For more information about
this list, please see the introduction, linked below.
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You can download the entire list in a single PDF.
Clicking on the link below will open a Google Docs page displaying the entire
list in PDF. To save a copy of the PDF, just click on the little down arrow in
the upper left. You can also print the list from the Google Docs page, but be
warned that it now weighs in at 435 pages!
[Current total: 1,966 writers]
UPDATED 2/2/2018
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(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.
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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.
Late in life she published two novels, The
Crooked Wall (1954) and Tatting
(1957). 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, 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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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.
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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 four works of fiction. The Tharrus Three (1943) was descibred by a bookseller as
"[a] heart-warming story of human kindness in a world at war." The
others are Seven for Cordelia
(1941), Three for Cordelia (1943),
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).
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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
(1892 – 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 - 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 (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 - 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, 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] (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).
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Mann, Deborah
see BLOOM, URSULA
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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.
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Mannering, Julie
see BINGHAM, MADELEINE
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Manners, Betty
see LINDSAY,
KATHLEEN
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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] (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 (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."
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Manning, Gloria
see BOGGS, WINIFRED
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Manning, Marsha
see GRIMSTEAD, HETTIE [HARRIET]
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MANNING,
MARY (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 (1930 - 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]. (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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March, Hilary
see PULVERTAFT, LALAGE
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March, Jermyn
see WEBB, DOROTHY
ANNA MARIA
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March, Maxwell
see ALLINGHAM, MARGERY
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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).
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Marchant, Catherine
see COOKSON, CATHERINE
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Marcus, Joanna
see ANDREWS, LUCILLA
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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 (c1884 – 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.
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MARRECO, ANNE (12 Jun 1912 - 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 six 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." The others are Bella
North (1954), Face of a Stranger
(1963), 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
South Africa (then Rhodesia), and her husband's probate suggests she was
alive in 1975. Beyond that he can find no trace.
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MARSH,
[DOROTHY] EILEEN (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.
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Marshall, Ethel
F. H.
see HEDDLE, ETHEL F[ORSTER].
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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.
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MARSHALL, VERA
(dates unknown)
1930s
Untraced author of a
single girls' school story, The Quest
of the Sleuth Patrol (1931).
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Marston, Jay
see SPENCER, JILL
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MARTEN,
S[ARAH]. E[LIZABETH]. (c1882 - 1964)
(née ??????, previous
married name Meharg [uncertain but probable identification])
1920s
Author of a single girls'
school story, Girls of the Swallow
Patrol (1927), which also features Guide content.
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Martin, Dorothea
see HEWITT, KATHLEEN [DOUGLAS]
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Martin, L. E.
see NICHOLSON, MARY (1908-1995)
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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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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, MARGOT (dates unknown)
1920s
Untraced author of a single short romance, Delightful Diana (1927).
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MASSIE, ALICE
[ELIZABETH] (1884 - 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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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]. (1865 - 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 (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]. (1857 – 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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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 (c1901 – 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." She also intriguingly mentions another work, Miss Browne's Friend: A Story of Two Women
(1914), serialized in the Free Church
Suffrage Times and described as "an exploration of a friendship
between a suburban lady and a prostitute." I wrote about The Squire's Daughter here.
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