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 Mangan, aka M. A. Radford)
1940s – 1970s
Author, with her husband Edwin, of more than 30 mystery
novels, many featuring series characters Dr. Manson and Inspector Holroyd.
Titles include Murder Jigsaw
(1944), Heel of Achilles (1950), Look in at Murder (1956), The Six Men (1958), Death of a Frightened Editor (1959), Death's Inheritance (1961), Murder of Three Ghosts (1963), The Middleford Murders (1967), Trunk Call to Murder (1968), and Death of an Ancient Saxon (1969). The
pair also collaborated on an Encyclopaedia
of Superstitions (1948), which is still in print.
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RADICE, SHEILA
[ALICE MACKINTOSH] (c1882 – 20 Nov 1960)
(née Jamieson)
1930s
Assistant editor of the Times Educational Supplement for many years, writer on
educational issues, and author of Not
All Sleep (1938), sometimes described as a bio of poet James Hammond, but
in fact very much a novel, about Hammond's unhappy love for Kitty Dashwood.
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RAE, [MARGARET]
DORIS (13 Jan 1907 - 1988)
1950s – 1980s
Author of more than three
dozen romantic novels, including Sings
the Nightingale (1956), Flame on
the Peaks (1958), The Rowans Are
Red (1960), Highland Nurse
(1964), Mist on the Moors (1979),
and Rich the Treasure (1984). She
also worked for many years as chief clerk and cashier for the Newcastle
magistrates court.
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RAE, LETTICE
(LETITIA) [MILNE] (1882 - 1959)
1910s - 1940
Author of five novels—The Stranger on the Aventine (1913), Mr. Suffer-long (1920), The Victorious Mile (1928), The Auld Alliance (1931), and The Woman in the Crowd (1940). She
also published a history of the Ladies' Edinburgh Debating Society, Ladies in Debate (1936),
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RALFS, D. Y. (1905 - 1985)
(pseudonym of Daisy Florence Harrison, married name
Ralfs)
1950s
Journalist and author of four novels—Alex and Me (1952), The Reluctant Lovers (1954), Babes in the Bois (1956), and Find Me a Daughter (1958). The Reluctant Lovers deals with the
romance of a widow with her boarder, a widowed military man, and the
complications their respective families cause, while Babes in the Bois, illustrated by Virginia Smith, is about a
middle-aged couple's first trip to Paris.
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RALLINGS,
J[OYCE]. L[AURIE]. (27 Jul 1922 – 11 Mar 2007)
1950s – 1960s
Author of three children's
adventure stories—Brown Valley
Adventure (1959), Smuggler's Creek
(1960), and The Secret Tarn (1962).
As of 1947, she was apparently working as a midwife.
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Ralston, Jan
see KYLE, ELISABETH
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RAMART, DAPHNE
(dates unknown)
(pseudonym of ?????)
1940s
Perhaps not deserving of
being on my list at all, this untraced author's claim to fame, according to
Sims & Clare, is that her one girls' school story, Hilary's Difficult Term (1949), is a thorough plagiarism (including
various word-for-word sections) of several works by Dorita Fairlie Bruce. The
book's publisher had to pay Bruce a settlement for the theft.
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Ramsay, Fay
see EASTWOOD,
HELEN
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RAMSAY, M.
C. (dates unknown)
1900s – 1920s
Untraced author of one
girls' school story, Betty Bruce,
Beverley Scholar (1926) (sensational but great fun, according to Sims
& Clare), as well as several adult novels, including James Ogilvy's Experiment (1907), Stephen Martin, MD (1908), The
Doctor's Angel (1914), and Was She
Guilty? (1920). John Herrington found that she lived in Arbroath,
Scotland and then in London, but could locate no further details.
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RAMSAY, PHYLLIS (1908 - 1972)
(pseudonym of Agnes Campbell Fergie, nicknamed
Nancie)
1930s – 1950s
Author of eight novels, probably romantic in theme,
including Happy Ending (1934), Brief Rhapsody (1935), Dust in Your Eyes (1938), Two Different People (1941), Wait for Tomorrow (1949), The Wilful Spring (1950), One Little Day (1950), and The Little White Horse (1952).
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RAMSAY, RINA
(CATHERINE) [MARY] (c1875 – 20 Oct 1950)
1890s – 1920s
Author of seven romantic novels which, according to OCEF, often feature hunting scenes. Titles are Miss Drummond's Dilemma (1896), The Key of the Door (1908), The
Straw (1909), Barnaby (1910), The Impossible She (1912), Long Odds (1921, with J. Otho Paget), and
The Step in the House (1926). She also
published an early girls' school story, English
Ann at School in Blumbaden (1897), and wrote numerous stories in
periodicals, many suspense or horror.
