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Tahourdin, Jill
see SPENCER, JILL
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TALBOT, ETHEL M[ARY]. (26 May
1880 – 26 May 1944)
1910s – 1940s
One of the major authors of girls' school stories, who published more than
100 titles in all. Sims and Clare consider them notable for their emotional
intensity, though they also report that most readers either love her books or
hate them. Titles include The School on
the Moor (1919), The New Girl at
the Priory (1923), The Bravest Girl
in the School (1924), Patricia,
Prefect (1925), The School at
None-Go-By (1926), Jan at Island
School (1927), The Half-and-Half
Schoolgirl (1928), The Foolish
Phillimores (1931), The Mascot of
the School (1934), Diana the Daring
(1938), and The Warringtons in War-TIme
(1940).
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TALBOT, LAURA (12 Sept 1907 – 26
Aug 1966)
(pseudonym of Ursula Winifred Stewart Chetwynd-Talbot, married names
Stewart, Hamilton, and James)
1950s – 1960s
Author of five novels, most notably The Gentlewomen (1952), set during the
war and reprinted by Virago in the 1980s. The other four are Prairial (1950), Barcelona Road (1953), The
Elopement (1958), and The Last of
the Tenants (1961). On the 1939 England & Wales Register, it appears
that the family home of the Chetwynd-Talbots, Ingestre Hall, is being operated
as a hospital. She is already widowed from her first marriage, and her
occupation is given as "florist". Her third marriage was to
novelist Patrick Hamilton. Tragically, she and her fourth husband were killed
in a plane crash after only two years of marriage.
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TALLENTYRE, S. G. (28 Sept 1868 – 13 Apr
1956)
(pseudonym of Evelyn Beatrice Hall)
1910s
Biographer
of Voltaire and author of at least three novels—Early-Victorian (1910), about village life, Matthew Hargraves (1914), and Love
Laughs Last (1919). Oddly, the British Library says the "S"
stands for Stephen and gives "his" life dates as "1868-1919".
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Tate,
Ellalice
see HIBBERT, ELEANOR
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|
Taylor, Alison
see ROBERTSON, MIMA (JEMIMA)
[SIMPSON TAYLOR]
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TAYLOR, DORIS (dates unknown)
1940s – 1960s
Author of religious books and four works for children, including two girls'
school stories, Victory for Vera
(1955) and The Girl from India
(1961), as well as The Magic Plane
(1947) and Life-Saver Lyn (1954).
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TAYLOR, ELIZABETH (3 Jul 1912 –
19 Nov 1975)
(née Coles)
1940s – 1970s
Certainly the only writer on this list whose career was hindered by sharing a
name with a film star, Taylor remained underrated, despite critical acclaim,
until Virago's staunch advocacy of her work since the 1980s. She published
twelve novels, four story collections, and a children's book. Her debut, At Mrs. Lippincote's (1945), is a
powerful novel of late World War II tensions and fatigue, and her third, A View of the Harbour (1947), is set
in the immediate aftermath. A Game of
Hide-and-Seek (1951), one of her most acclaimed works, packs a diverse
cast of character into a tale of star-crossed lovers. Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont (1971), set in a hotel for the
elderly in Kensington, was made into a film starring Joan Plowright in 2005,
while Angel (1957), about an author
of romantic novels who is disappointed when real life doesn't live up to
them, was filmed by François Ozon in 2007. Her other novels are Palladian (1946), A Wreath of Roses (1949), The
Sleeping Beauty (1953), In a Summer
Season (1961), The Soul of Kindness
(1964), The Wedding Group (1968),
and Blaming (1976). Virago released
her Collected Stories in 2012,
which includes all four of her story collections as well as previously
uncollected and unpublished stories. She also published one children's title,
Mossy Trotter (1967), which I
reviewed here. Nicola Beauman, founder of Persephone, published a biography called The Other Elizabeth Taylor (2009). One
of Taylor's closest literary friends was Ivy COMPTON-BURNETT, and novelist
Robert Liddell published a memoir of his friendships with both, Elizabeth
and Ivy (1986).
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TAYLOR,
ELLA M. (dates unknown)
1930s
Untraced author of two romances—Her
Dangerous Freedom (1930) and Tangled
Lives (1934).
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TAYLOR, GAY (27 Sept 1896 – 29
Nov 1970)
(full name, Ethelwynne Stewart Taylor, née McDowall, aka Loran
Hurnscot, aka Ethel Firebrace [with Malachi WHITAKER])
1930s
Co-founder, with husband Harold Midgeley Taylor, of the Golden Cockerel Press
and author or co-author of three books. The first, an autobiographical novel
called No Goodness in the Worm
(1930), based on Taylor's unsatisfying marriage and her tormented
relationship with author A. E. Coppard, received wildly varying reviews. A
few years later, she collaborated with close friend Malachi WHITAKER on the
humorous satire, The Autobiography of
Ethel Firebrace (1937), from the point of view of a bestselling novelist
of high sensibility and healthy ego. Her final book, A Prison, A Paradise (1958), published under her Loran Hurnscot
pseudonym, is a diary (with names changed) revisiting her relationship with
Coppard and her subsequent spiritual revelations. Elisabeth Russell Taylor
wrote about her interest in Taylor, and particularly about A Prison, A Paradise, here. Neglected Books has also discussed all three of Taylor's books (see here).
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TAYLOR,
GERTRUDE WINIFRED (1880 – 13 Apr 1948)
1910s
Author of two early novels with D. K. BROSTER—Chantemerle (1911) and The
Vision Splendid (1913)—and one later novel of her own, The Pearl (1918), discussed in Anna
Bogen's Women's University Fiction, 1880–1945. Her other works appear to be plays. One
other short book, The Ruminations of Ruffles (1922), could be fiction
as well.
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TAYLOR, [EDITH] MARJORIE (1912 –
8 Dec 1938)
1930s
Author of three girls' Guide stories, all set in Scotland with Scottish
heroines, including With the Speedwell
Patrol (1938), Prior's Island
(1940), and The Highland School
(1940), the last with a backdrop of school. The cause of her tragically early
death is not yet known.
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TAYLOR,
SUSAN (13 Mar 1905 – 25 Dec 1990)
(pseudonym of
Kathleen Phyllis Taylor Collier, married name Mackenzie)
1930s – 1950s
Sister of Ann DEERING and author of 10 Mills & Boon romances. Titles are Love Is a Dream (1938), Sweetest Folly (1939), Mists Around the Moon (1940), Rose for Spain (1947), Spring Comes Again (1948), Dear Pretender (1949), Dreaming Bride (1950), Come Back to Me (1951), Sweet Unrest (1952), and The Happy Moment (1952).
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Taylor, Viola
see GARVIN, MRS J. L.
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Tempest, Jan
see SWATRIDGE, IRENE MAUDE
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Tempest, Sarah
see PONSONBY, DORIS ALMON
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TEMPLE,
MARION (dates unknown)
1930s
Unidentified author of a single novel, Fresh
Furrows (1935). A publisher's blurb says, "In her study of a 'dual'
personality, Marion Temple has achieved a first novel remarkable for the
maturity of its style and for the depth of its character. The story of the
girl coming to England to make a 'good match' and who found herself devoid of
love for her husband has both tragedy and happiness." If she, like her
heroine, came to England to marry, perhaps she doesn't belong on this list at
all?
