Bark, known for his writings about fishing. Until recently, Leach
remained a mystery, but John Herrington was able to track her down.
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Leader, Barbara
see BLACKBURN, [EVELYN] BARBARA
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LEAR,
WINIFRED (28 Jan 1907 – 14 Jun 2002)
(full name Winifred Lear
Heap)
1940s
Schoolteacher and principal and author of two
novels. The Causeway (1948) is set
just before and during the Blitz—according to Saturday Review, "Most of the action is centered about a
rectory that conceals briefly madness, cancer, love, hate, and
frustration." I wrote about it here. Shady
Cloister (1950) is set at a girls' boarding school in South London. Lear
also published a memoir, Down the
Rabbit Hole (1975), about her own early school days in Crewe during and
after World War I. She appears to have also privately published at least
three more books, which seem to be short sketches and observations.
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Leaver, Ruth
see TOMALIN, RUTH
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LEE, MARY
(dates unknown)
1920s
Untraced author of one novel, 'It's a Great War!' Reality of Actual Experience (1929), but no
other information is available.
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Lee, Rowena
see BARTLETT, MARIE
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LEES, EDITH
[MARY OLDHAM] (1861 – 14 Sept 1916)
(married name Ellis, aka
Mrs. Havelock Ellis)
1890s – 1910s
Activist and wife of
sexologist Havelock Ellis (though she was also openly lesbian, and Ellis wrote
about their open relationship in his memoir, My Life [1939]). She published several novels, including Seaweed:
A Cornish Idyll (1898), My Cornish Neighbours (1906), Attainment (1909), The Imperishable Wing (1911), and Love-Acre (1914). Her 1915 volume, Love in Danger, is a collection of
three plays.
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Lees, Marguerite
see BAUMANN, MARGARET
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LEESON,
MAUDE (dates unknown)
1910s – 1920s
Untraced author of six novels. The earlier titles,
like The Fords of Hilton Langley
(1913) and The Marriage of Cecilia
(1914), seem to be cheerful romances for young girls, while later works, such
as God's Price (1920) and Still Waters (1922), are more serious.
The others are The Discretion of Decima
(1912) and The Stepsister (1915).
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LEGGE,
MARGARET (22 Aug 1872 – 3 Apr 1957)
1910s – 1920s
Author of seven novels,
which OCEF compares with those of
May SINCLAIR. Titles are A Semi-Detached
Marriage (1912), The Price of
Stephen Bonynge (1913), The Rebellion
of Esther (1914), The Wane of
Uxenden (1917), A Tempestuous
Daughter (1924), The Spell of
Atlantis (1927), and The Crystal
Rabbit (1929).
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LEGION, A.
(dates unknown)
1920s
Untraced author of a
single girls' school story, The Three
Helens (1927), which traces the evolution of a school over time, from the
points of view of three successive girls.
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LEHMANN,
BEATRIX (1 Jul 1903 – 31 Jul 1979)
1930s
Successful actress, sister
of Rosamond LEHMANN and publisher John Lehmann, and author of two novels, But Wisdom Lingers (1932) and Rumours of Heaven (1934), the latter
of which was reprinted by Virago in the 1980s and is, according to Kirkus,
"a story of a family escaping life into a dream world of their
own." I wrote about both novels here.
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LEHMANN,
ROSAMOND [NINA] (3 Feb 1901 – 12 Mar 1990)
(married names Runciman
and Philipps)
1920s – 1950s, 1970s
Sister of Beatrix LEHMANN and publisher John
Lehmann. Seen as the quintessential “women’s writer” during her lifetime,
Lehmann’s critical reputation has improved significantly since many of her
novels were reprinted by Virago. Dusty
Answer (1927) was controversial for its portrayal of lesbianism but also
a popular success. Her second novel, A
Note in Music (1930), was poorly received, but then followed her four
most famous works—Invitation to the
Waltz (1932), about a young girl's experiences at her first dance, The Weather in the Streets (1936), a
sequel following her into adulthood and an affair with a married man (Carmen
Callil of Virago famously called it her generation's Bridget Jones's Diary), The
Ballad and the Source (1944), set in the early years of the 20th century,
and The Echoing Grove (1953), which
makes use of Lehmann's own experiences of Blitz and wartime conditions.
Following the sudden death of her daughter in 1958, Lehmann only rarely
published, moving toward spiritualism in her life and her remaining works.
Her memoir, The Swan in the Evening,
appeared in 1967, and she published one final novel, the poorly-received A Sea-Grape Tree (1976). She also
published one story collection, The
Gypsy’s Baby and Other Stories (1949).
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LEIGH, MARGARET MARY (17 Dec 1894 – 7 Apr 1973)
1920s – 1930s
Poet, memoirist, and novelist who often wrote about
crofters in Scotland. She published two novels, The Passing of the Pengwerns (1924) and Love the Destroyer (1938), as well as several memoirs of farm
life, including Highland Homespun
(1936), Harvest of the Moor (1937),
Spade Among the Rushes (1949), and The Fruit in the Seed (1952). Leigh
entered a convent in 1950.
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LEIGH, MARY (dates unknown)
(pseudonym of Beryl or Beyrl Randall?)
Untraced author of three novels—Pure Palace (1944), set in 7th century India, False World, Goodnight (1946), and The Company's Servant (1947), based on
the life of Robert, Lord Clive. Her possible real name above stems from a
signed copy of one of the books listed on Abe Books, described as having the
inscription "…best wishes from Beyrl 'Mary Leigh' Randall," but
we're not certain if the bookseller misspelled "Beryl" or if Beyrl,
apparently an actual name as well, was correct. Some possible candidates
appear in public records, but there is nothing to say which is the author.
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Leigh, Olivia
see CLAMP, HELEN MARY ELIZABETH
|
Leigh, Roberta
see LEWIN, RITA
|
Leigh, Ursula
see GWYNN, URSULA [GRACE]
|
LEIGHTON,
MARIE [FLORA BARBARA] (4 Feb 1865 – 28 Jan 1941)
(née Harris, aka Mrs.
