MACALPINE, MARGARET [MACFARLANE] HESKETH (22 Oct
1907 – 3 Sept 1995)
(née Murray, aka Ann
Carmichael)
1950s – 1960s
Author of three children's books under her own name—The Hand in the Bag (1959), The
Black Gull of Corrie Lochan (1964), and Anra the Storm Child (1965). She seems to have also collaborated,
as Ann Carmichael, on a version of the Swiss
Family Robinson in 1973.
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MACARDLE, DOROTHY (DORTHEA) [MARGUERITA CALLAN] (7 Mar 1899 – 23 Dec
1958)
1920s, 1940s – 1950s
Best known for her much-cited history The
Irish Republic (1937), Macardle also wrote numerous plays for Dublin’s
Abbey Theatre, as well as four novels. Her most famous novel was her first, Uneasy Freehold (1941, aka The Uninvited), about a writer who
buys a haunted house in Devon. According to the St. James Guide to Horror, Ghost, and Gothic Writers, "The
unashamedly excessive sentimentality of the story helped establish a
cinematic tradition that was to be carried forward by such movies as The Ghost and Mrs. Muir [based on a
novel by R. A. DICK] and Portrait of
Jennie." The book was a bestseller in the U.S. and was filmed in
1944 with Ray Milland. Her next novel, The
Seed Was Kind (1944), was a realistic tale set in Switzerland, but her
two later novels attempted unsuccessfully to recapture the success of her
debut—Fantastic Summer (1946, aka The Unforeseen) deals with ESP, while Dark Enchantment (1953) is about an
accused witch in a Swiss village. Macardle had been involved in the Irish
Civil War, and her experiences inform her early story collection Earthbound: Nine Stories of Ireland
(1924). During the war, she worked with the League of Nations in Geneva, and
later she worked with refugees, especially children, which led her to publish
Children of Europe: A Study of the
Children of Liberated Countries (1949). There's an interesting article
about Macardle and her work here. Tramp Press has now
reissued The Uninvited and The Unforeseen in paperback and
e-book.
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MACAULAY, [EMILIE] ROSE (1 Aug 1881 – 30 Oct 1958)
1900s – 1950s
Travel writer, essayist, critic, and author of two dozen novels. She is most
famous for her final novel, The Towers of Trebizond (1956), about quirky Brits travelling in the
rougher parts of Turkey, with its famous opening line, "'Take my camel,
dear,' said my aunt Dot, as she climbed down from this animal on her return
from High Mass," which concisely reflects the novel’s concerns with
eccentricity, culture shock, and religious conflict and doubt. She has the
distinction of having written notable novels about both World Wars: Noncombatants and Others (1916) was
her acclaimed pacifist novel during World War I, and The World My Wilderness (1950) focuses on post-World War II
youth, in the form of Barbary, a girl who has spent much of her youth with
the French resistance guerillas and must now adapt to normal life among the bombed-out
ruins of London—I wrote about it here. Her short story "Miss Anstruther's
Letters" (1942) deals with Macaulay's own experience of being bombed out
during World War II and her loss of a life's collection of letters, books and
papers. Her debut was Abbots Verney (1906),
but Potterism (1920) was her first
bestseller (and is mentioned in Vera BRITTAIN's Testament of Youth). What
Not: A Prophetic Comedy (1919) was a satire based in part on her own
experiences as a civil servant during World War I, Dangerous Ages (1921) won the Femina Vie Heureuse Prize, and Crewe Train (1926), with its themes of
freedom vs. social niceties, may be seen as a precursor of The World My Wilderness. Other fiction
includes The Lee Shore (1913), Told by an Idiot (1923), Orphan Island (1924), Staying With Relations (1930), They Were Defeated (1932), and I Would Be Private (1937). She also
published travel books, including They
Went to Portugal (1946), Fabled
Shore: From the Pyrenees to Portugal (1949), and The Pleasure of Ruins (1954). After her death, several volumes of
her letters were published, including many concerning her religious
conversion to Catholicism, in the volumes Letters
to a Friend (1961), Last Letters to
a Friend (1962), and Letters to a
Sister (1964).
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MACDONALD, ANNE (1870 – 9 Apr 1958)
1920s – 1930s
Author of four school stories—Bud and
Adventure (1926), Dimity Dand (1928),
Jill's Curmudgeon (1932), and Lilt from the Laurels (1934)—as well
as inspirational poetry and other fiction, some possibly for adults, such as A Pocketful of Silver (1927) and The Deceiving Mirror (1935).
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MACGIBBON, JEAN (25 Jan 1913 – 29 Oct 2002)
(née Howard, aka Jean
Howard)
1940s, 1960s – 1970s
Author of one highly-acclaimed novel for adults, When the Weather's Changing (1945, published under her maiden
name), an impressionistic account of the events of a farmer's wife's summer,
which John Bayley, in her Guardian
obituary, called "a pioneering book, which assimilated, with great
originality, a number of fictional genres—memoir, reportage, stream of
consciousness—and used them all to maximum effect." She then suffered a
nervous breakdown and thereafter turned mainly to children's fiction. Titles
include Peter's Private Army (1960), Pam
Plays Doubles (1962), a school story, The
Tall Ship (1967), The Spy in Dolor
Hugo (1973), and After the Raft
Race (1976). She wrote a memoir, I
Meant to Marry Him (1984), which Bayley called a masterpiece, and—at over
80 years of age—There's the Lighthouse
(1997), a well-received biography of Virginia WOOLF's brother, Adrian
Stephen,
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MACGILL, MARGARET [CATHERINE] (31 Oct 1887 - 1966)
(née Gibbons, aka Margaret
Gibbons, aka Mrs. Patrick MacGill)
1910s – 1930s
Author of at least twenty romance novels, including The Rose of Glenconnel (1916), The Bartered Bride (1920), Molly
of the Lone Pine (1922), Love's
Defiance (1926), Dancers in the
Dark (1929), Painted Butterflies
(1931), and Hollywood Madness
(1936).
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MACGILLIVRAY, [GERTRUDE] ANNE (1882 – 8 Jul 1965)
(née Hall)
1950s – 1960s
Author of four romantic novels—Isle of
Youth (1957), The Pool of Light
(1960), Stairway to Happiness
(1962), The Deep Intent (1964).
John Herrington was able to identify her as the Yorkshire-born wife of Angus
MacGillivray, head of the MacGillivray clan. They lived in Crail, Fife. She
appears to have begun writing only in her seventies.
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MACINNES, HELEN [CLARK] (7 Oct 1907 – 30 Sept 1985)
(married name Highet)
1940s – 1980s
Bestselling Scottish author of more than 20 spy novels, often dealing with
individuals fighting vast forces of darkness—Nazis, Communists, or
terrorists, depending on their locale and time period. MacInnes is
particularly known for her vivid and detailed portrayals of a wide array of
international settings. Her debut, Above
Suspicion (1941), was inspired by a visit to prewar Nazi Germany, and Assignment in Brittany (1942) and While Still We Live (1944) make use of
the resistance movements in France and Poland—the latter so realistically
that Washington apparently asked for her sources. Others include Horizon (1945), Neither Five Nor Three (1951), Pray for a Brave Heart (1955), Decision at Delphi (1960), The
Salzburg Connection (1968), and Ride
a Pale Horse (1984). She also
published several novels focused on romance or humor rather than intrigue. Friends and Lovers (1947) is a
partially-autobiographical romantic novel, Rest and Be Thankful (1949) is a comedy about an author adjusting
to life on a Wyoming dude ranch, and Home
Is the Hunter (1964) was described by Contemporary
Popular Writers as "a comic modernization of Ulysses' return from
the Trojan War, with his activities described as an ancient resistance
movement."
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MACK, D. R. (13 Jul 1887 – 18 Jan 1973)
(pseudonym of Mary
[Elizabeth Haddon] Owen, married name Mackie)
1910s
Author of a single title—Betty Brooke
at School: A Tale for Girls and Old Girls (1910)—which, according to Sims
and Clare, attempted a realistic portrayal of school life and was aimed as
much at adults as schoolgirls.
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Mack,
Marjorie
see DIXON, MARJORIE [NELLIE]
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MACKENZIE,
AGNES MURE (9 Apr 1891 – 26 Feb 1955)
1920s – 1930s, 1950s
Critic, historian,
and novelist. Best known as a major author of Scottish history and criticism,
Mackenzie also wrote nine novels, most historical, including Without Conditions (1923), The Half Loaf (1925), The Quiet Lady (1926), Lost Kinnellan (1927), Keith of Kinnellan (1930), Cypress in Moonlight (1931), Between Sun and Moon (1932), Single Combat (1934), and Apprentice Majesty (1950).
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MACKENZIE, FAITH COMPTON (1878 – 9 Jul 1960)
(née Stone)
1950s
Wife of novelist Compton Mackenzie. Biographer, memoirist, and novelist.