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TEMPLE,
[GERTRUDE] PEGGY (MARGARET) (5 Dec 1913 – Jun 2001)
(married name
Archer)
1920s
A child author following in the footsteps of Daisy Ashford, Temple published
a humorous novel, The Admiral and
Others (1926), at age twelve, which Bookman
called "one of those fresh, unaffectedly humorous books that certainly
add to the gaiety of the world."
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TEMPLE, URSULA (26 May 1861 – 13
Apr 1943)
(pseudonym of Elizabeth [nicknamed Bessie] Ursula Joyce)
1900s – 1910s
Author of one girls' school story which just barely fits the date range of
this list—Form IIIB (1910)—and
three earlier titles, Through Strange
Paths (1903), The Squire's Will
(1907), and When Mother Was in India
(1907).
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TENISON, EVA MABEL (31 May 1880
– 10 Aug 1961)
1920s
Historian, biographer, and author of at least three novels—The Valiant Heart (1920), Alastair Gordon, R.N. (1921), and The Undiscovered Island (1924), the
last set in France during WWI.
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Tennant, Catherine
see EYLES, KATHLEEN MURIEL
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Tennant, Gertrude C.
see KEECH, GERTRUDE CLARA
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TERRELL,
DOROTHY À BECKETT (10 Mar 1879 – 18 Jan 1949)
(pseudonym of
Dorothy Margaret Elisa Terrell [à Beckett is her father's middle name],
married name James)
1910s – 1920s
Author of five romantic novels—Sister-in-Chief
(1912), which won a £250 prize for girls' stories, Emancipation: The Story of a Girl Who Wanted a Career (1914), Oh, Mary! (1920), Last Year's Nest (1924), and Common
of Angels (1926).
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Terrington, Rena
see WOODHOUSE, RENA
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TEY, JOSEPHINE (25 Jul
1896 – 13 Feb 1952)
(pseudonym of Elizabeth MacKintosh, aka Gordon Daviot)
1920s – 1950s
Novelist, playwright, and mystery writer, known particularly for one of the
most famous of all Golden Age mystery novels, The Daughter of Time (1951), in which her series detective,
Inspector Alan Grant, while bedridden with an injury, "solves" the
mystery of Richard III and the Princes in the Tower. Grant also features in The Man in the Queue (1929), A Shilling for Candles (1936), which
was adapted by Alfred Hitchcock into the film “Young and Innocent”, To Love and Be Wise (1950), and The Singing Sands (1952), and he
appears as a supporting character in The
Franchise Affair (1948). Miss Pym
Disposes (1946), set at a girls' physical education school, features a
former teacher, now the author of a bestseller about psychology, who must
track a murderer. Tey's other novels are Kif:
An Unvarnished History (1929), The
Expensive Halo (1931), Brat Farrar
(1949), and The Privateer (1952). I
wrote briefly about Brat Farrar here. She was also a successful playwright, most notably with Richard of Bordeaux (1932). There's an
informative site about her and her work here.
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THIRKELL, ANGELA [MARGARET] (30
Jan 1890 – 29 Jan 1961)
(née Mackail, later married name McInnes)
1930s – 1960s
Author of
more than 30 novels, most of them part of her popular Barsetshire Chronicles,
interwoven novels set in the fictional county originally created by Anthony
Trollope. The series begins with High Rising (1933), and some of
her fans' favorites include Pomfret
Towers (1938), The Brandons
(1939), Cheerfulness Breaks In (1940), Northbridge Rectory
(1941), and Peace Breaks Out
(1946). The series continued until Three
Score and Ten (1961), which was finished by C. A. Lejeune following
Thirkell's death. Her popularity began to wane in the 1950s as her politics
became more conservative and more explicitly detailed in her books. She
published a handful of non-Barsetshire novels, including the early comedy Ankle Deep (1931), Trooper to the Southern Cross (1934),
a semi-autobiographical novel about her trip to Australia, and O These Men, These Men! (1935), about
an abusive marriage, but she soon realized that Barsetshire was her forte. In
reading the Barsetshire novels, pay particular attention to the character of
Laura Morland, a ditzy writer of silly mysteries, who is Thirkell's
caricaturish alter-ego.
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THOMASSET,
M[ARJORIE]. P[HYLLIS]. (30 Dec 1879 – 10 Nov 1965)
(née Stringer)
1920s
Mother of Katharine SIM and author of four novels—The Fairy Spectacles (1920), Princess
Crystal (1920), Gentleman—Unafraid
(1921), and Joseph & M.O.
(1927).
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THOMPSON, FLORA [JANE] (5 Dec
1876 – 21 May 1947)
(née Timms)
1940s
Author of five novels, most famously the trilogy
known as Lark Rise to Candleford,
comprised of Lark Rise (1939), Over to Candleford
(1941), and Candleford Green (1943). These were lightly fictionalized
tales of Thompson's own youth, set in turn-of-the-century Oxfordshire and
popularly dramatized for television. According to her ODNB entry, "Few works better or more elegantly capture the
decay of Victorian agrarian England." Heatherley, a sort of sequel making use of Thompson's time as a
postal clerk in Grayshott, Hampshire (during which time her customers
included the likes of George Bernard Shaw and Arthur Conan Doyle), was
written in 1944 but not published until 1979. One additional novel, Still Glides the Stream (1948), was
published posthumously.
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THOMPSON, SYLVIA [ELIZABETH] (4
Sept 1902 – 27 Apr 1968)
(married name Luling)
1920s – 1950s
Author of more than a dozen novels, best known for her third, The Hounds of Spring (1926), about the
repercussions of World War I. The war is also a backdrop in The Rough Crossing (1921), and Chariot Wheels (1929). Others include Battle of the Horizons (1928) Winter Comedy (1931), Breakfast in Bed (1934), Third Act in Venice (1936), The Gulls Fly Inland (1941), The People Opposite (1948), and The Candle's Glory (1953).
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Thomson, China
see BRAND, CHRISTIANNA
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THOMSON, CHRISTINE [MARY]
CAMPBELL (31 May 1897 – 29 Sept 1985)
(married names Cook and Hartley, aka Flavia Richardson)
1920s – 1930s
Best known for popular anthologies of horror
fiction in the 1920s and 1930s, beginning with Not at Night (1925), which often included her own stories under
her pseudonym. Thomson also published at least half a dozen novels, including
Bourgoyne of Goyce (1921), The Noble Army (1921), The Incredible Island (1924), In a Far Corner (1926), His Excellency (1927), Port of Call (1936), and Hawk of the Sahara (1939).
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THORBURN, MARJORIE [CLARA] (14
Jul 1898 – 14 Oct 1987)
(née Burford)
1930s
Author of a single children's title, Edward
and Marigold (1933). Her other two published works were Child at Play (1937), apparently based
on her observations of her own child, and The
Spirit of the Child: A Study of the Moral and Spiritual Development of Small
Children (1946). She is described in one source as an educator, but
little else is known.