Robert Leighton, aka Marie Connor Leighton)
1880s – 1930s
Mother of
Ronald Leighton, Vera BRITTAIN's fiancé who was killed in WWI and features prominently
in her classic memoir Testament of
Youth. Author of 60+ volumes of fiction, many of them mysteries or
crime-related potboilers. OCEF
singles out several with female protagonists, including Joan Mar, Detective (1910), The
Bride of Dutton Market (1911), and Lucile
Dare, Detective (1919). Others include Beauty's Queen (1884), The
Harvest of Sin (1898), A Napoleon
of the Press (1900), Her Ladyship's
Silence (1907), Justice!
(1910), Ducks and Drakes (1913), Human Nature (1916), Every Man Has His Price (1917), Her Fate and His (1921), The Torry Diamonds Mystery (1930), and
The Silence of Dr Duveen (1937).
She also wrote her own memoir of her son, Boy
of My Heart (1917), which seems to be as gushing and sentimental as the
title would imply. Steve at Bear Alley unearthed her correct maiden name and
a lot more information here.
|
LEITCH,
ELIZABETH (dates unknown)
1930s, 1950s
Unidentified author of
four children's titles—The Raiders'
Road (1937), The Two Houses by the
Shore (1938), The Saturday Club (1940),
and The Family at Kilmory (1955).
Some or all of these seem to have Scottish settings, and most were reprinted
at least once.
|
LEITH, MRS. DISNEY (1840 – 19 Feb 1926)
(pseudonym of Mary Charlotte Julia Leith, née Gordon)
1860s –
1910s
Poet, translator (from
Icelandic), children's author, and novelist. Much of her work is Victorian,
but her late novels, including A Black
Martinmas (1912) and its sequel Lachlan's
Widow (1913), fall within my scope. She was a cousin of Algernon Charles
Swinburne.
|
Lenanton, C.
see OMAN, CAROLA
|
Lennox, Edward
see MAYER-NIXSON, EDITH MAY
|
LEONARD, BERTHA
(22 Sept 1883 - ????)
(pseudonym of Bertha
Howick, married name Fry)
1920s – 1940s
Mother of Leonora FRY.
Author of about eighteen children's titles, of which several are girls'
school stories. Titles include Stella's
Victory (1926), Daphne the Day Girl
(1927), An Upper Fourth Feud
(1928), The Rivals of Redlands
(1931), Silverways Manor School
(1936), and The Castle School Mystery
(1938). Steve at Bear Alley did research on Leonard and her daughter here.
|
Leonard,
Charles L.
see HEBERDEN, MARY VIOLET
|
LESLIE,
DORIS (9 Mar 1891 – 31 May 1982)
(née Oppenheim, later
married names Cookes and Hannay)
1920s – 1970s
Author of more than 30
novels, many historical in subject. Full
Flavour (1934) is about a woman who takes over her father's business with
great success. Fair Company (1936)
traces multiple generations of one family. House in the Dust (1942) deals with a house, bombed in the Blitz,
which triggers a woman's memories of her Victorian childhood. She also
published several novels based on the lives of well-known figures. Other
titles include The Starling (1927),
The Echoing Green (1929), Puppets Parade (1932), Concord in Jeopardy (1938), Polonaise (1943), The Peverills (1946), That
Enchantress (1950), Peridot Flight
(1956), I Return (1962, aka Vagabond's Way), The Marriage of Martha Todd (1968), The Dragon's Head (1973), and Crown
of Thorns (1979). Later in life, she published several well-received
biographies, whose subjects include François Villon, Elizabeth Chudleigh, and
Richard the Lionheart.
|
Leslie,
Henrietta
see SCHUTZE, GLADYS HENRIETTA
|
Leslie,
Josephine
see DICK, R. A.
|
LESLIE, MARY ISABEL (1899 – 18 Feb 1978)
(aka Jean Herbert, aka Temple Lane)
1920s – 1950s
Irish nationalist, lecturer, poet, and author of
more than 30 romantic novels, including Burnt
Bridges (1925), Watch the Wall
(1927), Blind Wedding (1931), The Trains Go South (1938), House of My Pilgrimage (1941), Curlews (1946), The Magnolia Flower (1950), Desert
Locust (1951), Hall of Lost
Footsteps (1953), The Desert's a
Woman (1955), and French Violet
(1956).
|
LESSELLS,
KITTY (dates unknown)
1940s – 1950s
Unidentified author of 10
romantic novels—Sophisticated Nymps
(1940), A Million Women Sighed
(1942), Yesterday's Orchids (1943),
With All My Heart (1944), Unconditionally Yours (1946), Live Again, Love Again (1947), I Kiss Your Hands (1948), Journey of My Heart (1950), Woman Proposes (1951), and If You Were Mine (1955).
|
LESSING,
DORIS [MAY] (22 Oct 1919 – 17 Nov 2013)
(née Taylor, earlier
married name Wisdom, aka Jane Somers)
1950s – 2000s
2007 Nobel Prize winner, author of
more than 30 works of fiction, as well as memoirs and other non-fiction. Best
known for The Golden Notebook (1962), a classic novel about a woman attempting to
unite her political, emotional, sexual, and creative lives. Some of her early
fiction makes use of her childhood and youth in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), and
she later experimented with the science-fiction genre in the series Canopus
in Argos: Archives (1979-1983) and in Memoirs
of a Survivor (1973). Other novels include The Grass Is Singing (1950), Briefing
for a Descent into Hell (1971), The
Diary of a Good Neighbour (1983, as Jane Somers), The Good Terrorist (1985), The
Fifth Child (1988), and The
Sweetest Dream (2001). Her memoirs include Under My Skin: to 1949 (1994) and Walking in the Shade: 1949-1962 (1997),
|
LESTER,
CAROLINE (dates unknown)
1940s
Untraced author of a
single girls' school story, Pat on Her
Own (1949).
|
LESTER, LOUISE (dates unknown)
1930s
Untraced author of a single short romance, A Ladies' Man (1931).
|
LETHBRIDGE, OLIVE (1885 – 24 Feb 1971)
(married name Banbury)
1910s, 1930s,
1950s
Author of nine novels in all, including two early
collaborations—The Marriage Maze
(1911, with Gerald Beresford Fitzgerald) and The King's Master (1912, with John de Stourton), six Mills &
Boon romances in the 1930s, most set in exotic locales—The Dancer of El Touran (1931), As a Lioness That Sleeps (1931), Where Caravans Pass By (1935), African Orchestra (1936), The
Ladies of Shalm-a-Dar (1936), and Tropical
Island (1937)—and one late novel, The
Black Parrot (1950), based on a play by H. Fletcher Lee.