Her three volumes of memoir, As Much as
I Dare (1938), More Than I Should
(1940), and Always Afternoon
(1943), were popular. She published a volume of stories, Mandolinata: Fourteen Stories (1931), later reissued with
additional stories under the title The
Angle of Error (1938), and later she published two novels, The Crooked Wall (1954) and Tatting (1957). She also published
several biographies. The Compton in her name came from her husband's family,
a family of actors named Mackenzie who traditionally took Compton as their
stage names.
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MACKENZIE, JOAN [NOBLE] (2 Dec 1905 –
1991)
(married name Burnett)
1930s – 1950s
Author five novels—The Homeward Tide
(1935), The Deadly Game (1939), Linda Walked Alone (1944), All for the Apple (1948), and The Wayward Heart (1951). From a short
review, Deadly Game is clearly a thriller,
and a blurb explains that All for the
Apple is "about a girl who takes up a job in a country house down in
the Scottish Borders, owned by a famous and wicked surgeon."
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MACKENZIE, KATHLEEN (28 Sept 1907 –
1993)
(née Guy)
1940s – 1960s
Biographer and author of around two dozen children's books, among them a
number of pony stories, including a series featuring the Pentire children,
beginning with The Four Pentires and
Jimmy (1947), as well as individual stories including Minda (1953), Jumping Jan (1955), Nancy
and the Carrs (1958), Prize Pony
(1959), and The Pageant (1964) (see
here for further details). A later trio of books—The Starke Sisters (1963), Charlotte (1964), and Kelford Dig (1966)—are about girls
being raised by their very Edwardian grandmother—I reviewed them here. Mackenzie appears on the 1939 England & Wales
Register as an actress, which may explain the subject of her single
biography, The Great Sarah: The Life of
Mrs Siddons (1968).
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MacKenzie, Nigel
see LINDSAY, KATHLEEN
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MACKENZIE, [HARRIET JESSIE] ORGILL (1893 - 1974)
(née Cogie)
1930s
Author of two
works of fiction—a collection, Poems
and Stories (1930, published in the U.S. as Whitegates: Stories and Poems, 1931) and a novel, The Crooked Laburnum (1932). The cover
of Whitegates notes that the author
has been compared to the likes of Emily Brontë, Katherine Mansfield, and Rose
MACAULAY. H. E. Bates, in a review in Everyman,
said that Crooked Laburnum, the
story of "a Scots blacksmith and his sick wife and two daughters,"
was bleak but possessed "the cold sharp beauty of a northern spring and
the austere strength of northern hills." In the 1940s, Mackenzie was
working as a kindergarten teacher.
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MACKENZIE-GRIEVE, AVERIL [SALMOND] (3 Apr 1903 – 28 Feb 1983)
(married names Le Gros
Clark and Keevil)
1940s
Historian, biographer, travel writer, and author of four novels. An ad
describes the first, Sacrifice to Mars
(1940), as a "novel of Nazi Germany from the inside!" A Gibbet for Myself (1941) is set in
Italy just before the rise of Mussolini, and The Brood of Time (1949) is about its heroine's girlhood in an
Edwardian country house. I could find no details about her fourth novel, The Waterfall (1950). She published
two travel books, A Race of Green
Ginger (1959), about China, and Aspects
of Elba (1964). Her non-fiction includes The Last Years of the English Slave Trade: Liverpool, 1750-1807
(1941), The Great Accomplishment
(1953), a collection of short biographies of prominent women, Clara Novello, 1818-1908 (1955), and a
memoir, Time and Chance (1970).
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MACKINDER, DOROTHY [?KATE] (?1902 -
?1975)
(married name Donkin, but rest of identification is
uncertain, possibly née Butler)
1930s – 1950s
Author of more than ten novels, several set in French villages, which seem to
wrestle wth themes of Christianity and piety. If the Kirkus review of her first, The
Violent Take It by Storm (1939), is any indication, the emotional content
is intense: "So dramatic a novel no one will mind its having a moral!
Extremes are the order of the day, great goodness triumphs over sin, piety
over passion, purity over pomposity. The little dancer of the attic becomes
the great actress of the day, the toast of society and the instrument of God
to convert the vain monsignore and make him again the sainted priest who had
tried to save her twenty years before." The others are Captain Cerise (1940), Brief Was the Laurel (1945), Silver Fountains (1946), The Wandering Osprey (1947), The Sable Smoke (1948), A Forest of Feathers (1950), The Wooden Statue (1951), The Miracle of Lemaire (1952), Summer Like a Stranger (1955), and Life's Own Music (1958).
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MACKINLAY, LEILA [ANTOINETTE STERLING]
(5 Sept 1910 – 13 Apr 1996)
(aka Brenda Grey)
1930s – 1970s
Author of nearly 90 romances, including Little
Mountebank (1930), Modern Micawbers
(1933), Young Man's Slave (1936), Caretaker Within (1938), Time on Her Hands (1942), Lady of the Torch (1944), Spider Dance (1950), Cuckoo Cottage (1953), She Moved to Music (1956), Love on a Shoestring (1958), Practice for Sale (1964), Mists of the Moor (1967), Mixed Singles (1971), and The Uphill Path (1979).
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MACKINTOSH, MABEL (dates unknown)
1890s - 1930
Untraced author of more than a dozen volumes of fiction for children and,
possibly, for adults. A couple of her titles certainly sound like school
stories, such as The Boys of All Saints
(1904) and The Girls of St. Olave's
(1909). Others include Dust, Ho!, or,
Rescued from a Rubbish Heap (1891), Madcap
Marigold (1898), Betty's
Bridesmaids, or, For Want of a Word (1913), and Somebody's Darling (1928).
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MACKWORTH, CECILY [JOAN] (15 Aug 1911 – 22 Jul 2006)
(married names Donckier de
Donceel and de Chabannes la Palice)
1950s, 1990s
Journalist, novelist, and critic. Author
of I Came Out of France (1941), an
acclaimed first-hand account of the Nazi invasion of France, which I wrote
about here, and The
Mouth of the Sword (1948), about the postwar Middle East. She later
published two novels, Spring's Green
Shadow (1952), about a woman's life in Wales and then Paris from the
early to mid-20th century, and Lucy's
Nose (1992), which focuses on the "Lucy R." of one of Freud's
famous studies on hysteria. The Orlando Project reports that shortly after Shadow appeared she was working on a
novel set in Algeria, but it was apparently never completed. Orlando also
notes that she worked on her autobiography and was nearly finished at the
time of her death, but it remains unpublished. She did, however, publish a
travel memoir called Ends of the World
(1987), and wrote several biographical and critical works on an array of
subjects, including Francois Villon, Isabelle Eberhardt, and Guillaume
Apollinaire.
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MACLEAN, CATHERINE MACDONALD (c1891 – 9 Jan 1960)
1940s
A prominent biographer of William and Dorothy Wordsworth and of William
Hazlitt, Maclean also published a trio of novels about evacuees in Scotland—Seven for Cordelia (1941), Three for Cordelia (1943, published in
the U.S. as The Tharrus Three), and
Farewell to Tharrus (1944).
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MACLEOD, ELLEN JANE (17 May
1916 - 1992)
(née Anderson, aka Ella Anderson)
1950s – 1970s
Novelist and author of more than 20 works for children. Born in Scotland, she
emigrated to the U.S. with her family at age 9, returning to Scotland in the
early 1950s, where she began to write after an automobile accident ended
early efforts to be a dancer. Her children's books include The Seven Wise Owls (1956), The Crooked Signpost (1957), Adventures on the Lazy "N"
(1957), Mystery Gorge (1959), The Vanishing Light (1961), The Talking Mountain (1962), Stranger in the Glen (1969), The Broken Melody (1970), and Isle of Shadows (1974). She also
published a romantic novel, Orchids for
a Rose (1963). The Writer's
Directory lists several additional titles not shown in Worldcat—From Aunt Jane, with Love (1974), Wing Home, My Heart (1975), Those Joyful Days (1976), and Another Time, Another Place (1977).
These could have been self-published.
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MACLEOD, JEAN SUTHERLAND (20 Jan 1908 – 20 Apr 2011)
(married
name Walton, aka Catherine Airlie)
1930s – 1990s
Prolific author of more than 100 Mills & Boon romances, including Life for Two (1936), The Rainbow Isle (1939), The Reckless Pilgrim (1941), The Chalet in the Sun (1948), Master of Glenkeith (1955), The White Cockade (1960), The Joshua Tree (1970), Brief Enchantment (1979), Zamora (1983), and Lovesome Hill (1996).
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MACLEOD, KATHLEEN MILLAR (28 Mar 1892
– 19 Jun 1964)
1920s – 1950s
Scottish author of more than two dozen children’s titles, including family
stories and both boys’ and girls’ school stories. Titles include The Great Plan (1925), Grafton Days: Stories of Scots Schoolboys
(1932), The Luck of the Lauries
(1933), Father of Five: A Tale of
Scottish Home Life (1935), Brothers
at the Brae House (1936), The
Inconvenient Uncle (1938), Rival
Schools at Marstone (1945), Dilys
at Silverburn (1946), Meet the
Lorimers (1950), Julia in the Sixth
Form (1951), and A Cobweb in His
Hair (1954).