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Thorn, April
see BLOOM, URSULA
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THORNBER, LEON (27 Apr 1890 – 5
Jan 1963)
(sometimes Leonora, pseudonym of Emmeline Mary Thornber, née Sherwood)
1930s
Author of three novels—Bitter Glory
(1935), about Chopin, And One Man
(1936), and Portrait in Steel
(1938)—discussed in some depth by her granddaughter here.
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Thorne, Mary
see PEARSON, MOLLIE (MARY) SUSAN SEYMOUR
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THORNICROFT, JANE (dates unknown)
1930s - 1940s
Unidentified author of six children's titles—Striper the Badger (1935), Play Tennis! (1937), Kiki the Squirrel (1938), Dawn the Fawn (1948), Mink Was No Ordinary Cat (1948), and Nic the Rabbit (1949). A 1938 review
says she's a teacher, and there's a teacher named Alice Thornicroft on the
1939 Register, but the name could also be a pseudonym, no way of being
certain.
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THORP, MOLLY (dates unknown)
1950s
Unidentified author, with Nora LAVRIN, of a single children's novel, The Hop Dog (1952), which was later
filmed as Adventure in the Hopfields
(1954).
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THORPE, SYLVIA (1926 - )
(pseudonym of June Sylvia Thimblethorpe)
1950s – 1980s
Author of nearly 30 historical romances with settings in Regency, Georgian
and other periods. Titles include Beggar
on Horseback (1953), Rogues'
Covenant (1957), The Highwayman
(1962), Fair Shine the Day (1964),
and The Scarlet Domino (1970).
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THURBURN,
ROSE (ROSEMARY) [MINNA ROBINSON] (13 Jan 1906 – 13 Sept 1993)
(married names
Congreve and Hilleary)
1950s
Author of four novels. Of The Colour of
the Glass (1953), a review says, "Sensitivity, intelligence, and the
fresh revealing phrase mark this story of two fine, mature people who fall in
love." The others are The
Wilderness Is Yours (1950), The
Pulling Stones (1959), and Alien's
Sunshine (1959).
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THURSTON,
KATHERINE CECIL (18 Apr 1875 – 5 Sept 1911)
(née Madden)
1900s
Author of six novels in rather sensational "new woman" style,
including The Circle (1903), The Gambler (1905), John Chilcote, M.P. (1905), The Mystics (1907), The Fly on the Wheel (1908, reprinted
by Virago), and Max (1910).
Thurston died tragically young, officially as a result of a seizure, but ODNB suggests the possibility of
suicide.
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THYNNE,
MOLLY (MARY) [HARRIET] (1881 – 10 May 1950)
1920s – 1930s
Author of six mystery novels, including The
Red Dwarf (1928), The Murder on the
"Enriqueta" (1929), The
Case of Sir Adam Braid (1930), The
Crime at the "Noah's Ark" (1931), Murder in the Dentist's Chair (1932), and He Dies and Makes No Sign (1933), as well as one earlier novel, The Uncertain Glory (1914), about a
young artist in Munich and London. American artist James McNeill Whistler was
her great uncle on her mother's side. Thynne's books have now been reprinted
by Dean Street Press.
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Tibber, Robert
see FRIEDMAN, [EVE] ROSEMARY
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Tibber, Rosemary
see FRIEDMAN, [EVE] ROSEMARY
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TIBBITS, ANNIE O[LIVE]. (1871 -
1935)
(née Brazier)
1910s – 1920s
Author of
fourteen "sixpenny" novels, including Marquess Splendid (1910), Love
Without Pity (1915), Broken Fetters:
A Thrilling Story of Factory and Stage Life (1917), The Grey Castle Mystery (1919), Paid in Full (1920), and Under
Suspicion (1921).
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TIBBLE,
ANNE NORTHGRAVE (29 Jan 1912 – 31 Aug 1980)
1920s
Best known for her three volumes of memoirs—Greenhorn: A Twentieth Century Childhood (1973), One Woman's Story (1976), and Alone (1979)—Tibble also published a
novel, The Apple Reddens (1924),
set in Yorkshire, and collaborated with her husband on a biography of John
Clare. She also edited African-English
Literature: A Short Survey and Anthology of Prose and Poetry up to 1965
(1965).
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TIDDEMAN, L[IZZIE]. E[LLEN]. (1849 – 28 May
1937)
1880s – 1930s
Author of more than 70 volumes of fiction, mostly for children. Titles
include Toddy (1888), A Humble Heroine (1895), A Fairy Grandmother (1897), Patience and Her Knight, and Ted
(1902), The Adventures of Jasmin
(1910), True to Her Colours (1917),
Quicksands! (1924), and Ralph Does His Best (1931).
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TILLYARD, AELFRIDA [CATHERINE
WETENHALL] (5 Oct 1883 – 12 Dec 1959)
(married name Michaelides)
1920s – 1930s
Poet, "mystic", and author of five novels, including two dystopian
fantasies, Concrete: A Story of Two Hundred Years Hence (1930) and The Approaching Storm (1932). The others are The Young Milliner (1929), The
Way We Grow Up (1929), and Haste to
the Wedding (1931). According to information about her archive at
Cambridge, she wrote additional novels in the 1940s and 1950s, which remain
unpublished.
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TIMPERLEY, ROSEMARY [KENYON] (20
Mar 1920 – 9 Nov 1988)
(married name Cameron)
1950s – 1980s
Author of more than 60 volumes of fiction, including ghost
stories, romance, mysteries, and adventure. Titles incude A Dread of Burning (1956), Yesterday's Voices (1961), Devil's Paradise (1965), My Room in Rome (1968), The Long Black Dress (1972), The Nameless One (1977), Justin and the Witch (1979), Night Talk (1982), and Inside (1988).
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TINDALL, DAVIS (dates unknown)
(pseudonym of
Daisy Tindall)
1940s
Unidentified author of a single volume of short
stories, The Girls on the Bridge (1947). A review notes that it was
the pen name of a Scottish author named Daisy Tindall, but although there are
possible matches for that name in public records, there's so far no way to
determine which she is.
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TINDALL, GILLIAN [ELIZABETH] (4
May 1938 - )
(married name Lansdown)
1950s – 1990s
Daughter of Ursula ORANGE, whom she discusses in Footprints in Paris: A Few Streets, A Few Lives (2009) and in The Pulse Glass (2019), and niece of
Monica TINDALL. Author of a dozen novels before turning in recent years to
non-fiction centered on the study of place and particularly on urban history.
Novels include No Name in the Street
(1959, aka When We Had Other Names),
The Water and the Sound (1961), The Youngest (1967), Fly Away Home (1971), The Intruder (1979), Looking Forward (1983), and Spirit Weddings (1992). Her
non-fiction includes The Fields Beneath: The History of One London Village
(1977), Countries of the Mind: The Meaning of
Place to Writers (1991), Célestine: Voices From a French Village (1995), Three Houses, Many Lives (2012),
The Tunnel Through Time: A New Route for an Old London Journey (2016),
about the building of London's Crossrail Tube line, and The Pulse Glass
(2019), which I reviewed here. She has also published two biographies, The
Born Exile: George Gissing (1974)
and The Man Who Drew London
(2002), about engraver Wenceslaus Hollar, as well as a critical work about
Rosamond LEHMANN (1985).