|
LETHBRIDGE,
SYBIL [MCGREGOR] CAMPBELL (7 Jan 1874 – 20 Jan 1945)
(née Allen, earlier
married name Lonergan)
1910s – 1940s
Author of forty volumes of
fiction. Gnats and Camels (1924) is
about a young woman rebelling against her stuffy family. Bookman described The Wild
Feather (1933) thus: "Here is a villain of a builder who seeks to
destroy the beauty of an unspoilt seaside place in Cornwall; here is the heroine,
fifty-five years of age but still beautiful and admired—a Lady Bountiful, who
has in the past outwitted him." Other titles include The Shoreless Sea (1912), The Marauders (1917), Hard and Fast (1923), The Odds Against Her (1925), Tawny Eyes (1929), The Long Day's Task (1931), Sweet Fruit (1935), Won by Fraud (1937), Old Hillersley's Heiress (1940), A Runaway Wife: The Winning of Lady Tory
(1942), and The Golden Snare
(1946). Steve at Bear Alley researched her life here. I wrote briefly about Misfits (1920) here.
|
LETTS, MARY FELICIA S[IMEON]. (1875 – 15 Mar 1959)
1910s
Co-author, with her sister Winifred LETTS, of a
single volume of stories, Helmet &
Cowl: Stories of Monastic & Military Orders (1913). Her birth was
registered in the first quarter of 1876, but she was baptised on 27 Dec 1875.
|
LETTS,
WINIFRED M[ABEL]. (Feb 1882 – 7 Jun 1972)
(married name Verschoyle)
1900s – 1930s
Playwright, biographer,
poet, children's author, and novelist. Her children's titles include Waste Castle: A Book for Girls (1907),
Bridget of All Work (1909), Naughty Sophia (1912), Pomona and Co. (1934), and The Gentle Mountain (1939). Adult
novels include The Story-Spinner
(1907), The Rough Way (1912), Christina's Son (1915), What Happened Then? (1921), and Knockmaroon (1933). With her sister
Mary Felicia LETTS, she published Helmet
& Cowl: Stories of Monastic and Military Orders (1913).
|
LEVERSON,
ADA [ESTHER] (10 Oct 1862 – 30 Aug 1933)
(née Moses)
1900s – 1910s
Literary hostess, friend
of Oscar Wilde, and author of six witty social comedies, including those
Virago published as The Little Ottleys—Love's Shadow (1908), Tenterhooks (1912), and Love at Second Sight (1916)—as well as
The Twelfth Hour (1907), The Limit (1909), and Bird of Paradise (1914). According to
her ODNB entry, she was one of
Wilde's few defenders when the scandal surrounding his homosexuality broke,
taking him into her home during the trial and greeting him outside the prison
when he was released. Among her other friends were Aubrey Beardsley, Max
Beerbohm, the Sitwells, and Ronald Firbank. Her fiction is said to have influenced
the work of Firbank and Evelyn Waugh, among others.
|
LEWIN, RITA
(22 Dec 1926 - 19 Dec 2014)
(née Shulman, aka Rachel
Lindsay, aka Rozella Lake, aka Roberta Leigh, aka Janey Scott)
1950s – 1990s
Romance novelist,
children's author, and television screenwriter and producer. Author of well
over 150 works of fiction. Her romance novels, according to Twentieth-Century Romance and Historical
Writers, "show passionate physical attraction between people from
vastly different backgrounds, holding vastly different beliefs and values"
and their events are sometimes wildly implausible. Sample titles include In Name Only (1951), Beloved Ballerina (1953), Alien Corn (1954), Mask of Gold (1956), The Taming of Laura (1959), Moonlight and Magic (1962), Design for Murder (1964), Cinderella in Mink (1973), Affair in Venice (1975), Rough Diamond Lover (1978), The Savage Aristocrat (1978), Untouched Wife (1981), Too Bad to Be True (1987), and Bachelor at Heart (1992). Her
children's stories were mostly published under her Leigh pseudonym, though
she also published the Sara Gay stories, about a young model, using her Scott
pseudonym. According to her Wikipedia page, she was the first British woman
television producer to have her own production company. She created several puppet
series for children and wrote many of the episodes.
|
LEWIS,
[JANET] EILUNED (1 Nov 1900 – 15 Apr 1979)
(married name Hendrey)
1930s – 1940s
Welsh author of two novels—Dew on the Grass (1934), an autobiographical view of the Welsh
countryside through the eyes of a 9-year-old girl, and The Captain's Wife (1945), set in a 19th century cathedral town
in Pembrokeshire. The novels have received increased attention in recent
years thanks to their reprinting by Honno Classics. Lewis also published
poetry and several books about the Welsh countryside, including The Land of Wales (1937), written with
her brother Peter, and Honey Pots and
Brandy Bottles (1954). Her memoir is The
Old Home (1981). I wrote about The
Captain's Wife here.
|
LEWIS,
ETHELREDA (1875 – 1 Aug 1946)
(née Ethel Howe, married
name Smith, aka R. Hernekin Baptist)
1920s – 1930s
Best known for editing (or
perhaps ghostwriting) the memoirs of Alfred Aloysius Horn, a prominent
African trader, Lewis also wrote several adventures making use of her own
knowledge of Africa. Titles are The
Harp (1925), The Flying Emerald
(1925), Mantis (1926), and Wild Deer (1933).
|
Lewis,
Gwendolen Hudson
see FORREST, NOEL
|
Lewis, H. H.