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MACLEOD, UNA (dates unknown)
1930s
Untraced author of three short romances—Deceivers
Ever (1936), Against All Warning (1936),
and She Fooled Them All (1937).
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MACMAHON, ELLA (c1857 – 10 Apr 1956)
1880s – 1940s
Author of more
than two dozen works of fiction, apparently specializing in what OCEF calls "adultery and marital
intrigue." Titles include Heathcote
(1889), Fortune's Yellow (1900), Oxendale (1905), The Court of Conscience (1908), The Straits of Poverty (1911), The Job (1914), John
Fitzhenry (1920), Mercy and Truth
(1923), Wind of Dawn (1927), The Rich Beggar (1945), and Diana's Destiny (1949).
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MacMillan,
Georgina Fitzgerald
see FITZGERALD, ENA
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MACNAMARA, RACHEL SWETE (c1870 – 18 Oct 1947)
1900s – 1940s
Author of more than 50 volumes of fiction, often
set in her native Ireland and occasionally containing, according to OCEF, "a (comparatively) lurid
frankness about sexual yearning." Titles include The Trance (1908), The
Awakening (1914), Lark's Gate
(1918), Jealous Gods (1921), Sweet Maureen (1922), Love's Long Lane (1925), A Fortune for Two (1928), The Dragon Tree (1930), Duet for a Trio (1933), which Norah
HOULT reviewed with qualified praise, Fandango
(1936), Dangerous Fortune (1940),
and Witchcraft in Your Lips (1947).
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MACNAUGHTON,
SARAH BROOM (26 Oct 1864 – 24 Jul 1916)
1890s – 1910s
Nurse, diarist, and author of more than a dozen volumes of
"intelligent, humorous, mildly feminist fiction" (OCEF). Titles include Sarah Harrison
(1898), The Fortune of Christina M'Nab
(1901), A Lame Dog's Diary (1905), The Three Miss Graemes (1908), The Andersons (1910), and Four-Chimneys (1912). Macnaughton was
a nurse during the Boer War and World War I, and was on her way to Russia
where she intended to provide medical assistance when she fell ill. She
returned to England, but died soon after. She wrote about her wartime
experiences in A Woman's Diary of the
War (1915), My War Experiences in
Two Contintents (1919), and her final, unfinished memoir, My Canadian Memories (1920).
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MACQUOID, KATHERINE S[ARAH]. (26 Jan 1824 – 24 Jun 1917)
(née Thomas)
1860s – 1910s
Travel writer and author of more than 50 volumes of fiction, most romantic in
theme. Some of her best-known novels are A
Bad Beginning: a Story of a French Marriage (1862), Patty (1871), At the Red
Glove (1885), "a romantic comedy set in a penson in Bern" (ODNB), His Heart's Desire (1903), and Captain Dallington (1907), about a highwayman. Her final novel, Molly Montague's Love Story (1911),
qualifies her for this list.
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MACRAE, MORAG (dates unknown)
1940s
Untraced author of a single short romance, Rebel Daughter (1941).
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MACRAYE, LUCY BETTY (30 Aug 1877 – 6
Dec 1952)
(née Webling)
1930s
Suffragist, actress, and author, at age 19, of a collection of stories and
poems (1896) with her sister Peggy WEBLING, and much later of two novels, One Way Street (1933) and Centre Stage (1938), the latter at
least partly influenced by her own experiences on the stage.
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MACROW, BRENDA G[RACE JOAN]. (3 Jun 1916 – 1 May 2011)
(née Barton, later married
name Prior)
1950s
Author of several non-fiction books about Scotland, verse for children, and
two works of children's fiction, the fantasy-themed The Amazing Mr. Whisper (1958) and its sequel The Return of Mr. Whisper (1959),
about children whose summer tutor has magical powers.
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MACSORLEY, CATHERINE MARY (5 Oct 1848 – 26 Jan 1929)
1880s – 1910s
Irish author of Christian-themed novels and fiction for girls, including Number One, Brighton Street, or,
"When We Assemble and Meet Together" (1885), The Old House (1893), A Steep Road (1894), The Vicarage Children (1900), "Goodbye, Summer" (1906), The Rectory Family (1910), The Road Through the Bog (1923), and The Children's Plan and What Came of it
(1934).
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MacTaggart, Morna
see FERRARS, ELIZABETH
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MACVEAN, PHYLLIS (29 Dec 1891 – 10 Sept 1967)
(aka Phyllis Hambledon)
1920s – 1960s
Author of more than 30 novels, including romance and mystery. Probable
mysteries include Invitation to Terror
(1950), I Know a Secret (1950), Keys for the Criminal (1958), Murder and Miss Ming (1959), Passports to Murder (1959), and Murder's No Picnic (1960). Among her
other titles are Autumn Fires
(1926), Leading Strings (1932), Hogmanay (1935), Turn Over the Page (1943), The
Listening Boy (1951), Love in Fair
Weather (1960), and Dear Obstacle (1962).
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MADDOCKS, MARGARET [KATHLEEN] (10 Aug 1906 – 20 Oct 1993)
(née Avern)
1940s – 1970s
Author of nearly 20 romance and gothic novels, including Come Lasses and Lads (1944), The
Quiet House (1947), A Summer Gone
(1957), Larksbrook (1962), Dance Barefoot (1966), and The Moon is Square (1975). Her memoir
was An Unlessoned Girl (1977).
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MAGRISKA, COUNTESS HÉLÈNE (31 May 1911
- Jul 1943)
(pseudonym of Enid Florence Brockies)
1930s – 1940s
Author of fifteen romantic melodramas. Ten
Poplars (1937) is about a young woman doctor who discovers a sort of
youth serum and (not surprisingly) attracts the attention of a Hollywood
star. Other titles are The Girl from
Moinettes' (1936), Love in Morocco
(1938), Whirled into Marriage
(1938), Egyptian Love (1939), Blonde Sinner (1939), Silken Sin (1939), Black Ballerina (1940), And Then Onide Laughed (1941), Crimson Brocade (1941), The House of Caddalo (1943), Polished Jade (1943), The Devil Shed Tears (1944), Happily Ever After (1945), and The Scarlet Flame (1950). Steve at
Bear Alley wrote in more detail about her here.
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MAHON, HONOR (9 Jul 1889 – 6 Dec 1989)
(pseudonym of Evelyn Winifred
Alphega Mahon, married name Goodhart, aka Honor Urse)
1910s – 1920s
Co-author, with Lionel Peel Yates, of a collection of Irish stories, By the Brown Bog (1913, as Honor
Urse), and a novel, The Eclipse of
James Trent, D.I. (1924), described as a humorous novel about the
Troubles.
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MAIR, MARGARET [NORAH] (14 Sept 1901 –
17 Aug 1984)
(aka Margaret Crompton)
1940s – 1950s
Author of eight novels, likely romantic in themes—Stay With Me Always (1943), No
More Good-Byes (1944), This Was My
Father (1948), The Questioning
Heart (1951), Bring Back Delight
(1953), Let Us Be True (1954), Half Sister (1956), and Spring of Love (1956). She also
published two pseudonymous biographies, Passionate
Search: A Life of Charlotte Brontë (1955) and George
Eliot: The Woman (1960).
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MAJOLIER, CHRISTINE [RUTH] (16 Jan 1890 – 3 Jul 1969)
(married name Methol)
1920s
Author of a single novel, Content
(1925), about which little information is available.
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MALCOLM, MARGARET (dates unknown)
(not to be confused with Edith Lyman Kuether, an
American author who used this name for a single mystery novel)
1940s – 1980s
Author of more than 90 Mills & Boon romances, including Loving Heart (1940), April's in Her Eyes (1943), April's Doubting Day (1945), Folly Hall (1947), Darkness Surrounds Me (1952), Fortune Goes Begging (1958), Scatterbrains—Student Nurse (1963), The House of Yesterday (1968), Flight to Fantasy (1976), and Eagles Fly Alone (1981).
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MALET, LUCAS (4 Jun 1852 – 27 Oct 1931)
(pseudonym of Mary St.
Leger Harrison, née Kingsley)
1880s – 1930
Daughter of novelist Charles Kingsley. Author of more than a dozen works of
fiction which sometimes courted controversy. Early work, including The Wages of Sin (1891) and The History of Sir Richard Calmady
(1901), received praise from the likes of Henry James. Her 1902 conversion to
Catholicism informed her later works, including the religiously-themed The Far Horizon (1906). Her most
commercially successful novels were The
Survivors (1923) and The Dogs of
Want (1924). Other titles include Adrian
Savage (1911), The Tall Villa
(1920), and The Pool (1930). In
1916, Malet published The Tutor's Story,
an unfinished novel by her father, written around the same time as The Water Babies, Malet having "developed the
characters, disentangled the plot, and completed the story."