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TINDALL,
MONICA [MCLEAN] (1907 - 1999)
(married name
Campbell)
1940s
Sister-in-law of Ursula ORANGE and aunt of Gillian TINDALL. Author of a
single novel, The Late Mrs. Prioleau
(1946), which I enthusiastically reviewed here and which was reprinted as a Furrowed
Middlebrow book by Dean Street Press.
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Tinker,
Beamish
see JESSE, F. TENNYSON
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TIPPETT, MRS. HENRY (6 Sept 1880
- 1969)
(pseudonym of Isabel Clementine Binny Tippett, née Kemp, aka Mrs.
Isabel C. Tippett)
1900s – 1920s
Suffragist, nurse, and mother of composer Sir Michael Tippett. Author of
eight New Woman and "marriage problem" novels—Flower of the World (1908), The
Purple Butterfly (1910), The Power
of the Petticoat (1911), The Waster
(1912), Green Girl (1913), Life-Force (1915), Living Dust (1922), and Honey and Fish (1923). On the 1881
census, her family home address is given as "Pudding Lane Burnt
House".
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TOBIAS, LILY (15 May 1887 – 30
Apr 1984)
(née Shepherd)
1920s – 1930s
Born in Wales to Jewish immigrant parents, Tobias is best known for Eunice Fleet (1933), about
conscientious objectors in World War I. Her other novels are My Mother's House (1931), Tube (1935), and The Samaritan (1939, subtitled "An Anglo-Palestinian
Novel"). She published one story collection, The Nationalists and Other Goluth Studies (1921). In recent
years, Eunice Fleet and My Mother's House have been reprinted
by Honno Press. Born and raised in Wales, she moved to Palestine in the
1930s, where she lived until her death. A biography—The Greatest Need: The Creative Life and Troubled Times of Lily
Tobias, a Welsh Jew in Palestine—appeared in 2015
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TODD, BARBARA EUPHAN (9 Jan 1890
– 2 Feb 1976)
(married name Bower, aka Barbara Euphan)
1930s – 1960s
Playwright, poet, novelist and children's writer. Best known
for her ten children's books featuring Worzel Gummidge, a talking scarecrow. ODNB notes, about that series:
"Clear sensory evocation of country scenes provides background for the
adventures of John and Susan, visiting city children privy to a lively
community of scarecrows unknown to the adult world." Todd also published
a single adult novel, Miss Ranskill
Comes Home (1946, reprinted by Persephone), a World War II comedy about a
woman, stranded on an island since before the war, who is finally rescued and
must adapt to wartime life. Todd collaborated on two more novels with her
husband, John Graham Bower—The
Touchstone (1935) and South Country
Secrets (1935).
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TOMALIN, RUTH (1 Dec 1919 – 22
Nov 2012)
(married names Leaver and Ross, aka Ruth Leaver)
1950s – 1970s, 2000s
Poet, journalist, children's author, and novelist. Her first novel for adults
was All Souls (1952), called by the
Observer "A prettily written
first novel with a long-dead witch resurrected in an English village."
Four of her later works—The Garden
House (1964), The Spring House
(1968), Away to the West (1972),
and The Orchard House (2008)—trace
the youth and young adulthood of Ralph Oliver and his cousin Rowan, and have
been considered by turn to be children's fiction or adult novels about
childhood. Children's titles include two published under her maiden name, Green Ink (1951) and The Sound of Pens (1955). In comments
to Twentieth Century Children's Writers,
she said "Most of my stories are about people and things of the English
countryside. All are set in places well known to me at different times,
ranging from a copse full of wild life (The
Daffodil Bird) to Broadcasting House, London (The Sea Mice); and from a glass "watch-house" in a nature
preserve (A Stranger Thing) to a
reporters' room on a provincial evening paper."
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TOM-GALLON,
NELLIE (1874 – 1 Feb 1938)
(pseudonym of
Helen Kate Gallon)
1920s – 1930s
Author, with Calder Wilson, of Monsieur
Zero (1923), a collection of crime stories set in Monte Carlo, and He Who Walked in Scarlet (1924). She
later wrote four novels on her own, which sound more like romances—Dawn of Desire (1927), Full Passionate Mood (1928), The Man Who Changed His Wife (1928),
and I Meant No Harm! (1935).
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TONKS,
ROSEMARY [DESMOND BOSWELL] (17 Oct 1928 – 15 Apr 2014)
1940s – 1970s
Poet, children's author, and author of six novels. Her two children's
books—On Wooden Wings: The Adventure of
Webster (1948) and The Wild Sea
Goose (1951)—qualify her for this list. Her novels are Emir (1963), Opium Fogs (1963), The
Bloater (1968), Businessmen as
Lovers (1969), The Way Out of
Berkeley Square (1970), and The
Halt During the Chase (1972).
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TORDAY,
URSULA [JOYCE] (19 Feb 1912 – 6 Mar 1997)
(aka Paula
Allardyce, aka Charity Blackstock, aka Lee Blackstock, and aka Charlotte
Keepel)
1930s, 1950s – 1980s
Author of nearly 60 novels, including mysteries and historical romance. After
three early novels under her own name—The
Ballad-Maker of Paris (1935), No
Peace for the Wicked (1937), and The
Mirror of the Sun (1938)—Torday stopped writing until well after World
War II, during which time her activities included social work with Jewish
children who survived Nazi concentration camps, experiences she later
detailed in Wednesday's Children
(1966, aka The Children). When she
returned to publishing, her focus was primarily on historical romance and
gothic novels, but among her early works under her Charity Blackstock
pseudonym (some published in the U.S.—for whatever reason—under the name Lee
Blackstock), Torday seems to have published some more or less straightforward
mysteries. Dewey Death (1956) was described by the Spectator as a
"first-class first novel that gives new twist to old theme of
corpse-in-the-library." Other of Torday's early mysteries include Miss Fenny (1957, aka The Woman in the Woods), The Shadow of Murder (1958, aka All Men Are Murderers) and The Foggy, Foggy Dew (1958). Among her
non-mysteries, also under her Blackstock pseudonym, is The Briar Patch (1960), set in Paris shortly after World War II,
focused on two teenagers, one a Jewish Holocaust survivor. Twentieth-Century
Romance and Historical Writers noted that "Blackstock's consistently
realistic characters, whose reactions can be readily related to common
experience, have contributed to her success in the field of romantic
fiction."
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Torrie, Malcolm
see MITCHELL, GLADYS
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TOWERS, FRANCES (10 May 1885 – 1
Jan 1948)
1940s
A long-time Bank of England employee and later a
teacher of English and History. Author of a single story collection Tea with Mr. Rochester (1949,
reprinted by Persephone). Towers's only other published work appears to have
been a children's non-fiction book about The
Two Princesses (1940).
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TOWNSHEND, DOROTHEA (1852 – 30
Nov 1930)
(née Baker)
1890s – 1910s
Biographer and author of at least ten works of
fiction, including children's books and novels. Her children's fiction
include Captain Chimney-Sweep: A Story
of the Great War (1900), The Faery
of Lisbawn (1900) and The Children
of Nugentstown and Their Dealings with the Sidhe (1911). Novels include Strange Adventures of a Young Lady of
Quality MDCCV (1893), A Lost
Leader: A Tale of Restoration Days (1902) and A Lion, A Mouse and a Motor Car (1915), the last of which I
reviewed here. She was
baptized 29 Apr 1852, so presumably born shortly before that.