see
BURLEIGH, HILARY
|
LEWIS, HILDA [WINIFRED] (9 Mar 1896 – 31 Jan 1974)
1930s – 1970s
Historical novelist and children's author best known for The Ship That Flew (1939), about a toy
ship that travels in time, which was reprinted in the Oxford Children's
Modern Classics series in the 1990s. She only wrote a handful of other
children's books—The Gentle Falcon
(1952), Here Comes Harry (1960),
and Harold Was My King (1970). Her
primary focus was historical fiction for adults, though a few were based on
notorious real-life crimes. The latter include Said Dr. Spendlove (1940, aka Case
of the Little Doctor), focusing on the Crippen case, Strange Story (1945), a tale of two twin girls, one of whom
murders the other, and A Mortal Malice
(1963), which deals with the 17th century poisoning of Sir Overbury in the
Tower of London. The last is one of historian Alison Weir's favorite
novels—see what Weir has to say about Lewis, and about her other favorites, here. Lewis's
other titles include Pegasus Yoked
(1933), Imogen Under Glass (1943), The Day Is Ours (1947), More Glass Than Wall (1950), Wife to Henry V (1954), I, Jacqueline (1957), Call Lady Purbeck (1951), Wife to the Bastard (1966), and Rose of England (1977). The Witch and the Priest (1956) was
reprinted in recent years by Valancourt Books and deals with the ghost of a
witch who tells her story to a priest condemning other women to death for
witchcraft.
|
LEWIS, LORNA
[CONCANEN] (24 Jun 1900 – 27 Nov 1962)
1930s – 1960s
Secretary (and roommate
for a time) of E. M. DELAFIELD and author of more than two dozen children's
books, including some early titles for young children. Tea and Hot Bombs (1943) follows a teenage girl as she begins
work with the Mobile Canteen Corps during the Blitz in London. Feud in the Factory (1944) is also set
during World War II. Lewis also wrote biographies for young readers, girls'
career stories—including June Grey:
Fashion Student (1953), Valerie:
Fashion Model (1955), and Judy
Bowman: Therapist (1956)—and what looks like a school story, Spring School (1958), not mentioned in
Sims and Clare. Other titles include Mystery
at Lock House (1947), Marriotts Go
North (1949), Mystery at Winton's
Park (1952), Hotel Doorway
(1953), Shirley Goes Travelling
(1959), and Shirley Goes to America
(1961). I reviewed Tea and Hot Bombs
here.
|
LEWTY, MARJORIE (8 Apr 1906 – 21 Jan 2002)
(née Lobb)
1950s – 1990s
Author of about three dozen romances for Mills &
Boon, including Never Call It Loving
(1958), The Imperfect Secretary
(1959), Alex Rayner, Dental Nurse
(1965), Flowers in Stony Places
(1975), To Catch a Butterly (1977),
A Girl Bewitched (1981), Makeshift Marriage (1982), Riviera Romance (1984), A Kiss Is Still a Kiss (1989), Step in the Dark (1994), and A Real Engagement (1999). A couple of
gaps in her publishing history make me wonder if there are more under an
as-yet-unknown pseudonym.
|
LEY, ALICE
[MARY] CHETWYND (12 Oct 1913 – 4 Oct 2004)
(née Humphrey)
1950s – 1980s
Author of nearly 20 historical romances, including The Jewelled Snuff Box (1959), The Georgian Rake (1960), Letters for a Spy (1970), The Beau and the Bluestocking (1975),
and The Intrepid Miss Hayden
(1983). In the 1980s, she wrote three historical crime novels—A Reputation Dies (1984), A Fatal Assignation (1987), and Masquerade of Vengeance (1989).
|
Lilburn, Adam
see WASSERMANN, LILLIAS
|
LIMEBEER, ENA [VICTORIA] (17 Jun 1898 – 17 Nov 1984)
(married name Mitrany)
1930s
Acclaimed painter and author of two novels of village life, Market Town (1931) and The Dove and Roebuck (1932). She also
published one volume of poetry with the Hogarth Press in 1923. She was
married to scholar and theorist David Mitrany. I wrote about The Dove and Roebuck and gave a
glimpse of two of her paintings (which I liked much better than the novel) here.
|
LIND, MARIE
JEANNE (dates unknown)
1940s
Untraced author of a
single book, Patsy (1940), partly
set in a girls' school, though focused more on outlandish adventures outside
of school.
|
LINDA, CORA (12 Aug 1885 – 1 Oct 1981)
(pseudonym of Coralie Marie Plummer, possibly née
Linder)
1920s – 1960s
Wife of crime novelist T. Arthur Plummer and mother
of romance novelist Clare EMSLEY. Author of numerous romances, many of them
published as inexpensive "pocket" or "dime" novels.
Titles include The Woman Hater
(1925), A Woman Cheated (1930), Her Broken Plaything (1931), The Man With Two Brides (1933), A Wife in Exile (1934), No Child of Their Own (1941), and Why She Wouldn't Marry (1948). Steve
at Bear Alley shared his research on her here and her daughter here.
|
LINDEN, JANE
(1920 - ????)
(pseudonym of Hilda Jane
Snartt, married name Domville)
1940s
Author of three novels—This Inconstancy (1946), Rainbows Don’t Last (1946), and Tomorrow Has a Dawn (1948), about
which little is known. She and her husband may have emigrated to Canada, as
it's known that he died in British Columbia in 1982, but no trace of her
later life has been unearthed. She is not to be confused with Pamela Yendys
Walton, who used the name Jane Linden for a single volume of poems.
|
Linden, Sara
see BARTLETT, MARIE
|
LINDSAY,
KATHLEEN [MARY] (1903 - 1973)
(aka Mary Richmond, aka
Molly Waring, aka Betty Manners, aka Elizabeth Fenton, aka Mary Faulkner, aka
Jane Darnley, aka Margaret Cameron, aka Hugh Desmond, aka Nigel MacKenzie)
1920s – 1970s
Hugely prolific author who
appeared in a 1980s edition of the Guiness Book of World Records for the
largest number of novels by a single author, Guiness crediting her with a
total of 904. She wrote under numerous pseudonyms, and her work includes
historical and romantic fiction as well as mysteries. As Hugh Desmond, she
published around 30 mysteries featuring Scotland Yard detective Alas Fraser,
as well as additional mysteries and thrillers. Those titles include The Hand of Vengeance (1945), Death Walks in Scarlet (1948), The Death Parade (1954), Lady, Where Are You? (1957), The Case of the Blue Orchid (1961), Bodies in a Cupboard (1963), Murder Strikes at Dawn (1965), and Murder on the Moor (1967).
|
Lindsay, Rachel
see LEWIN, RITA
|
Lindsey, Olive
see GROOM, OLIVE L[ILIAN].