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MALET, ORIEL (20 Jan 1923 – 14 Oct 2014)
(pseudonym of Auriel
Rosemary Malet Vaughan)
1940s – 1950s
Author of eight
novels, including Marjory Fleming
(1946, reprinted by Persephone), about
the child poet who died just before her ninth birthday. The others are Trust
in the Springtime (1943), My
Bird Sings (1945), which received the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and
which I wrote a bit about here, Miss Josephine and
the Colonel (1948), The Green Leaves of Summer (1950), Jemima
(1953), Angel with a Sword (1955), and The Horses of the Sun
(1959). Beginner's Luck (1952) is a children's title, which I
discussed here. Jam Today (1957)
is a memoir of her early years in Paris, while Marraine: A Portrait of My Godmother (1961) is about French actress and singer
Yvonne Arnaud, and Letters from Menabilly: Portrait of a Friendship
(1993) is a compilation of the letters she received from Daphne DU MAURIER, a
close friend for many years.
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MALIM, BARBARA (1893 - 1968)
(married name Ashley)
1920s – 1930s
Author of five novels, some or all of which appear to be mysteries or
thrillers. Titles are "To This
End" (1927), Missing from
Monte Carlo (1929), Death by
Misadventure (1934), By That Sin
(1935), and Murder on Holiday
(1937).
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MALLESON, LUCY BEATRICE (15 Feb 1899 – 9 Dec 1973)
(aka Lucy Egerton, aka
Anthony Gilbert, aka J. Kilmeny Keith, aka Sylvia Denys Hooke, aka Anne
Meredith)
1920s – 1970s
Prolific author of mysteries under her Gilbert pseudonym, most featuring
series character Arthur Crook, as well as mainstream fiction as Anne
Meredith. Her other pseudonyms appeared only on a handful of early books. Her
many titles include The Tragedy at
Freyne (1927), The Night of the Fog
(1930), Death in Fancy Dress
(1933), The Musical Comedy Crime
(1933), Murder by Experts (1936), Dear Dead Woman (1940), The Case of the Tea-Cosy's Aunt
(1942), Something Nasty in the Woodshed
(1942), The Spinster's Secret
(1946), A Fig for Virtue (1951), Miss Pinnegar Disappears (1952), Death Against the Clock (1958), Ring for a Noose (1963), and Murder's a Waiting Game (1972).
Mystery scholar Curtis Evans has speculated that she may have been the friend
and fellow author who anonymously completed Annie HAYNES's final novel, The Crystal Beads Murder (1930).
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MALLET, MAUD (19 Sept 1875 – 15 Jan
1960)
(pseudonym of Maud Constance Mallett, née Forster)
1920s
Author of several Mills & Boon romances, including The Love Chit (1920), The
Fly in the Bottle (1920), Rose in
the Bud (1921), Salome's Reputation
(1922), A Perfect Little Fool
(1923). It's unclear whether Fond
Escapist (1944) is a later novel or a reprint.
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MANLEY-TUCKER, AUDRIE [THIRZA] (24 Jun
1924 – 11 Oct 1982)
(first name originally Audrey, aka
Linden Howard)
1950s – 1980s
Author of more than 30 romances, mostly for Mills & Boon, including Leonie (1958), Lost Melody (1959), Dark
Bondage (1961), The Loved and the
Cherished (1964), Love, Spread Your
Wings (1967), Assistance Unlimited
(1971), Every Goose a Swan (1972), The Greenwood Tree (1976), Two for Joy (1979), and Julie Barden, Doctor's Wife (1989).
|
Mann, Deborah
see BLOOM, URSULA
|
MANN, MARY E[LIZABETH]. (14 Aug 1848 – 19 May 1929)
(née Rackham)
1880s – 1920s
Author of several dozen novels and story collections that were well-received
in her day and mostly take place in and around Shropham, which became
"Dulditch" in her fiction. According to ODNB, some of her short stories "are the equal of Hardy, and
yet the matter-of-factness of their rural tragedies differs markedly from
Hardy's vengeful determinism." Titles include The Parish of Hilby (1883), One
Another's Burdens (1890), The
Patten Experiment (1899), The
Fields of Dulditch (1902), Rose at
Honeypot (1906), Astray in Arcady
(1910), Mrs. Day's Daughters
(1913), and The Pedlar's Pack
(1918). Larks Press in the U.K. reprinted several of her books in recent
years.
|
Mannering, Julie
see BINGHAM, MADELEINE
|
Manners, Betty
see LINDSAY, KATHLEEN
|
MANNERS, EDITHA (dates unknown)
1920s – 1930s
Untraced author of one full-length school story, The Girls of Form Five (1929), and at least one other story or
novella included in the Bertha LEONARD-edited collection The Taming of Angela and Other Stories (1934). Sims & Clare
found reference to another untraced work called The School on the Shore.
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MANNIN, ETHEL [EDITH] (11 Oct 1900 – 5 Dec 1984)
(married names Porteus and
Reynolds)
1920s – 1970s
Novelist, travel writer, and memoirist, whose writings—even her romantic
novels—were often informed by her progressive social views and communist
beliefs, even after she became disillusioned with the realities of communism
in the Soviet Union. She considered Sounding
Brass (1925) to be her best novel. Other fiction includes Pilgrims (1927), Linda Shawn (1932), about a child educated according to the
theories of A. S. Neill, Love's
Winnowing (1932), Rose and Sylvie
(1938), Red Rose: A Novel Based on the
Life of Emma Goldman (1941), The
Dark Forest (1945), Late Have I
Loved Thee (1948), Moroccan Mosaic
(1953), Sabishisa (1961), The Lady and the Mystic (1967), The Curious Adventure of Major Fosdick
(1972), and The Late Miss Guthrie
(1976). She published several children's titles, including three about
foreign travel—Ann and Peter in Sweden
(1959), Ann and Peter in Japan
(1960), and Ann and Peter in Austria
(1962)—and was well known for books about her own travels, including South to Samarkand (1936), which
describes her disillusionment with the Soviet Union, Jungle Journey: 7000 Miles Through India and Pakistan (1950), Land of the Crested Lion: A Journal
Through Modern Burma (1955), and A
Lance for the Arabs: A Middle East Journey (1963). She also published
several volumes of memoirs, from Confessions
and Impressions (1930) to Sunset
over Dartmoor (1977).
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MANNIN, PHYLLIS [CAROLINE] (29 Jun 1908
– 8 Jul 1959)
(married name Walker)
1940s – 1950s
Journalist and author of more than two dozen romances, including Tamed Rebel (1941), And That Same Flower (1942), Glister-Gold (1944), The Web We Weave (1946), Blow Free, West Wind (1949), Like Spring Returning (1953), Happy Captive (1955), To Light a Candle (1957), and No Tears for Tomorrow (1959).
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MANNING, ADELAIDE FRANCES OKE (11 Aug 1891
– 26 Sept 1959)
(aka Manning Coles, aka Francis Gaite [both with
Cyril Henry Coles])
1930s – 1960s
Popular author (with Cyril Henry Coles, who was—in one of the oddest origins
for a partnership in all of literature—her neighbor in Hampshire) of a
humorous series of mysteries and spy novels featuring Tommy Hambledon, and
later of several satirical ghost stories. In their discussion of Manning
Coles, Rue Morgue Press notes of the pair's debut: "Its realistic
portrayal of the real world of espionage is what makes Drink to Yesterday (1940) one of the most important books in the
development of the spy novel."
Subsequent Tommy Hambledon novels include Pray Silence (1940, aka A
Toast for Tomorrow), Without Lawful
Authority (1943), Green Hazard
(1945), Diamonds to Amsterdam
(1949), Night Train to Paris
(1952), and Death of an Ambassador
(1957). In 1954, the pair launched a series of four humorous ghost stories
(published in the U.S. under the Coles name, but in the U.K., for whatever
reason known only to publishers, as Francis Gaite)—Brief Candles (1954), Happy
Returns (1955, aka A Family Matter),
The Far Traveller (1956), and Come and Go (1958). Before her
collaborations with Coles began, Manning published a single novel on her own.
Half-Valdez (1939) was, according
to Rue Morgue, "a fanciful tale of a hunt for lost Spanish treasure
hidden in the days of the Armada in a remote outpost on the British
coast."
|
Manning, Gloria
see BOGGS, WINIFRED
|
Manning, Marsha
see GRIMSTEAD, HETTIE [HARRIET]
|
MANNING, MARY (30 Jun 1906 – 25 Jun 1999)
(married names Howe and
Adams)
1930s, 1950s, 1970s
Irish actress, playwright, filmmaker, critic, and drama teacher at Radcliffe
(Jack Lemmon was one of her students). She published at least three darkly
comic novels—Mount Venus (1938), Lovely People (1953), and her most
successful, The Last Chronicles of
Ballyfungus (1978). She was reportedly a childhood friend of Samuel
Beckett. More information about her involvement with early films is available
here.