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Tracy, Camilla
see
BIRCH, VERA
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TRACY, HONOR [LILBUSH WINGFIELD]
(19 Oct 1913 – 13 Jun 1989)
1950s – 1970s
Travel writer and author of 13 novels, which often
satirize British/Irish relations. Titles are The Deserters (1954), The Straight and Narrow Path (1956), The
Prospects Are Pleasing (1958), A
Number of Things (1960), A Season
of Mists (1961), The First Day of
Friday (1963), Men at Work
(1966), The Beauty of the World
(1967, aka Settled in Chambers), The Butterflies of the Province
(1970), The Quiet End of Evening
(1972), In a Year of Grace (1975), The Man from Next Door (1977), and The Ballad of Castle Reef (1979). She
was also well known for her humorous travel books, such as Mind You, I've
Said Nothing! (1953), Silk Hats and No Breakfast (1957), and Winter in Castile (1973).
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TRAFFORD-TAUNTON,
[EMILY] WINIFRIDE (26 Jan 1866 – 16 Aug 1951)
(née Hetherington,
aka Lewis Cornewall)
1900s – 1910s
Author of nine novels, with an interest in the supernatural and metaphysical.
The first eight—Marked with a Cipher
(1901), Silent Dominion (1903), The
Redemption of Damian Gier (1904), The
Doom of the House of Marsaniac (1905), described as “a sensational story,
with a weird and uncanny atmosphere”, Igdrasil
(1906), about the personality of a dying nun migrating to a young woman, The Threshold (1908), The
Romance of a State Secret (1911), set in London in the days of Charles
II, and The Night Dancer
(1912)—appeared under her own name, while the last—The House in Crooked Usage (1917), set during the Civil
War—appeared under her pseudonym.
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TRAIL,
VALENTINE (1859 – 3 Apr 1932)
(pseudonym of
Felicite Valentine, née Edwards)
1900s, 1930s
Author of four novels, of which little seems to remain except largely
negative reviews. Titles are David
Armstrong's Curse (1904), John
Paxton: Gentleman (1907), Was He a
Coward? (1909), and The Mock
Brahman (1931). Of the first, The
Publisher's Circular said, "The story is badly written and as
amateurish a performance as we have read for many a long day."
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TRASK,
[MARGARET] BETTY (ELIZABETH) [LISLE] (2 Jan 1893 – 25 Jan 1983)
(aka Ann
Delamain)
1920s – 1950s
Author of more than 50 novels, most with romantic and/or humorous themes.
Titles includ Cotton Glove Country
(1928), Flute, Far and Near (1929),
Beauty, Retire (1932), A Bus at the Ritz (1935), All Our Dear Relations (1935), Feather Your Nest (1938), Arrow in the Air (1939), The Sun Fades the Stars (1940), Change for a Farthing (1942), Merry Widow's Waltz (1943), Calicot Jam (1948), The Best Butter (1948), Mabel Has Mink (1950), Vote for Valentine (1952), and Bitter Sweetbriar (1955). Thanks to
Andrew Hall who made the connection between Delamain and Trask and shared it
with me.
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Travers, John
see BELL, EVA MARY
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TREADGOLD,
MARY (16 Apr 1910 – 14 May 2005)
1940s - 1970
BBC radio producer and author of more than a dozen children's books. Best
known for her classic We Couldn't Leave
Dinah (1941), about children who miss the evacuation of a fictional
Channel island (because they can't leave their horse behind) and end up
aiding the resistance to the Nazis. ODNB
said of it: "Treadgold combined evocative landscape descriptions
with a gripping adventure story, giving a powerful and moving account of the
complexities of divided loyalties, collaboration, and threatened
relationships in an occupied country, seen through the analytical eyes of
teenagers." A sequel, The Polly
Harris (1949), follows the children into the immediate postwar years.
Others include No Ponies (1946), The Running Child (1951) The Winter Princess (1962), Maids' Ribbon (1965), and The Rum Day of the Vanishing Pony
(1970).
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TREE,
VIOLA (17 Jul 1884 – 15 Nov 1938)
(married name
Parsons, aka Hubert Parsons [with Gerald du Maurier])
1920s
Niece of novelist Max Beerbohm and half-sister of film director Carol Reed.
Actress, singer, and playwright. With Gerald du Maurier she wrote one
pseudonymous novel, The Dancers
(1923), which they then adapted into a play starring Tallulah Bankhead. Tree
wrote a second play on her own, The
Swallow (1925), and a memoir, Castles
in the Air (1926). She made a cameo appearance in the film version of Pygmalion (1938), having previously
played the lead in a stage production of it.
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TREFOR,
EIRLYS (31 May 1918 – 14 Jul 1994)
(pseudonym of
Eirlys Olwen Williams, née Morris)
1950s, 1970s, 1990s
Trained nurse and author of four works of fiction widely separated in time,
including two children's books—The New
Umbrella (1950) and The Old Man of
Gilfach (1993)—and two novels—Light
Cakes for Tea (1958) and Woman in a
Valley of Stones (1972). She also co-wrote a travel book about Yugoslavia
(1955).
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TREFUSIS, VIOLET (6 Jun 1894 – 1
Mar 1972)
(née Keppel)
1920s – 1970s
Most famous for her affair and near-elopement with
Vita SACKVILLE-WEST and for her mother Alice Keppel, who was the scandalous
mistress of Edward VII, Trefusis also wrote eight novels, four in French and
four in English. According to ODNB,
she had earlier co-written Sackville-West's novel Challenge, a thinly-veiled fictional version of their adventures,
which was scheduled for publication in 1920, then withdrawn by
Sackville-West. It appeared in the U.S. in 1923, but wasn't published in
Britain until 1974, in both cases credited only to Sackville-West. Trefusis
also appears as the Russian Princess Sasha in Virginia WOOLF's Orlando, a fictionalized version of
Woolf's own relationship with Vita, and Vita's manuscript recounting her
relationship with Trefusis appeared only after her death in son Nigel
Nicolson's Portrait of a Marriage
(1973). Finally, Trefusis's fourth novel, Broderie
Anglaise (1935), is her own response to Orlando, yet another side of the story of the women's three-way
relationship. Her other novels in French are Sortie de Secours (1929), about a woman trying to make her lover
jealous with another man, Écho
(1931), based on her childhood holidays in Scotland, and Les Causes Perdues (1941), "set among an unpleasant group of
aristocrats and their servants" (ODNB).
Her four English-language novels are Tandem
(1933), Hunt the Slipper (1937),
about the British aristrocracy, which Lorna Sage called "splendidly
malicious," Pirates at Play
(1950), about wealthy Brits living in Florence, and one final work, From Dusk to Dawn (1972), also an
aristocratic comedy, written to distract her from the pain of her final
illness. Hunt the Slipper and Pirates at Play were reprinted by
Virago in the 1980s. In 1952, Trefusis published her memoir, Don’t Look Round. The letters Trefusis
wrote to Sackville-West were published in 1987. I've written about several of
Trefusis' books—see here.