|
LINFORD,
MADELINE [ALBERTA] (16 Jan 1895 – 16 Jun 1975)
1920s
Novelist and editor of the
Guardian women’s page for many
years after it began in 1922, where her contributors included Vera BRITTAIN,
Leonora EYLES, Winifred HOLTBY and Evelyn SHARP. Author of five novels. Bookman summed up Broken Bridges (1923): "Shows the heroine standing with
reluctant feet where the world and convent meet." The others are The Roadside Fire (1924), A Home and Children (1926), Bread and Honey (1928), and Out of the Window (1930). She also
published a biography of Mary Wollstonecraft (1924).
|
LING, SHEILAH [MARY FRANCES] WARD (27 Feb 1928 – 20
Jul 1997)
(née Ward)
1960s, 1980s
Best known for her late girls' school story, Piggy (1980), set in a convent school,
and a subsequent work of children's fiction, Final Set (1981), she also co-authored an earlier children's
title, Angela Has Wings (1960),
with her husband, boys' writer Peter Ling, which qualifies her for this list.
In the 1990s she published several volumes of religious non-fiction.
|
LION, KATHLEEN CRIGHTON (4 Nov 1881 – 27 May 1957)
(née Symington, later married name Tomlinson)
1920s
Wife of actor Leon Marks Lion, and author of one
play, The Wiles of the Widow: A
Yorkshire Comedy in One Act (1911), and one novel, The Ghost Moth (1923).
|
Lipson, Edna
see CHARLES, GERDA
|
LITTLE,
MAUDE [AMELIA] (8 Oct 1886 - 1956)
(married name Deuchar, aka
Herbert Tremaine)
1910s – 1920s
Poet, playwright, and
novelist under her own name and her pseudonym. She published nine novels in
all—At the Sign of the Burning Bush
(1910), A Woman on the Threshold
(1911), The Children's Bread
(1912), Those Who Declined (1915), The Rose-Coloured Room (1915), The Feet of the Young Men (1917),
about WWI, Two Months (1919), The Tribal God (1921), and Bricks and Mortals (1924). Her WWI
play The Handmaidens of Death
(1919) was revived in recent years by the Southwark Playhouse in London.
|
LITVINOV,
IVY [THÉRÈSE] (4 Jun 1889 – 14 Apr 1977)
(née Low, aka Ivy Low)
1910s, 1930s, 1970s
Daughter of Alice HERBERT.
Novelist and translator
who lived in Russia and the Soviet Union for most of her adult life. She
published three novels in all. The first two, Growing Pains (1913) and The
Questing Beast (1914), published under her maiden name, were
autobiographical, the first about her girlhood, the second about a
sexually-liberated Jewish woman writer. She remains best known, however, for
her one mystery novel, His Master's
Voice (1930), which vividly evokes the Moscow of the 1920s, where she
lived with her Russian husband and their children. Much later, she published
a story collection, She Knew She Was
Right (1971). Both of the latter books were reprinted by Virago in the
1980s. She was also a translator from Russian to English for many years,
sometimes collaborating with her daughter Tatiana. She only moved back to
England in 1972.
|
LIVESAY,
JESSIE E[LIZABETH]. (9 May 1863 – 1 Oct 1938)
(née Chalmers)
1900s – 1910s
Author of four novels. The Shade of the Acacia (1907), set in
the realm of foxhunting, deals with a man’s love for his best friend’s wife.
The others are The Little Tin Gods
(1901), Sons of the Blood (1910),
and Sink Red Sun (1914).
|
LIVINGSTON,
MARJORIE (23 Feb 1893 - 1959)
(née Prout, aka Mark
Vinton)
1930s – 1940s
Author of eight novels,
many of them with fantasy or supernatural themes. Best known for her
"Karmic Destiny" sequence—Island
Sonata (1944), Muted Strings
(1946) and Delphic Echo
(1948)—which deals with Atlantis and reincarnation. Her other novels are The Future of Mr. Purdew (1936), about
the protagonist's afterlife, The Key of
the Castle (1937), The Loquacious
Vessel (1938, as Mark Vinton), A
Market for Idols (1939), and Moloch
(1942).
|
LIVINGSTONE,
PHYLLIS (5 Feb 1906 – 12 May 1983)
(full name
Livingstone-Learmonth, née Blake, other married name Faulkner, aka Naomi
Ludolf)
1930s - 1940
Stage actress and author
of two novels. Under her pseudonym, which was also her stage name, she
published Loose Covers (1931),
while In Our Metropolis (1940)
appeared under her real name. Neglected Books went to the British Library to
read the first two chapters of the latter (see here) and discovered that it is set during the Phony
War and humorously follows the ups and downs of young married life.
Livingstone appears to have been born out of wedlock and at least partly
raised by her grandparents after her mother married a different man when
Phyllis was 4.
|
Lloyd, Joanna
see COGGIN, JOAN
|
LLOYD,
MARJORIE (4 Sept 1909 – 9 Feb 2001)
1950s – 1970s
Children's author known
for her Fell Farm series, set in the Lake District (and apparently based on High Arnside Farm, which now rents holiday cottages), comprised of Fell Farm Holiday (1951), Fell Farm for Christmas (1954), and Fell Farm Campers (1960). She
published one girls' school story, One
Summer Term (1959). Her other five titles are The Farm in Mallerstang (1956), The Family at Foxy Beck (1967), Patch the Puppy (1970), River
Trail (1970), and Fell Trek
(1973).
|
LLOYD, NORA [KATHLEEN ELIZABETH] (22 Jun 1907 – 4
Oct 2003)
(née Patten, later married name Williams)
1930s – 1940s
Author of two novels and two children's titles. The Young May Moon (1935) describes
the Irish "troubles" of 1916-1917 through the eyes of a young girl.