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MANNING, OLIVIA [MARY] (2 Mar 1908 – 23 Jul 1980)
(married name Smith, aka
O. M. Manning, aka Jacob Morrow)
1930s - 1980
Author of more than a dozen novels, of which the most famous are her two semi-autobiographical trilogies, The Balkan Trilogy—comprised of The Great Fortune (1960), The Spoilt City (1962), and Friends and Heroes (1965)—and The Levant Trilogy—comprised of The Danger Tree (1977), The Battle Lost and Won (1978), and The Sum of Things (1980). Collectively
known as "Fortunes of War" after the title of their BBC
dramatization, and based on the experiences of Manning and her husband, these
novels follow a young married couple working for the British government as
World War II repeatedly displaces them from their work and homes in such
vividly-portrayed locales as Bucharest, Athens, Cairo, Alexandria, and
Jerusalem. Anthony Burgess called the series "the finest fictional
record of the war produced by a British writer." Her other novels
include The Wind Changes (1937),
set during the Irish "troubles," Artist Among the Missing (1949), about a painter scarred by his
war experiences, The School for Love
(1951), set in Jerusalem, The Doves of
Venus (1955), which utilizes some of her experiences as a struggling
young writer in London, The Play Room
(1969), a controversial novel which includes themes of rape and lesbianism,
and The Rain Forest (1974), set on
an Indian island and dealing with a troubled marriage. Her story collection, Growing Up (1948), includes several
stories written during and immediately after the war—in particular,
"Twilight of the Gods," set in 1946, which evokes the exhaustion of
the immediate postwar. Her Jacob Morrow pseudonym was used for four early
"lurid serials" which she wrote for food money.
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MANNING, ROSEMARY [JOY] (9 Dec 1911 – 15 Apr 1988)
(aka Sarah Davys, aka Mary
Voyle)
1950s – 1980s
Teacher and headmistress for more than 30 years, novelist, and children's
author. Her children's fiction includes the Susan and R. Dragon series—comprised of Green Smoke (1957), Dragon
in Danger (1959), The Dragon's
Quest (1961), and Dragon in the
Harbour (1980)—as well as Arripay
(1963), about a boy during the Hundred Years War deciding between careers as
a monk or a pirate. Her adult fiction includes two novels written under her
Voyle pseudonym—Remaining a Stranger
(1953) and A Change of Direction
(1955)—and four more under her own name—Look,
Stranger (1960, aka The Shape of
Innocence), The Chinese Garden
(1962), Man on a Tower (1965), and Open the Door (1983). The Chinese Garden, set in a girls'
boarding school, earned comparisons to Henry James and Emily Brontë.
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MANNING-SANDERS, RUTH [VERNON] (21 Aug
1886 – 12 Oct 1988)
(née Manning)
1920s – 1930s,
1950s – 1960s
Folklorist, children's author,
and author of more than a dozen novels. Most widely known for her collections
of fairy tales from around the world with titles like A Book of Giants (1962) and A
Book of Witches (1965). Of her early novel, Waste Corner (1927), the New
York Times wrote: "The unpleasant Kneebone household consists of a
silly, scolding, blowsy mother; a pleasant, dishonest father and their four
children—the older two belonging to Mrs. Kneebone's first marriage. Their
troubles among themselves and with their neighbors, the Jewels, are endless.
With human perversity they fly into trouble and then lay it all to God."
Several of her later novels seem to focus on the circus. Other titles include
Hucca's Moor (1929), She Was Sophia (1932), Mermaid's Mirror (1935), Elephant: The Romance of Laura (1938),
The Golden Ball (1954), Circus Boy (1960), and The Extraordinary Margaret Catchpole
(1966).
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MANSBRIDGE, PAMELA (30 Oct 1930 – 22
Dec 1989)
(pseudonym of Pamela Mary Course, aka Lavinia
Becket)
1950s – 1960s
Author of more than a dozen children's titles, including a series of
mysteries featuring Caroline, an aspiring detective. Titles are Family Adventure (1953), Riverside Adventure (1954), The Children in the Square (1955), A House for Five (1956), The Larks and the Linnets (1958), A Crime for Caroline (1958), Flowers from Caroline (1959), The Seventh Summer (1959), Holiday in London (1960), The Larchwood Mystery (1960), Caroline and the Auction Sale Mystery
(1961), The Creek Street Jumble
(1961), Newcomers at the Cray
(1962), Hide and Seek! (1962), Battle Tunes at Bindleton (1964), and No Clues for Caroline (1966). She
later wrote two pseudonymous historical romances—The Gentlemen in Irons (1970) and A Pawn for the Condesa (1972).
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MANSFIELD, CHARLOTTE (1881 – 17 Feb 1936)
(married name Raffalovich)
1900s – 1930s
Author of thirteen novels which seem rooted in melodrama—Torn Lace (1904), according to OCEF, is about "an Italian prostitute who dies receiving the
wound intended for the man she loves, an English painter"—as well as a
well-received book about her travels in Africa, Via Rhodesia (1911). Other titles include The Girl and the Gods (1906), Red
Pearls (1914), "For Satan
Finds…" (1917), Strings
(1920), a "horror novel about a sinister violin" (OCEF), Trample the Lilies (1926), and Youth Is Tempted (1933).
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MANSFIELD, ESTRITH (10 Nov 1893 – 10 Apr 1981)
(pseudonym of Edna Edith
Harris)
1920s – 1930s, 1950s
Author of one girls' school novel, The
Mascot of the School (1935), as well as four novels for adults—The Flaming Flower (1927), Wind-Bound (1928), Morning Rainbow (1928), and Gallows Close (1957).
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MANTLE, WINIFRED [LANGFORD] (15 Feb 1911 – 13 Nov 1983)
(aka Anne Fellowes, aka
Frances Lang, aka Jane Langford)
1950s – 1980s
Lecturer in French, including at St. Andrew's, and author of more than 50 historical and romantic novels. A Pride of Princesses (1961) won the
Romantic Novelists Association's award for best historical novel. Other
titles include Happy Is the House
(1951), Haste to the Wedding
(1955), The Secret Fairing (1956), Green Willow (1958), The Sun in Splendour (1962), The Leaping Lords (1963), The River Runs (1964), The Marrying Month (1965), The Malcontent (1968), The Prince's Pleasure (1974), and Fortune's Favorite (1981). She also
published several children's titles, including The Hiding-Place (1962), Tinker's
Castle (1963), The Chateau Holiday
(1964), and Piper's Row (1968).
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MANWELL, M[ARIA]. B[ARBARA]. (22 Oct 1843 – 25 Mar 1922)
1880s – 1910s
Author of more than 20 children's books, including school stories for both
boys and girls. Titles include Gerty's
Triumph (1888), The Captain's Bunk
(1898), The Girls Of Dancy Dene
(1902), The Boys of Monk's Harold
(1907), The Girls of St Ursula's
(1912), and The Crew of the Rectory
(1912).
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MARC,
ELIZABETH (13 Nov 1882 – 17 Sept 1964)
(born Elsie Algar, married name Princess Musrat,
legally changed to Mostyn, aka Princess Nusrat)
1920s – 1930s
Author of
around ten children's books and at least one novel for adults. Two Men's Tale (1929) is about two men
with opposing personalities who are thrown together at school, then in the
Arctic, and finally in Australia. She married Prince Nusrat Ali Mirza of
Murshidabad, India, and her first four children's books were published under
the name Princess Musrat. In 1927, they emigrated to Australia, where they
changed their name and she published several more books as Elizabeth Marc,
some with Australian settings.
|
March, Hilary
see PULVERTAFT, LALAGE
|
March, Jermyn
see WEBB, DOROTHY ANNA MARIA
|
March, Maxwell
see ALLINGHAM, MARGERY
|
MARCHANT, BESSIE (ELIZABETH) (12 Dec 1862 – 10 Nov 1941)
(married name Comfort)
1890s – 1940s
Prolific author of nearly 150 works of children's fiction, often featuring
spunky girls who encounter adventure in exotic locales before settling into
domestic bliss. Titles include The Old
House by the Water (1894), The Girl
Captives (1899), That Dreadful Boy!
(1901), The Queen of Shindy Flat
(1905), A Countess from Canada (1911), Helen of the Black Mountain (1914), A Girl Munition Worker (1916), Harriet Goes a-Roaming (1922), By Honour Bound (1925), The
Two New Girls (1927), Cuckoo of the Log Raft (1931), The
Homesteader Girl (1932), Lesbia's Little Blunder (1934), Waifs
of Woollamoo (1938), and The Triumphs of Three (1942).
|
Marchant, Catherine
see COOKSON, CATHERINE
|
Marcus, Joanna
see ANDREWS, LUCILLA
|
MARGETSON, [ROSAMOND] ELISABETH [BERTRAM] (22 Aug 1898 – 9 Nov 1959)
(née Hobson, other married
names Ifould and Beazley, aka Rosamond Bertram)
1930s - 1960
Journalist and
author of nearly three dozen romances for Ward Lock, including such titles as
Poor Pagan (1936), Gay Career (1939), Serenade to a Stranger (1940), Six in Sunshine (1942), Quartette in a Flat (1947), Last Night's Kisses (1953), and Another Kind of Beauty (1960). Her
full name from the 1939 England & Wales Register, her occupation as a
journalist, and the dates during which she published all make it quite likely
that she is also girls' author Rosamond Bertram, author of six career novels,
most focused on journalism. Those titles include Ann Thorne, Reporter (1939), Mary
Truelove, Detective (1940), Ann
Thorne Comes to America (1941), Philippa
Drives On (1947), Scoop for Ann
Thorne (1939), and Front Page Ann
Thorne (1951). There is considerable complexity and some tragedy
involving Margetson's three marriages. There are indications, unearthed by
John Herrington, that her first husband may have faked his own death and
relocated to Australia, the discovery of which, only after she had remarried,
caused her second marriage to fail. It was then not until many year's later,
after her first husband finally did die, that she was able to marry once
more, legally. On her death record, however, a bit more than a decade later,
she is shown once again as a widow. On the 1939 Register, her birthdate is
given as 22 Aug 1900, and information provided to Author's and Writer's for its 1935 edition says she was born in
Ireland, but John discovered she was in fact born in 1898 around Birmingham.