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TREMAYNE,
EILEEN (26 Feb 1896 – 17 Nov 1974)
(pseudonym of
Eileen Marie Tremayne Wade, née Edwards)
1930s - 1950s
Author of ten novels. Reading 1900-1950 reviewed Those Who Remain (1942) here. In The Flyer: British Culture & the Royal Air Force, 1939-1945,
Martin Francis described Four Who Came
Back (1941) as "a socially conservative novel, in which the heroes
are officers from affluent families and the villain a pregnant working-class
ATS typist, who wrongly accuses an army lieutenant of being the father of her
child, in the hope of gaining his family's money." The others are —Quatrain (1933), Paul and Michael (1934), Jardinet
(1936), Book of Louise (1938), English Family (1940), House Enduring (1944), The Façade (1947), and A Mirror for Reflection (1951).
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Tremaine, Herbert
see LITTLE, MAUDE [AMELIA]
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TREMLETT, MRS. HORACE (1895 – 25 Jan 1948)
(pseudonym of
Jane Robinson Tremlett, née Brunton)
1910s – 1930
Author of more than a dozen novels, most apparently
humorous in tone and some set in British-occupied Africa. Looking for Grace (1915) deals with a
woman who receives news of her husband's death from his colleague, who
assures her that his final words were about "Grace" (not, alas, his
wife's name), and sets out to locate said woman. Other titles are Curing Christopher (1914), Giddy Mrs. Goodyer (1916), Emily Does Her Best (1917), Birds of a Feather (1919), Platonic Peter (1919), Fanny the Fibber (1921), A Knight in Paris (1922), Anybody's Husband (1922), The Heart Knoweth (1923), Destiny's Darling (1926), Come What May (1928), and Lover's Luck (1930). She also
published a travel book, With the Tin
Gods (1915), about Nigeria.
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TRENEER, ANNE (30 Jan 1891 – 22
Aug 1966)
(aka S. K. Ensdaile)
1920s – 1930s
Literary scholar, biographer, memoirist, and children's author. Her
memoirs about life as a schoolteacher—School
House in the Wind (1953), Cornish
Years (1949), and A Stranger in the
Midlands (1952), were reprinted in 1998. It was only recently revealed
that she was also "S. K. Ensdaile," author of four girls' school
stories—Philippa at School (1928), Marceline Goes to School (1931), Discipline for Penelope (1934), and Puck of Manor School (1938)—which Sims
& Clare praise for their vivid characterization.
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TRENERY, GLADYS GORDON (1885 – 1
Aug 1938)
(aka G. G. Pendarves, aka Marjory E. Lambe, aka ????)
1930s
A prominent
author of ghost stories whose works, according to Richard Dalby, were mostly
published in periodicals and remain uncollected. The British Library does
show a single novel, Crag's Foot Farm:
A Novel of Leicestershire (1931).
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TRENT,
ETHEL (dates unknown)
1930s
Untraced author of three short romances—Fairy Gold (1932), All She
Wanted (1932), and Second Best
(1933).
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Trent, Guy
see PEARSON, MOLLIE (MARY) SUSAN SEYMOUR
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TRENT,
HILDA (dates unknown)
1920s – 1930s
Untraced author of nearly 20 romantic novels, including The Madcaps (1922), Polly in a Pickle (1922), Nobody's Darling (1924), Bothersome Bunty (1926), A Winsome Widow (1926), Bunty Breaks Out (1927), The Latest Girl (1927), The Girl in His Past (1930), and The Bogus Heir (1931).
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TREVELYAN, GERTRUDE EILEEN (17
Oct 1903 – 11 Feb 1941)
1930s
Author of
eight novels, including the acclaimed Appius
and Virginia (1932), a dark fantasy about a spinster who adopts a baby
ape and raises it as her son. The others are Hot-house (1933), As It Was
in the Beginning (1934), A War
without a Hero (1935), Two Thousand
Million Man-Power (1937), William's
Wife (1938), Theme with Variations
(1938), and Trance by Appointment
(1939).
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TREVOR,
BETTY (dates unknown)
1920s – 1940s
Untraced author of nearly twenty romances, including An Adorable Minx (1923), A
Boisterous Beauty (1923), Too
Charming by Half (1927), A Bride
for Sale (1929), Passions at Bay
(1931), More Than Her Share (1933),
Schoolgirl Wife (1939), The Betrayal of Daisy Lester (1941),
and Her Two Lovers (1944).
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TREVOR, [LUCY] MERIOL (15 Apr
1919 – 12 Jan 2000)
1940s – 1990s
Biographer, children's writer, and author of 20
novels. Her fiction is consistently informed by her strong Catholic beliefs,
and she earned particular acclaim for her 1962 biography of Cardinal Newman.
The St. James Guide to Children's Writers notes that her children's fiction is often "a kind of fantasy
that is peculiarly her own, mixing myth, magic, traditional folklore, and
Christian allegory." Her 15 children's titles include The Forest and the Kingdom (1949), Sun Slower, Sun Faster (1955), The Caravan War (1958), The Midsummer Maze (1964), and The Crystal Snowstorm (1997). Her
novels include The Last of Britain
(1956), Shadows and Images (1960), The Two Kingdoms (1973), The Forgotten Country (1975), and The Wanton Fires (1979).
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TREW, CECIL [GWENDOLEN/GWENDOLIN
ST LEGER] (22 Mar 1897 – 4 Apr 1958)
(née Russell, later married name Ehrenborg)
1930s
Best known as an illustrator, including for two
Primrose Cumming books, and for non-fiction on animals and drawing, Trew also
published several children's books, including the pony stories Asido: The Story of a Mexican Pony
(1935) and Wild Horse of the West
(1937).
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TREWIN,
YVONNE (1917 - ????)
(married name
Green)
1940s
A nurse herself and author of one girls' career story, Jean Becomes a Nurse (1947), which forms part of a series written
by Doreen SWINBURNE. We know that she did her nursing training at Middlesex
Hospital 1936-1939, married in Middlesex in 1942, and appeared on nursing
registers into the 1950s, but after that her trail goes cold.
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TRICKETT,
RACHEL (20 Dec 1923 – 24 Jun 1999)
1950s – 1960s
Literary scholar, principal of St. Hugh's College, Oxford for nearly two
decades, and author of five novels, which, according to her Guardian obit, "show a remarkable
understanding of matters of the heart, and an approach to them which is at
once melancholy, perceptive and humorous." Titles are The Return Home (1952), The Course of Love (1954), Point of Honour (1958), A Changing Place (1962), and The Elders (1966). Among her scholarly
works are The Honest Muse: A Study in
Augustan Verse (1967), Browning's
Lyricism (1971), and Ruskin and the
Language of Description (1982).