The Manchester Evening News said,
"The haunting beauty of the Ireland of other days fills this first novel
with a silvery light." Her second novel, Sea Winds (1936), is about a teenage girl who accompanies her
doctor father to an isolated lighthouse island off of Ireland and creates
complications for the handful of keepers living there. Her children's titles
are adventure-themed—The Rescue Party
(1941) is about children dealing with intrigue in the West Indies, while The Young Liberators (1949) is,
according to a blurb, "about an Anglo-French family's wartime exploits
in the Savoy Alps." Lloyd was initially a challenge to identify, until I
came across a blog post here; the blogger mentioned having met her and that she
had written a novel about her aunt, one Alice Mary King, who was killed in
the Irish War of Independence. King is well documented and some poking around
on Ancestry led me straight to Lloyd.
|
LOBB,
FRANCES (16 Jan 1917 – 25 Jan 2013)
(pseudonym of Leila
Charlotte Evelyn Petronella Porter, married names Stevens and Buckley)
1940s, 1990s
Daughter of Rose Henniker
HEATON. Translator and author of three novels—Handsome Johnnie (1941), The
Strangers (1947), and The Vow
(1999).
|
LOCHERBIE-CAMERON,
[MABEL] MARGARET (15 Jun 1902 – 29 Jul 1973)
(née Goff)
1940s – 1950s
Author of six girls'
stories, some set in schools but most focused on mystery elements. Titles are
Nicolette Detects (1949), Two and a Treasure Hunt (1950), Will Madam Step This Way? (1951), Nurse Kathleen: A Romance of Hospital Life
(1952), Nicolette Finds Her
(1953), and A Lion Among Ladies
(1955). Nicolette Detects, in the
words of Sims and Clare, "uses the dregs of Second World War spy
paranoia" in its tale of evil Nazis infiltrating a school. She was going
by "Locherbie-Goff" even before her marriage to one Alexander
Cameron, but the origins of the "Locherbie" are unclear.
|
LOCHHEAD, MARION CLELAND (19 Apr 1902 – 19 Jan 1985)
1930s
Children's author, historian, biographer, poet, and
author of five novels and one story collection in the 1930s. The collection, Highland Scene (1939), is described as
"romantic tales of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland." Her
novels are Anne Dalrymple (1934), Cloaked in Scarlet (1935), Adrian Was a Priest (1936), Island Destiny (1936), and The Dancing Flower (1938). After the
1930s, she focused primarily on histories, such as The Scots Household in the Eighteenth Century (1948) and A Lamp Was Lit: The Girls' Guildry Through
Fifty Years (1949), and on collected legends and tales for children.
|
LOCKE, JANE (13 Jan 1905 - 1998)
1930s
Journalist and author of a single novel, Nothing Ever Happens (1938), which
focuses on office life, and many dozens of short stories, most published by
the Evening News, but none of which
seem to have been collected in book form.
|
LOCKHART, LEONORA [CHARLOTTE MAUDE] (4 Jun 1881 – 15
Oct 1974)
(née Hutchason)
1920s
Author of a single novel, Fire of Life: A Domestic Chronicle (1924), as well as various
introductory reading and basic English guides.
|
LOCKWOOD, VERE (VERA) [IRENE] (6 Jun 1906 – 28 Feb 1968)
1920s – 1940s
Author of eighteen novels which appear to be
adventures or thrillers set in exotic locales, including Ramazan, the Rajah (1929), Claws
of Africa (1930), London Lights
(1932), A Persian Carpet (1933), Slave Market (1935), Forbidden Barter (1938), Orient Pearls (1939), Flaming Lanterns (1940), Passionate Pilgrimage (1943), and Veiled Wife (1945).
|
LODGE, GRACE [BEATRICE] (6 Apr 1893 – 22 May 1975)
(married name Clifton-Shelton)
1940s – 1950s
Illustrator (including for several Enid BLYTON
books) and children's author. Titles include Three Friends and Chip (1944), Lucy's Adventure (1945), Puddledock
Farm (1947), The Hole in the Hedge
(1948), The Marsh Princess (1949),
and Misty and the Magic Necklace
(1954).
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LODGE,
M[ARGARET]. B[EATRICE]. (12 Dec 1888 – 3 Jan 1979)
1920s – 1930s
Daughter of historian Sir
Richard Lodge. Author of one school story, Felicity at Fairliholm (1933), and two other children's books, A Fairy To Stay (1928) and The Wishing Wood (1930), as well as a
biography of her father (1946).
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LOFTS, NORAH
[ETHEL] (27 Aug 1904 – 10 Sept 1983)
(née Robinson, later
married name Jorisch, aka Peter Curtis, Juliet Astley)
1930s – 1980s
Author of more than 50
novels, most of them historical in theme. Her "Suffolk Trilogy,"
comprised of The Town House (1959),
The House at Old Vine (1961), and The House at Sunset (1962), focuses on
a single house and its inhabitants across 500 years. Silver Nutmeg (1947) is set during the 17th century spice trade,
and The Lute Player (1951) is about
Richard I. Under her Peter Curtis pseudonym, she published four crime
thrillers—Dead March in Three Keys
(1940), You're Best Alone (1943), Lady Living Alone (1945), and The Devil's Own (1960). Among her
other titles were I Met a Gypsy
(1935), The Road to Revelation
(1941), Jassy (1945), Bless This House (1954), Scent of Cloves (1957), How Far to Bethlehem? (1965), Lovers All Untrue (1970), Walk Into My Parlour (1975), Gad's Hall (1977), and Pargeters (1984). Several of her
books, including Jassy, You're Best Alone, and The Devil's Own, were turned into
films. I wrote about The Brittle Glass
(1942) here.
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Logan, Agnes
see ADAMS, AGNES
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Lombard, Nap
see JOHNSON, PAMELA
HANSFORD
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LOMOND, ELIZABETH (dates unknown)
(pseudonym of Leonora Eyles???)
1930s
Author of one novel, I
Have Been Young (1932). Contemporary critics thought Lomond was an
established novelist’s pseudonym, and comparing the novel’s autobiographical
content with what I know of the writers on my list, the writer is almost
certainly Leonora EYLES.
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LONDON,
PHYLLIS (dates unknown)
1930s
Untraced author of a
single title for girls, The Secrets of
Devon Castle (1931), comprised of three stories, one of them
school-related.
|
Long, William
Stuart
see FINLAY, VIOLET VIVIAN
|
LONGFORD,
CHRISTINE [PATTI] (1900 – 14 May 1980)
(née Trew, married name
Pakenham)
1930s
Novelist and playwright. Author of four comic
novels—Making Conversation (1931,
reprinted by Persephone), Country
Places (1932), Jiggins of
Jigginstown (1933), and Printed
Cotton (1935). After the mid-1930s she devoted herself to a successful
career as a playwright. There's a thorough listing of her plays here. She later wrote a memoir which remains
unpublished. She was Lady Longford after her marriage and used the title as
her pen name.