We are assuming the 22 Aug date is correct even if she shaved a couple of
years off her age.
|
MARGETSON,
STELLA (6 Mar 1912 – 13 Apr 1992)
1940s
Journalist,
playwright, historian, and author of two novels. Her first publications were
two story collections, Miss Swinford
Remembers (1941) and Flood Tide and
Other Stories (1943), followed by the novels Peter's Wife (1948), about the havoc a widowed daughter-in-law
causes in a well-to-do English family, and The Prisoners (1949), about an art dealer's fall from grace.
Thereafter she focused on writing radio plays and turned to writing popular
history, including Journey by Stages
(1967), about stagecoaches in the 17th-19th centuries, The Long Party: High Society in the Twenties & Thirties
(1974), and Victorian High Society
(1980). Margetson was the daughter of actress Florence Collingbourne.
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MARLOW, VERONICA (4 Apr 1910 – 13 Oct 1989)
(pseudonym of Clarice Mary
Russell-Clarke, married names Rawlinson and Radcliffe)
1930s
Author of four girls' school stories—For
the Sake of the House (1933), Sally
Wins the School (1934), That Eventful
Term (1934), and The Lower School
Leader (1935)—which Sims & Clare note are imperfect but
"attractive and amusing."
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MARLOWE, CHRISTABEL (dates unknown)
1930s
Untraced author of only one girls' school story, Shirley at Charterton (1931), set in a large public school and
apparently a favorite for fans of the genre.
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MARLOWE, MABEL (16 Jul/Aug 1883 – 18 Jan 1954)
1920s – 1950s
Author of more than two dozen children's titles, including four school
stories—Winifred Avon (1920), The Turret Room (1926), Trouble in the Upper Third (1927), and
Lucia's Second Term (1928)—which
Sims & Clare describe as Victorian at heart. Other titles include Toffee Boy (1925), Sally in Our Alley (1929), Dwellers in the Stream (1945), and Trusty (1952). An online description of
Jacka-Biddy-Tippet, and Bumble the
Sweeper-Gnome (1935) makes clear that it contains some racist plot
elements. One record shows her birth date as 16 Jul, another says 16 Aug.
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MARRECO, ANNE (12 Jun 1912 – 23 Jun 1982)
(née Acland-Troyte, earlier married
names Grosvenor, Hoare, and Wignall, aka Alice Acland)
1950s – 1970s
Best known for her biography The Rebel
Countess: The Life and Times of Constance Markievicz (1967), she also
published eight novels, most under her pseudonym. A bookseller sums up A Person of Discretion (1958):
"Three sisters from Brussels become entangled in the black market and
the Resistance in the closing stages of the war." The others are Templeford Park (1954), A Stormy Spring (1955), A Second Choice (1956), The Charmer and the Charmed (1963), The Boat Boy (1964), The Corsican Ladies (1974), and The Secret Wife (1975).
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MARR-JOHNSON, DIANA [JULIA] (16 Sept
1908 – 14 Jun 2007)
(née Maugham)
1930s – 1970s
Niece of Somserset Maugham and author of seven novels. A bookseller describes
Rhapsody in Gold (1935) as the
"story of a woman who accepts an invitation to a party thrown by the
richest man in the world to see if all the rumors about his madcap antics are
true," and another sums up Goodnight
Pelican (1957) as the story of "a young English girl circulating in
French society while supposedly pursuing an education in France." I
reviewed the latter here. The others are Bella
North (1954), Face of a Stranger
(1963), Faces My Fortune (1970), Take a Golden Spoon (1972), and Three for a Wedding (1975). She also
published two books for young children and one play, Never Say Die (1958).
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MARSDEN, [LESLIE] MONICA (22 Jun 1906 - ????)
(née Palmer)
1940s – 1960s
Author of more than 30 children's adventure tales and mysteries, including
one—The Chartfield School Mystery
(1959)—set in a school. Others include Night
Adventure (1941), Enemy Agent
(1942), Lost, Stolen or Strayed
(1943), Friends of Freedom: A Story of
Occupied France (1943), The Abbey
Ruins (1944), Spanish Treasure
(1946), Bronze Bell Mystery (1948),
Mystery of the Clocks (1949), The Manor House Mystery (1950), The Luck of the Melicotts (1951), The Mystery of Beacon Hill (1955), A Matter of Clues (1962), and Island of Parrots (1968). John
Herrington was able to track down her identity (and she may actually be South
African, though I'm leaving her on this list to share what he found), but
information on her later life is limited. She appears to have returned to
Africa, and her husband's probate suggests she was alive in 1975. A reader,
Roger Stringer, contributes that she produced theatrical shows at a local
drama club in Mbare.
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MARSH, [DOROTHY] EILEEN (6 Oct 1900 – 5 Aug 1948)
(married name Heming, aka
numerous pseudonyms, including Dorothy Carter, James Cahill, Eileen Heming,
Rupert Jardine, and Mary St. Helier)
1930s – 1940s
Author of more than 120 works of fiction under a bewildering array of
pseudonyms, all in the course of about 12 years. This includes a wide array
of children's fiction, from adventure tales, including many focused on women
pilots, to war stories to girl's school stories, as well as adult novels. We Lived in
London (1942) is
about a working class family in the Blitz. Eight Over Essen (1943) follows a bomber's crew home for a week's
leave, while A Walled Garden (1943)
deals with evacuees. Other titles are too numerous to list, but there are
more details about her work and her pseudonyms here.
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MARSH, JEAN (2 Dec 1897 – 6 Apr 1991)
(pseudonym of Evelyn Marshall, née Pass, aka Lesley
Bourne)
1930s – 1990s
Radio screenwriter, children's author, and novelist. Her early novels are
mainly mysteries, about which I can find few details (Google searches are
hindered by the fact that she shares her name with the well-known British
actress). The mystery titles are The
Shore House Mystery (1931), Murder
Next Door (1933), Death Stalks the
Bride (1943), Identity Unwanted
(1951), Death Visits the Circus
(1953), The Pattern Is Murder
(1954), Death Among the Stars
(1955), and Death at Peak Hour
(1957). She later published around twenty romantic novels.
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MARSHALL, CHRISTABEL [GERTRUDE] (24 Oct 1871 – 20 Oct 1960)
(aka Christopher [Marie]
St. John)
1900s – 1910s
Critic, biographer, playwright, and novelist. Daughter of novelist Emma
Marshall and friend of Cicely HAMILTON, with whom she co-wrote the play How the Vote Was Won (1909). She also
published two novels, The Crimson Weed
(1900), about the illegitimate child of an opera singer, and Hungerheart: The Story of a Soul
(1915), which, according to ODNB,
"represents the development of a lesbian or ‘invert’ whose sexuality is
mediated through the self-abnegation of Roman Catholicism." Yikes.
|
Marshall, Ethel F. H.
see HEDDLE, ETHEL F[ORSTER].
|
MARSHALL, IRIS [CYNTHIA] (1897 – 3 Mar
1944)
1920s
Author of two novels—The Pitcher of
Fate: A Russian Historical Romance (1921) and Souls of Fire (1924). The latter is set in southern Spain and
deals with lovers trying to escape a web of dramatic secrets.
|
MARSHALL,
[EVELYN] MAY (17 Jan 1898 – 4 Apr 1971)
(née Martin)
1930s - 1950s
Journalist,
editor, playwright, and author of children's fiction and seven novels. She wrote
at least one published play, The
Enchanted Isle (1934), from which she moved to children's fiction with
titles like Jan Solves the Riddle
(1935), Nothing Ever Happens!