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TROUBETZKOY, PRINCESS PAUL (10
Dec 1897 – 28 Oct 1948)
(pseudonym of Rhoda Muriel [Maire?] Boddam, earlier married name
Somervell)
1930s – 1940s
Wife of artist and sculptor Paul (also Pavel or Paolo) Troubetzkoy and author
or co-author of at least eight novels—Storm
Tarn: A Story of the Fells (1933), Gallows'
Seed (1934), Exodus A.D.: A Warning
to Civilians (1934, collaboration with Futurist artist C. R. W. Nevison),
Jonlys the Witch: A Tale of Elizabethan
Superstition (1935), Spider
Spinning (1936), Basque Moon: A
Tale of the Pyrenees Mountains (1937), Half o' Clock in Mayfair (1938, discussed here), and The Clock Strikes (1943).
The Bookman's review of Gallows' Seed makes it sound a bit on
the melodramatic side, but they found it "interestingly written, and its
characters are shrewdly imagined." Exodus
A.D. is described by the Encyclopedia of Science
Fiction as "a
Future War tale suffused with interbellum rancour, paranoia and despair about
the survival of a civilized Europe." Prince Troubetzkoy died in 1938,
only seven years after their marriage, and Rhoda died in 1948, apparently as
a result of a fall in her home. She seems to have gone by Maire and perhaps,
less frequently, by Marie, and the British Library catalogue lists her as
Mariya Trubetskaya. She is not to be confused with an older author who was
also referred to as Princess Troubetzkoy; Amélie Louise Rives, who published
fiction from the 1880s to 1920s, was married to Paul Troubetzkoy's brother
Pierre.
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TROUBRIDGE,
LAURA (1866 – 8 Jul 1946)
(née Gurney,
aka Lady Troubridge)
1900s – 1930s
Novelist, illustrator, and etiquette writer, related by marriage to Una
Troubridge (Radclyffe HALL's partner). The
Book of Etiquette (1931) and Etiquette
and Entertaining (1939) were used to research the film Gosford Park. She published more than
two dozen novels in all, including The
Woman Thou Gavest (1907), Marriage
of Blackmail (1909), The Creature
of Circumstance (1912), Mrs
Vernon's Daughter (1917), Passion
Flower (1923), Exit Marriage
(1929), and The Brighthavens at Home
(1934).
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TROUNCER,
MARGARET [LETICIA DUNCAN] (21 Nov 1903 – 3 Oct 1982)
(née Lahey)
1930s – 1970s
Author of more than 20 Catholic-themed historical novels, including A Courtesan of Paradise (1936), Go, Lovely Rose (1941), The Smiling Madonna (1943), Madame Recamier (1949), The Nun (1953), The Reluctant Abbess (1957), A
Duchess of Versailles (1961), The
Passion of Peter Abélard (1965), The
Dividing Sword (1968), and The Lady
of My Delight (1977).
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Troy, Katherine
see MAYBURY, ANNE
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TROY, UNA (21 May 1910 - 1993)
(married name Walsh, aka Elizabeth Connor)
1930s – 1980s
Irish playwright and author of seventeen novels, whose portrayals of
sexuality and unmarried mothers caused some of her work to be banned in
Ireland. Her first two novels, Mount
Prospect (1936, aka No House of
Peace) and Dead Star's Light
(1938), as well as four plays written for Ireland's Abbey Theatre, appeared
under her pseudonym. We Are Seven
(1955) was filmed as She Didn't Say No
(1958). Other novels include The
Workhouse Graces (1959, aka Graces
of Ballykeen), The Brimstone Halo
(1965), The Castle That Nobody Wanted
(1970), Out of the Everywhere
(1976), and So True a Fool (1981).
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TRUE, JENNIFER (31 Jan 1883 – 24 Apr 1960)
(pseudonym of
Barbara Madelaine Honor Carbonell, née Rouse)
1930s
Author of three novels which sound a bit like
melodrama—House of Consolation
(1933), Wire Blinds (1934), and The Ivory Chair (1935). She also
published short fiction in The Windsor
Magazine. She was born in Cornwall and later in life lived in County Cork
in Ireland.
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TRUSCOTT,
L. PARRY (16 Aug 1870 – 14 Nov 1936)
(pseudonym of
Gertrude Abbie Agnes Frye, married name Hargrave, aka Anna Hurst, aka Abbie
Hargrave)
1900s – 1920s
Author of nearly a dozen novels as Truscott—including As a Tree Falls (1903), Motherhood
(1904), The Question (1910), Hilary's Career (1913), and Obstacles (1916)—and two more later
novels under her pseudonyms. As Anna Hurst she published Fair Daughters (1924), and as Abbie Hargrave she published Two—and One Over (1925). She was
previously misidentified as Katherine Edith Spicer-Jay, but Elizabeth
Crawford has now definitively corrected that and shed valuable light onto the
author's life—see her fascinating article here.
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TUGWELL, ELIZABETH D[OROTHY].
M[AUD]. (15 Mar 1904 – 12 Jun 1975)
1930s – 1940s
Author of four children's books, including Patsy Comes to Stay (1938), Jill
Makes Good (1941), The Girls of
Sweetbriar Farm (1946), and The
Girl Who Couldn't Fit In (1947). The last is a girls' school story.
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TULK-HART, PAMELA [MAY] (30 Oct
1918 – 24 Jun 2010)
(née Johnsen)
1940s
Co-author, with Margaret Morrison (who was better known as March COST), of a
single novel, Paid To Be Safe
(1948), which deals with the World War II Air Transport Auxiliary. Jenny
Hartley noted that "the women's lives turn out to be an odd blend of
strenuous activity, flying jargon, bridge hands and romance."
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TURK, FRANCES [MARY] (14 Apr
1915 - 2004)
1930s – 1970s
Author of nearly 60 romantic novels. Candle Corner (1943) is about an RAF
pilot recovering from injuries and finding romance on a farm. The Five Grey Geese (1944) is a
lively, gung-ho tale about a group of young Land Girls—who also find romance,
of course. Goddess of Threads
(1966) is apparently set in Iceland.
Other titles include Doctor
Periwinkle (1937), Angel Hill
(1942), Salutation (1949), The Small House at Ickley (1951), No Through Road (1957), A Lamp from Murano (1963), The Rectory at Hay (1966), and Whispers (1972).
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TURNBULL,
MARGARET (17 Nov 1872 – 12 Jun 1942)
1910s – 1930s
Born in Scotland but emigrated to the U.S. with her family by the age of 12.
Turnball was a successful screenwriter in both Hollywood and London, which
formed the backdrop of some of her dozen novels. The Left Lady (1926) is succinctly summed up by the Bookman: "In which Miss Emmie
romantically outwits middle age." The same publication rather condescendingly
reviewed The Bride's Mirror (1934):
"Turnbull drags out, dusts off and repaints the old problem of whether
or not the heroine should disclose her scandalous past to her intended.
Capably written feminine time-killer." And Kirkus sums up her final novel, The Coast Road Murder (1934): "American so-called society
with a girl reporter acting detective. The setting is a roadhouse where a
week end house party is disporting itself." Her other novels are Looking After Sandy (1914), Handle With Care (1916), The Close-Up (1918), Alabaster Lamps (1925), Madam Judas (1926), Rogues' March (1928), The Handsome Man (1929), A Monkey in Silk (1930), and The Return of Jenny Weaver (1932).