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LONSDALE,
BERTHA (11 Jan 1910 – 7 May 1977)
1950s
BBC writer and broadcaster and author of three
children's titles—The Sanfields at
Rockybeck (1951), Molly Hilton,
Library Assistant (1954), and Molly
Qualifies as a Librarian (1958), the latter two utilizing her early
experiences as a librarian. For the BBC, she adapted children's titles
including some by Violet NEEDHAM and Margot PARDOE. She reportedly worked on
an additional book, The Sanfields Keep
a Secret, a sequel to her debut, but it was never published. She lived in
Yorkshire.
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Lorac, ECR
see RIVETT, EDITH CAROLINE
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LORD, DOREEN
MILDRED DOUGLAS (25 Sept 1904 – 6 May 1992)
(aka Doreen Ireland, aka
Doris Canham)
1920s – 1930s
Author of seven girls'
school stories (some under each pseudonym)—Barbara—Called Binkie (1935), The
Misfit (1936), Jill of Gateway
School (1938), Doreen Douglas,
Schoolgirl (1935), Lynette of Carisgate
(1937), Joan at Seascale (1938),
and Margery the Mystery (1938). She
also published several other works for children.
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LORIMER, NORMA [OCTAVIA] (31 Jul 1864 – 14 Feb 1948)
1890s – 1930s
Born in Scotland and raised on the Isle of Man,
where two of her novels—Mirry-Ann
(1900) and The Pagan Woman
(1907)—are set, she also wrote a series of fictional(?) travel narratives,
such as By the Waters of Italy
(1910) and By the Waters of Africa
(1917). Other fiction includes A Sweet
Disorder (1896), Catherine Sterling
(1903), apparently set in Japan, A Wife
Out of Egypt (1913), The God's
Carnival (1916), set in Italy, The
Path of Love (1921), The White
Sanctuary (1924), Moslem Jane
(1929), and The Story of Isobel Lennox
(1935).
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LORING,
ELISABETH ANN (12 May 1904 - 1977)
1930s
Editor, under the name
Elizabeth Ann, of the Sunday Dispatch and Modern Weekly "Woman's Page," (see here
for more on that side of her career), Loring also published
three novels—Ladies' Paradise
(1933), Night After Bond Street
(1936), and Designs by Jo (1936).
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Lorraine, Anne
see CHISHOLM, LILIAN MARY
|
Lorrimer,
Claire
see ROBINS, PATRICIA [DENISE]
|
Lourie, Helen
see STORR, CATHERINE
|
LOVE, SUSAN (dates unknown)
1920s
Untraced author of two short romances, The Golden Chance (1923) and Fighting Love (1924).
|
LOVELL, DOROTHY ANN (?1880 - ?1952)
(uncertain identification)
1930s – 1950s
Children's author whose books were apparently quite
popular, though some seem to be for younger children. Titles include The Strange Adventures of Emma (1941),
In the Land of the Thinsies (1944),
about a girl who slips through an escalator to a strange flat land, and Shadows on the Stairs (1946).
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LOVETT, MARGARET [ROSE] (30 Aug 1915 – 14 Jan 2006)
1940s, 1960s –
1970s
Schoolteacher and author of six children's books.
The first three—An Adventure for
Fivepence (1945), Family Pie
(1947), and No Other Children
(1949)—are holiday stories. Sir
Halmanac and the Crimson Star (1965) and The Great and Terrible Quest (1967) seem to have fairy tale
qualities, while her final book, Jonathan
(1972), is about a group of young orphan mill workers during the Industrial
Revolution.
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LOVETT
CAMERON, MRS (1844 – 4 Aug 1921)
(pseudonym of Caroline
Emily Cameron, née Sharp)
1870s – 1910s
Author of more than 40
novels described by OCEF as
melodramatic. They go on: "Her practice is to titillate the reader by
approaching sexual sin and tragedy and then retreating to romance." One
of her most successful works was In a
Grass Country (1885). Other titles include Juliet's Guardian (1877), A
North Country Maid (1884), A Devout
Lover (1887), Proved Unworthy
(1891), An Unselfish Woman (1894), Two Cousins and a Castle (1896), A Woman's No (1902), Rosomond Grant (1905), and Bitter Fruit (1914). Her
brother-in-law, Verney Lovett Cameron, was the author of adventure stories
for boys.
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LOW, ALICE ARMSTRONG (1885 - 1957)
(née Grant, aka Mrs. Cranston Low)
1930s
Scottish author of one novel, Langshaws (1934).
|
Low, Ivy
see LITVINOV, IVY
|
LOWNDES,
MARIE [ADELAIDE ELIZABETH RENÉE JULIA] BELLOC (5 Aug 1868 – 14 Nov 1947)
(aka Philip Curtin)
1900s – 1940s
Sister of Hilaire Belloc.
Biographer, memoirist, and author of dozens of novels. Starting out as a
journalist, Lowndes became best known for her romantic and mystery tales. Her
most famous work is probably The Lodger
(1913), about a couple who come to suspect that their lodger may be Jack the
Ripper, which became a bestseller and was later made into a film by Alfred
Hitchcock. Among her other mysteries and thrillers are The Chink in the Armour (1912), The Terriford Mystery (1924), Thou
Shalt Not Kill (1927), The Chianti
Flask (1934), and Motive
(1938). Lowndes' personal life sounds almost as interesting as her
fiction—socializing as a girl with Constance and Oscar Wilde, maintaining
friendships with the likes of Henry James, Rhoda BROUGHTON, and Margot ASQUITH,
being president of the Women Writers' Suffrage League, and helping young
writers including Graham Greene, Margaret KENNEDY, and E. M. DELAFIELD. The
ODNB includes the tidbit that Ernest Hemingway became a fan of Lowndes' work
after a recommendation from Gertrude Stein. Late in life she published four
bestselling memoirs—I, Too, Have Lived
in Arcadia (1941), Where Love and
Friendship Dwelt (1943), The Merry
Wives of Westminster (1946), and A
Passing World (1948).