(1936), and The Song Triumphant
(1936). In 1937, her first adult novel, Impetuous
Friend, was published, about a schoolmistress in a high school. This was
followed by Island Home (1938),
about an 18-year-old going to stay with family friends, Second Life (1940), about a woman who seeks new adventures now
that her children are grown, United
Family (1952), about a doctor's family adjusting to postwar life, Mulberry Leaf (1954), about the lives
of nurses in a modern hospital, This
Power of Love (1956), and Youth
Storms In (1956), about a young war widow whose arrival in the lives of
her older sisters-in-law wreaks havoc on their staid lives. She was also
editor of a prominent women's magazine. The British Library shows the author
as "May Kathleen Marshall", but comparing information from her book
reviews with public records it seems clear she is Evelyn May, whose son,
Thomas Cedric, was prominent in the RAF (see here),
a fact mentioned in at least one review of the novels. Thank you to Hilary
Clare for her help in untangling May's records.
|
MARSHALL, VERA (dates unknown)
1930s
Untraced author of a single girls' school story, The Quest of the Sleuth Patrol (1931).
|
Marston,
Jay
see SPENCER, JILL
|
MARTEN, S. E. (dates unknown)
1920s
Author of a single girls' school story, Girls
of the Swallow Patrol (1927), which also features Guide content. The most
likely candidate John Herrington could find was Sarah Elizabeth Marten (3 Mar
1882 – 16 Jul 1964), née Meharg, who was a midwife for many years. However,
her grandson is unaware of her publishing a book.
|
MARTIN, CLARA [ISABELLE] (29 Jun 1874 – 6 Mar 1958)
(aka Cecil Morton)
1910s – 1940s
Poet, essayist, and author of romantic novels, about which few details are
available. Titles include A Little
Aversion (1912), The Spanish Dress
(1928), Honey Pot (1930), Susan Jane (1932), Doctor's Day (1937), and,
pseudonymously, Love in Masquerade
(1947).
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MARTIN, DORA (THEODORA) FOWLER (28 Dec 1882 – 25 May 1961)
(born Theodora Martin,
Fowler may have been a pen name)
1930s – 1960s
Sister of J. P. Martin, author of the Uncle
series of children's books, and aunt of Stella CURREY. Author of three novels
for adults—The Unseen Audience
(1934), Wander Year (1935), and The Long Procession (1936)—and two
children's books, Two Young Adventurers
(1938) and Caravan Days (1940).
|
Martin, Dorothea
see HEWITT, KATHLEEN [DOUGLAS]
|
MARTIN, FRANCES (dates unknown)
1950s
Unidentified author of a single novel, Summer
Meridian (1956), a grownup school story set in a "co-educational
school … devoted to the development of individuality and self-expression in
the young." I reviewed it here. I've not yet been able
to find any clues to identify her.
|
Martin, L. E.
see NICHOLSON, MARY
(1908-1995)
|
MARTIN, MARY (dates unknown)
1920s
Author of two girls' school stories, The
Girl Who Dared (1925) and How Damie
Found Herself (1926), and two other children's titles—Fanny O'Hara (1927) and Stella and Her Uncle (1928). A
Worldcat record for a reprint of Stella
credits the book to Mrs. George Martin, who was Mary Emma Martin, née Le
Breton (26 Jan 1844 – 7 Aug 1931) and who published a dozen or more novels in
the 1870s-1900s. Among them is what appears to be a school story in 1890, as
well as other titles for girls, though she would have been in her eighties
when the later titles appeared—not impossible, but no proof either way at
this point.
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MARTIN, PHYLLIS (dates unknown)
1920s – 1960s
Untraced author of more than 20 romantic novels, including Whispering Lips (1920), A Broken Blossom (1922), A Girl to Reckon With (1924), Fascinated But Afraid (1932), The Pride of the Desmonds (1933), Yesterday's Dreams (1952), Hazardous Paths (1953), Doctor Caroline's Marriage (1959), and
The Other Nurse Carew (1963).
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Martin, Violet
see SOMERVILLE & ROSS
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MARTON, FRANCESCA (2 Oct 1910 – 1997)
(pseudonym of Margaret Rosa Bellasis, aka Margaret
Bellasis)
1940s – 1950s
Historian and author of four pseudonymous novels, most set in the early or
mid-Victorian periods. Over the Same
Ground (1944) tells two alternating stories set a century apart in the
same seaside town. In Attic and Area,
or, The Maidservant's Year (1948) and Mrs.
Betsey, or, Widowed and Wed (1954) she seems to have taken on the
challenge of writing novels that were Victorian in both scope and style.
According to the Evening Standard,
the former "leaves one dreaming about the London that inspired
Cruikshank and fertilised Dickens."
The latter, about a 28-year-old widow struggling to support her children
by working as a housekeeper, was even more enthusiastically praised:
"Francesca Marton has recreated Victoria's England—the great country
houses filled with color and excitement both above and below stairs; the
sprawling, noisy city of London with its magnificent exhibition and its
wretched poor; and Betsey's own sturdy, hard-working middle class" (Hartford Courant, 1 May 1955). Her
final novel, Speculation Miss
(1958), set around 1800, "loads a bevy of young spinsters on an East
Indiaman for a six months' voyage with a crew of pretty hot-blooded,
shiver-my-timbering sailors" (Guardian,
16 Dec 1958). She also published two historical works under her real name, Honourable Company (1952), about her
own family's contributions to the East India Company, and "Rise, Canadians!" (1955),
an acclaimed account of the 1837 rebellion in Upper Canada.
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Mary
Catherine, Sister
see ANDERSON, KATHLEEN [AGNES
CICELY]
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MASON, HOWARD (4 Sept 1925 - ????)
(pseudonym of Jennifer Anne Susan Ramage)
1950s
Daughter of actress Cathleen Nesbitt and an actress herself, as well as the
author of four crime novels. Proud
Adversary (1951) was described as a "tale of adventure in the Buchan
tradition." Of The Red Bishop
(1953), Kirkus said, "An old castle with its well kept secrets and its
subterranean passages, a monstrous game of living chess which had been played
in the 16th century and the telltale treasure which is found in a tower, all
contrive a melodrama which may be unlikely but has an ingratiating verve—and
nerve." Photo Finish (1954)
appears to have been turned into a zany spy movie called Follow That Horse!, but it's unclear whether the comedy element
was part of the novel or if Hollywood took liberties. And a bookseller
describes Body Below (1955) as a
"good, readable mixture of adventure and detection in an unusual and
exotic situation," but no mention of what the unusual and exotic
situation is.
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Mason, Leonie
see SUTER, JOAN
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Mason, Margaret
see COOPER, GWALDYS
DOROTHY
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MASON, MARGOT (dates unknown)
1920s
Untraced author of a single short romance, Delightful Diana (1927).
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MASSIE, ALICE [ELIZABETH] (17 Aug 1884 – 4 Feb 1961)
1900s – 1930s
Author of about 20 volumes of fiction. Her focus until the late 1920s was on
children's fiction, including such titles as Told By Eileen: A Book for Girls (1907), Two in a
Tangle (1909), Freda's Great Adventure: A Story of Paris
in War-Time (1917), The Bringing Up
of Mary Ann (1923), and Pavement
Island (1925). Sims & Clare also highlight several humorous stories set
in a convent school, which only appeared in annuals and have never been
collected. Thereafter, she published six novels for adults—Unresting Year (1926), The Blessed Roof-Tree (1927), The Shadow on the Road (1929), The Cotswold Chronicle (1930), Crossings (1932), and The Wicked Captain (1933). Of the
heroine of Crossings a bookseller
blurb says, "while crossing the channel via plane to marry a man she
does not love she meets the man of her dreams."
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MASSON, ROSALINE [ORME] (6 May 1867 –
7 Dec 1949)
1890s – 1920s
Critic, historian, biographer of her friend Robert Louis Stevenson (1923),
and author of at least six novels and two story collections. The novels are The Transgressors (1899), In Our Town (1901), Leslie Farquhar (1902), Our Bye-Election (1908), Nina (1911), and A Better Man (1928). The story collections are My Poor Niece and Other Stories (1893)
and A Departure from Tradition and
Other Stories (1898). She also published works of Scottish history.
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MASTERMAN, MARGARET [MARY] (4 May 1910 – 1 Apr 1986)
(married name Braithwaite)
1930s
A lecturer at Cambridge who also worked in the theatre and at Ealing Film
Studios, and author of three novels. The first—Gentlemen's Daughters (1931)—is set at a school and deals with a
young girl's crush on a teacher and her subsequent disillusionment. The
others are The Grandmother (1934)
and Death of a Friend (1938).
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MATHERS, HELEN (26 Aug 1851 – 11 Mar
1920)
(pseudonym of Ellen/Helen Buckingham Mathews,
married name Reeves)
1870s – 1910s
A popular author of melodramatic fiction in the late 19th century, Mathers'
final volume of stories, Man Is Fire,
Woman Is Tow and Other Stories (1912), qualifies her for this list. Her
debut, Comin' Thro' the Rye (1875),
was a major bestseller. She reportedly faced much personal tragedy, with a
son dying young and her own and her husband's serious health issues causing
financial difficulties.