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TURNER, ETHEL MARY (24 Jan 1870
– 8 Apr 1958)
(née Burwell, changed to Turner upon mother's remarriage, married name
Curlewis)
1890s – 1930s
Children's author born in the U.K. but associated more with Australia. She
published nearly three dozen works of fiction, but her most famous by far was
Seven Little Australians (1894), which
has been adapted for film, television, and the stage and spawned three
sequels. Other titles include The
Family at Misrule (1895), Three
Little Maids (1900), The Secret of
the Sea (1913), Laughing Water
(1920), and The Ungardeners (1925).
Her early story "The Child of the Children" (1897), deals with a
group of upper class girls who attempt to transform a girl from the wrong
side of the railroad tracks and pass her off as one of their class. When it
was reprinted in 1958, editor James Bennett suggested that George Bernard
Shaw may have stolen Turner's idea for his 1914 play Pygmalion, later turned into the stage and film musical My Fair Lady. The popularity of
makeover plots both before and after Turner's story would, however, make such
an allegation difficult to prove. Turner's middle name seems to have been
Sybil at birth, possibly changed to Mary, but her marriage registration gives
middle initial "I".
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TURNER, LILIAN [WATTNALL] (21
Aug 1867 – 25 Aug 1956)
(née Burwell, changed to Turner upon mother's remarriage, married name
Thompson)
1890s – 1930s
Sister of Ethel Mary TURNER. Born in the U.K. but emigrated with her family
to Australia by her early teens. Author of two Australian school stories—The Girl from the Back Blocks (1914)
and Jill of the Fourth Form
(1924)—and about 20 other works of fiction, including April Girls (1911), The
Happy Heriots (1926), and Ann
Chooses Glory (1928).
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TURNER,
SHEILA [DOROTHEA] (15 Jul 1906 – 14 Feb 1965)
(married name
Tilney)
1960s
Author of five novels, including Over
the Counter: A Year in the Village Shop (1960), which just barely
qualifies her for this list. That novel, according to Melissa, a reader of this
blog, is a gently humorous tale along the lines of Miss Read. Turner's later
novels, including This Is Private
(1962), A Farmer's Wife (1963,
published in the US as Farmer Takes a
Wife), The Farm at King's Standing
(1964, published in the US as A Little
Place Called King's Standing), and Honestly,
the Country! (1965), seem to become a bit darker in tone.
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TUTTON, DIANA [CICELY] (19 Sept
1915 – 10 Jul 1991)
(née Godfrey-Faussett-Osborne)
1950s
Author of three novels, most famously her debut, Guard
Your Daughters (1953),
which has been rediscovered by bloggers in recent years and reprinted by
Persephone. On the surface a humorous romance about a family of cheerful
sisters looking for love despite their mother's anxieties, underneath it's a
bit darker. Her second novel, Mamma
(1955), about a woman in love with her son-in-law, has been reprinted in the
British Library Women Writers series. Her last, The Young Ones (1959), flirts with the idea of brother-sister
incest. On the 1939 England & Wales Register she is shown as a
"student of music".
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Tweedale, J. or Judith
see BICKLE, JUDITH BRUNDRETT
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TWEEDALE,
VIOLET (17 Mar 1861 – 10 Dec 1936)
(née Chambers)
1890s – 1920s
Suffragist, journalist, and author of around 30 works of fiction, often
influenced by her socialist beliefs and interest in the occult. Titles
include And They Two (1897), Lord Eversleigh's Sins (1905), The Quenchless Flame (1909), The Heart of a Woman (1917), The School of Virtue (1923), and Mellow Sheaves (1927). She also
published books about spiritualism, including the aptly titled Ghosts I Have Seen and Other Psychic
Experiences (1919).
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TWEEDSMUIR, SUSAN [CHARLOTTE]
(20 Apr 1882 – 21 Mar 1977)
(née Grosvenor, married name Buchan, Tweedsmuir comes from her title,
Baroness Tweedsmuir, aka Susan Buchan)
1920s – 1960s
Wife of novelist John Buchan, mother of Alice
BUCHAN, sister-in-law of Anna BUCHAN. Biographer, memoirist, children's
writer, and author of six novels. Cousin
Harriet (1957), her best-known work by virtue of a Penguin reprint in the
1960s, tackles the story of a pregnant unmarried girl in epistolary style.
This was one of three late novels all subtitled "A Victorian
Story"—the others were Dashbury
Park (1959) and A Stone in the Pool
(1961). Her three earlier novels were The
Scent of Water (1937), The Silver
Bell (1944), and The Rainbow
through the Rain (1950). She published three slender volumes of memoirs—The Lilac and the Rose (1952), A Winter Bouquet (1954), and The Edwardian Lady (1966). She also
published several biographies and children's books, the latter as Susan
Buchan. I've written about her here.
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TYLER, F. M. (dates unknown)
1920s
Untraced author of two girls' school stories, Bunty of Dormitory B (1929) and Patty's First Term (1929).
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TYLER, PHILLIPA [ELISE] (27 May
1876 – 5 Feb 1946)
1910s – 1920s
Author of three novels—The Lushington
Mystery (1919), The Manaton
Disaster (1920), and A Quest for a
Fortune (1924).
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TYNAN, KATHARINE (23 Jan 1861 –
2 Apr 1931)
(married name Hinkson)
1890s – 1930s
Mother of Pamela HINKSON. Prolific Irish poet and novelist with nearly 100
novels to her credit, including A
Daughter of the Fields (1901), A
Shameful Inheritance (1914), The
House of the Foxes (1915), The Web
of Farulein (1916), The Honourable
Molly (1919), A Mad Marriage
(1922), The Wandering
Years (1922), and The Respectable
Lady (1928).
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TYRELL, SARAH (dates unknown)
1950s
Unidentified author of two novels. The Shadow on the Path (1955) focuses
on the older years of a famous painter, from various perspectives. Serena (1956) features an attractive
young wife put on the spot by her husband’s successful mentor.
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TYRRELL, MABEL L[OUISE]. (30 Oct
1883 – 9 Jun 1962)
1920s – 1950s
Playwright, children's writer, and novelist. Author of more
than two dozen works of fiction in all, beginning with children's books, including
two girls' school stories, Victoria's
First Term (1925) and Miss Pike and
Her Pupils (1928). Chestnut Court
(1929) focuses on an assortment of neighbors around a Paris courtyard—I wrote
about it here. Others
include Secrets of the Mountains
(1925), The Fortunes of the Braithwaits
(1925), and The Enchanted Camp
(1930). By the 1930s, she began writing primarily for adults. Patchwork Palace (1933) is about the
inhabitants of a block of modern London flats. The Street of Fortune (1939) is about a happily married woman
whose past trial for murder haunts her. The
Secrets of Nicholas Culpeper (1945) is set in 17th century England—Kirkus summed it up:
"Superstition giving way to facts, to scientific, medical and political
investigation, this avoids the swashbuckling in preference for the battle of
ideas, of mental progress in the early days of enlightenment." Others
include The Mushroom Field (1931), Pull the House Down (1938), and Give Me a Torch (1951). On the 1939
England & Wales Register, she reported her birth year as 30 Oct 1884, but
her birth was registered in the first quarter of 1884, so I assume she was
shaving a year off her age.
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