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LOWRY,
[IRENE FRANCES] BRIDGET (21 Aug 1896 – 15 Nov 1982)
(née Pridden)
1930s
Author of five novels—Burden's End (1930), The Losers (1932), A Stone for Sharpening (1934), I Carry the Wood (1939), and To-Morrow's Giants (1933), the last of
which is about a woman recovering from tragedy in an English village.
|
LOY, MINA
[GERTRUDE] (27 Dec 1882 – 25 Sept 1966)
(formerly Lowy, married
names Haweis and Lloyd)
1930s – 1940s
Though primarily known as a major modernist poet, moving
in the same Paris circles as James Joyce and Gertrude Stein, Loy did write a
single novel, Insel, in the 1930s
and 1940s, which was only published in 1991.
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LUCAS, AUDREY (17 Mar 1898 - 1974)
(married names Scott and [?]Clarke-Smith)
1930s
Daughter of author E. V. Lucas and perhaps an
inspiration for Evelyn Waugh (see here). She published four novels—Double Turn (1935), Friendly
Relations (1936), Life Class
(1937), and Old Motley (1938)—as
well as a biography of her father, E.
V. Lucas: A Portrait (1939). She seems to have been going by Clarke-Smith
in 1943, but a marriage record has not been located and her presumed husband
was remarried in 1946.
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LUCAS, BARBARA (9 Oct 1911 – 8 Apr 2009)
(married name Wall, aka Barbara Wall)
1930s – 1970s
Mother of author Bernardine Bishop and author of at
least nine novels, including Stars Were
Born (1934), The Trembling of the
Sea (1936), which deals with British communism, What Can We Do? (1937), And
Was Crucified (1939), Anna Collett
(1946), Growing Up (1956), Prelude to a Wedding (1964), More Ado About Nothing (1969), and Widows and Widowers (1979). She also
published, under her married name, a critical work, The Narrator's Voice: The Dilemma of Children's Literature
(1991), and a biography of Australian novelist Matilda Jane Evans (1994).
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Ludolf, Naomi
see LIVINGSTONE, PHYLLIS
|
LUNT, ALICE
(5 Sept 1919 – 12 Apr 1973)
1950s – 1960s
Novelist and children's
writer. Author of three school-related stories—Secret Stepmother (1959), Jeanette's
First Term (1960), and Jeanette in
the Summer Term (1962)—based, according to Sims and Clare, on her own
experiences teaching in a secondary modern school. She published two more
children's titles—Eileen of Redstone
Farm (1964) and Mystery at Redstone
Farm (1970)—and at least one earlier adult novel, Tomorrow the Harvest (1955), based on her wartime experiences in
the Land Army. She was a close friend of Mabel Esther ALLAN.
|
Lurgan, Lester
see WYNNE, MAY
|
LUTYENS,
[EDITH PENELOPE] MARY (31 Jul 1908 – 9 Apr 1999)
(married names Sewell and
Links, aka Esther Wyndham)
1930s – 1970s
Daughter of architect Sir Edwin Lutyens and niece of Mary
Constance Lutyens, later Mrs. George WEMYSS. Author of biographies and more
than two dozen novels, including ten pseudonymous romances for Mills &
Boon. Titles include Perchance to Dream
(1935), Rose and Thorn (1936), Family Colouring (1940), Julie and the Narrow Valley (1947), Master of the Manor (1953), Once You Have Found Him (1954), Meeting in Venice (1956), and Cleo (1973). Her biographies include Millais and the Ruskins (1967) and a
3-volume bio of Krishnamurti (1983-90). Her memoir is To Be Young (1959).
|
Lyall, David
see SWAN, ANNIE SHEPHERD
|
LYLE, JANE
(dates unknown)
1930s
Unidentified author of 9
romantic novels. Sparty Lea (1934)
is about a young woman who moves to a country cottage on the strength of a
small legacy. Chit for Chat (1936)
in particular seems to have garnered praise for its humor, and To-Morrow and To-Morrow (1938) was
described as "a charming story of village life." Others are Three Times Round (1934), Full Measure (1935), Yours Respectably (1937), Nuts in May (1937), Together We Live (1938), and Such Ridiculous People (1940).
According to a 1938 review, the author was then living in Edinburgh, so she
could be Jane Allan Lyle née Peacock, 1858-1939, but there's no way to
establish it for sure, and it's also possible the name could be a pseudonym.
|
LYNCH, PATRICIA [NORA] (4 Jun 1894 – 1 Sept 1972)
(married name Fox)
1920s – 1960s
Author of nearly 50
children's titles. She
had also been a journalist, and covered the 1916 Easter rising in Ireland.
She is best known for The Turf-Cutter's
Donkey (1935) and its several sequels, and for her Brogeen series, both
of which contain fantasy elements, some drawn from Ireland's myths and
legends. Other titles are The Green
Dragon (1925), The Cobbler's
Apprentice (1930), The Grey Goose
of Kilnevin (1939), The Mad O'Haras
(1948), The Bookshop on the Quay
(1956), about a country boy learning bookselling in Dublin, The Stone House at Kilgobbin (1959), The Golden Caddy (1962), and The Kerry Caravan (1967).
|
LYND, SYLVIA
(28 Sept 1888 – 21 Feb 1952)
1910s – 1920s
Poet, critic for Time and Tide, and author of two
novels, The Chorus: A Tale of Love and
Folly (1915) and The Swallow Dive
(1921), as well as a collection, The
Mulberry Bush and Other Stories (1925).
|
LYON, ELINOR
(17 Aug 1921 – 28 May 2008)
(married name Wright)
1940s – 1970s
Author of more than 20
children’s books, many about the adventures of a group of children in western
Scotland, which she reportedly began writing in reaction to Arthur Ransome's
books, in which the children were unrealistically good at everything they
attempted. Titles include Hilary's
Island (1949), The House in Hiding
(1950), We Daren't Go a-Hunting
(1951), Run Away Home (1953), Sea Treasure (1955), Daughters of Aradale (1957), Cathie Runs Wild (1960), Green Grow the Rushes (1964), The Day That Got Lost (1968), The Wishing Pool (1970), and The Floodmakers (1976). Fidra Books
reprinted several of her books, and also released her previously unpublished The Shores of Darkness (2009).
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Someone else for your list! I found A Letter to Elizabeth by Bettina Linn at the weekend - 1957. She seems to have written a handful of novels.
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