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MATHESON, JEAN [CHISHOLM] (1909 - 2001)
(married name Marshall)
1950s – 1960s
Scottish author of eight novels. The
Cistern and the Fountain (1951) is about a woman in financial difficulty
who opens her home to guests, while The
Island (1952) deals with two MacArdles, one an American of Scotch
descent, the other living in Scotland but wanting to get away to the bigger
world, who decide to trade places. The
Visit (1954) is described as "a grim psychological novel—a Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in modern dress", while The Day of the Fair (1955) appears to be a more humorous tale of
the goings-on at a neighborhood fair. Thereafter, Matheson turned to crime
fiction, noting in one article that it was the only type of novel which
sold—these works include So Difficult
to Die (1957), The Dire Departed
(1958), and The Goldfish Pool
(1961), the last about a woman looking back on her childhood in an orphanage
run by a "super-horrific female fortune hunter". Her final novel
was The Little Green Bird (1963),
set in Edinburgh and dealing with the effects of a man's alcoholism on his
wife and child.
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MATHEWS, M. E. (dates unknown)
1940s – 1950s
Unidentified author of about half a dozen children's titles, as well as a
volume of children's verse. Titles include The Featherlight Family (1942), Princess Storm (1943), Runaway
Adventure (1944), The Redheads of
Windyridge (1950), The Island in
the Lake (1951), and Sixpenny Holiday
(1953).
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MATTHEWMAN, PHYLLIS (19 Jan 1896 – 6
Jul 1979)
(née Barton, aka Kathryn Surrey, Jacqueline Yorke)
1940s – 1970s
Author of more than 60 volumes of fiction for children and adults. Best known
for her girls' stories, which include several series. The Daneswood series of
seven school-related stories is comprised of Chloe Takes Control (1940), The
Queerness of Rusty (1941), Josie
Moves Up (1943), A New Role for
Natasha (1946), Justice for
Jacqueline (1946), Pat at the Helm
(1947), and The Intrusion of Nicola
(1948). The Kirkdale Priory series comprises Because of Vivian (1947), The
Turbulence of Tony (1951), The
Coming of Lys (1951), and The
Amateur Prefects (1951). Other children's fiction includes Jill on the Land (1942), Timber Girl (1944), Thanks to Mr. Jones (1948), River Holiday (1954), Linda at the Forest School (1955), and
The Mystery of Snake Island (1962).
She also published biographies for children and around two dozen romances,
several of the early ones under her pseudonyms. The romances include Utility Wedding (1946), The Veil Between (1950), Castle to Let (1953), Fetters of a Dream (1956), Cupid in Mayfair (1958), Make Up Your Mind, Nurse (1964), and The Time for Loving (1972).
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MATTHEWS, E[MILY]. C[ATHERINE]. (15 May 1865 – 1 May 1952)
1920s – 1950s
Author of two girls' school stories, Lavender
at the High School (1927) and Miss
Honor's Form (1928), and three later children's books—A Christmas Moon (1933), Two Red Cloaks (1947), and Holiday at Magpie Cottage (1953).
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MATTINGLY, MARION GRAHAME (28 Sept 1890 – 28 Apr 1958)
(née Meikleham)
1920s
Author of one children’s title, Marcus
the Briton: A Romance of Roman London (1928), and a children’s guide to
the British Museum (1924).
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MAUD, CONSTANCE E[LIZABETH]. (11
Mar 1856 – 11 May 1929)
1900s – 1910s
Author of six
novels, several of them set in France where she went to school. Titles are An English Girl in Paris (1902), The Rising Generation (1903), Felicity in France (1906), A Daughter of France (1908), No Surrender (1911), and Angelique (1912). No Surrender, about the suffrage movement, was reprinted by
Persephone.
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MAUGHAN, A[NNE]. M[ARGERY]. (4 Nov 1921 – 7 Jan
2018)
1950s, 1970s
Author of three historical novels—Monmouth
Harry (1956), Young Pitt
(1974), and The King's Malady
(1978). She was born and grew up in Durham.
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MAVOR, ELIZABETH [OSBORNE] (17
Dec 1927 – 22 May 2013)
(married name Hodson)
1950s – 1980s
Biographer and
author of five novels. Best known for her acclaimed biography The Ladies of Llangollen (1971), about
Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby, two 18th century women who eloped together
in 1778 and lived together as, in effect, a married couple for more than 50
years. She followed this with Life with
the Ladies of Llangollen (1984), described as "extracts from the
journals, letters, receipts and account books" of the two women, and A Year with the Ladies of Llangollen
(1987), a selection from Eleanor Butler's journals. Mavor also published five
novels. Summer in the Greenhouse (1959) is about an
elderly woman recounting a past love story to the granddaughter of her lover.
The Temple of Flora (1961) is a
humorous tale of a young woman's attempts to transform a village with pagan
leanings. The Redoubt (1967) is set
during the floods of 1953, and A Green Equinox (1973) was nominated
for the Booker Prize. Her final novel The
White Solitaire (1988), is based on the life of 18th century female
pirate Mary Read. JRank has an informative page about Mavor's fiction here.
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MAYBURY, ANNE (12 Jun 1901 – 27 Feb 1993)
(pseudonym of Edith
Arundel, married name Buxton, aka Edith Arundel, aka Katherine Troy)
1930s – 1980s
Author of more than 90
romance and romantic suspense novels, including Son of John (1930), Love
Triumphant (1932), Catch at a Rainbow (1935), This Errant Heart
(1937), Arise, Oh Sun (1940), A Lady Fell in Love (1943), First,
the Dream (1951), Prelude to Louise (1954), The Gay of Heart
(1959), Whisper in the Dark (1961), The Minerva Stone (1968), Ride
a White Dolphin (1971), Jessamy Court (1974), and Invitation to
Alannah (1983). She published a few of her earliest novels under her real
name, and several later ones as Katherine Troy (confusingly most of these
appeared under the Maybury pseudonym in the U.S.), but Maybury was her
best-known pseudonym. Twentieth-Century Romance and Historical Writers
said that she could "be counted on for vivid characters, basically sound
plots, and carefully researched and lusciously described settings."
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MAYER-NIXSON, MAISIE (EDITH MAY) (1890
– 25 Dec 1954)
(née Bennett, aka Edward Lennox, aka Maisie Bennett)
1910s – 1920s
Author of two romantic novels and one memoir. At age 21, she had been working
as a librarian in the circulating library of a large department store when
her first novel, Golden Vanity (1912, as Maisie Bennett),
appeared. Mills & Boon publicized her heavily as the "Shopgirl
Novelist" and granted her the equivalent of one year of her salary to
give her free time to write. However, it wasn't until 16 years later that a
second and final novel, The Crowded Year (1928, as Edward Lennox)
was released by a different publisher. A contemporary review sums it up:
"Railway accidents, fires, divorces, drowning, earthquakes and romance
are the ingredients of this somewhat hectic year." More than two decades
after that, she published Ring Twice for the Stewardess (1954), a
memoir of her interceding career as a ship stewardess.
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Mayfield,
Julia
see HASTINGS, PHYLLIS [DORA]
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MAYNE, ETHEL [COLBURN] (7 Jan 1865 – 30 Apr 1941)
1890s – 1920s
Biographer, translator, and novelist, known for her
biographies Byron (1912) and Anne
Isabella, Lady Noel Byron
(1929). Her early short stories, such as those included in Things That
No-One Tells (1910), Blindman (1919), and The Inner Circle
(1925), garnered comparisons to Katherine Mansfield. She also published
several novels, including Jessie Vandeleur (1902), Gold Lace: A
Study of Girlhood (1913), Come In (1917), and Nine of
Hearts (1923). In later years, she lived with her sister, and both
women died after being severely injured in a German bombing raid.
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MAYOR, F[LORA]. M[ACDONALD]. (20 Oct 1872 – 28 Jan 1932)
(aka Mary Strafford)
1900s – 1930s
Author of three quiet, brilliant novels of
spinsterhood—The Third Miss Symons (1913), The Rector’s Daughter
(1924), considered her masterpiece, and The
Squire's Daughter (1929). Her collection, The Room Opposite (1935), contains several ghost stories and has
been reprinted by Sundial Press. Janet Morgan in an introduction to a Virago
edition of The Squire's Daughter,
says that Mayor's first, pseudonymous work, Mrs. Hammond's Children (1901), sadly unavailable anywhere
outside the British Library, is about "the kindnesses and cruelties
[children] practise on one another." Michael Walmer has now revived Miss Browne's Friend: A Story of Two Women (1914), a short work
originally serialized in the Free
Church Suffrage Times. I've written about Mayor's work here.
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Monica Marsden was born in Amritzar, British India. This came from Ancestry.com. South Africa, Biographical Index, 1825-2005. This database is an index to various South African biographical collections, such as Who's Who and Woman of South Africa.
ReplyDeleteMonica Marsden was the producer of drama shows put on by the Runyararo Drama Club in Mbare (then Harari). She ‘endeavoured to make township life a little more interesting. She also fought the colur bar through entertainment by organising and staging drama shows in the city centre. The white community soon realised that for educating the community on health, social and political issues.’ Joyce Jenje Makwenda, Zimbabwe Township Music (Harare: The author, 2005), 27–8.
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