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RAMSEY, ALICIA [JOANNA] (31 Aug 1864 – 7 May 1933)
(née Royston, later married name de Cordova, first
name in some sources is Alice)
1910s, 1930s
Playwright and screenwriter who wrote more than ten
plays with her second husband Rudolph de Cordova, several of which were
adapted for silent films. She had already published two novels—The Adventures of Mortimer Dixon
(1913) and Miss Elizabeth Gibbs
(1915)—and later published a story collection, The Three Cocktails and Other Stories (1933).
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RAMSEY, L[ILIAN]. F[AIRBROTHER]. (?1877 - ?1974)
(uncertain but probable identification)
Author of one girls' school story, An Island for Two: A School Story
(1927).
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RAMSEY, OLIVIA
(1853 – 28 Feb 1926)
(pseudonym of
Laetitia/Letitia Selwyn Oliver)
1900s – 1910s
Author of nine light,
humorous novels, including The Marriage
of Lionel Glyde (1908), Sylvia and
the Secretary (1909), The Girl from
Gatford (1909), The Romance of Olga
Aveling (1910), The Other Wife
(1911), Two Men and a Governess
(1912), A Girl of No Importance
(1913), The Secret Calling (1914),
and Callista in Revolt (1914).
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Rana, J.
see FORRESTER, HELEN
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RANDALL, RONA (16 Jun 1911 – 10 May 2008)
(pseudonym of Rona Shambrook, née Green, aka
Virginia Standage)
1940s – 1980s
Author of nearly 70 novels, including hospital
romance, gothic fiction, and historical mystery romance. Titles include The Moon Returns (1942), The Late Mrs. Lane (1945), Delayed Harvest (1950), Young Sir Galahad (1953), The Cedar Tree (1957), Knight's Keep (1967), and Dragonmede (1974). Her mystery-themed
titles may include Walk Into My Parlour
(1962), Seven Days from Midnight
(1965), Mountain of Fear (1972), or
The Drayton Legacy (1985).
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RATHBONE,
[BEATRICE] IRENE (11 Jun 1892 – 21 Jan 1980)
1920s – 1930s, 1950s
Author of seven novels,
including most famously We That Were Young (1932), an important work documenting the stresses
and emotional demands of women's war work in the First World War. ODNB notes of it: "Presenting the
war as a generational experience, it stripped away the glamour associated
with nursing, and captured the monotony, danger, and extreme physical demands
of the munitions factory, represented overwhelmingly as a world of tiring
repetition and 'deafening, stupefying, brain shattering' noise, interrupted
abruptly by grotesque accidents." A later novel, They Call it Peace (1936), is a bitter tale of women attempting
to rebuild their lives after the war. Her other novels are Susan Goes East (1929), The Gold Rim (1933), October (1934), When Days Were Years (1939), and The Seeds of Time (1952). She became close friends with Storm
JAMESON and Nancy Cunard, among others.
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RAY, RÈNE
(22 Sept 1911 – 28 Aug 1993)
(pseudonym of Irene Lilian
Creese, married names Posford and Brodrick)
1940s – 1980s
Stage and film actress
(she auditioned for Joan Fontaine's role in Rebecca), screenwriter, and author of seven novels. Her debut, Wraxton Marne (1946), was subtitled "The
Tale of a Ghostly Ruin and the Family to Whom it Once Belonged". Her
second novel, Emma Conquest (1950),
was described as dealing with "a girl's fight against a disastrous
inheritance" and according to one source was a bestseller. She wrote the
screenplay for the science-fiction TV series The Strange World of Planet X, which aired in 1956, and the
following year she published a slightly different novel version by the same
title. Her other titles are A Man Named
Seraphin (1952), The Garden of
Cahmohn (1955), The Tree Surgeon
(1958), and, after an extended absence from writing, a final fantasy novel
called Angel Assignment (1988).
With her second marriage in 1975 to the 2nd Earl of Midleton, Ray/Creese
became the Countess of Midleton. A note regarding her name: Her IMDB entry
shows her first name as René, but her book covers and the British Library
catalogue both show it as Rène, which I believe to be the way she wrote it.
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RAYMOND, DIANA
[JOAN] (25 Apr 1916 – 16 Feb 2009)
(née Young, aka Diana
Young)
1930s – 1990s
Cousin of Pamela FRANKAU. Poet and novelist widely
acclaimed in her lifetime. She began with three titles under her maiden name—The Door Stood Open (1936), The Lonely Guest (1937), and Doves in Flight—which were followed by
nearly two dozen more titles under her married name. Later titles include The Small Rain (1954), Strangers' Gallery (1958), People in the House (1964), The Noonday Sword (1965), Incident on a Summer's Day (1974), The Dark Journey (1978), Lily's Daughter (1988), and The Sea Family (1997).
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REA, LORNA
(1897 - 1978)
(née Smith)
1920s – 1930s
Author of four novels and
one story collection. Six Mrs. Greenes
(1929) traces the lives of the women who marry into three generations of the
Greene family. The Happy Prisoner (1931)
is about a sheltered deaf girl suddenly cured of deafness, facing the harsh
realities of the world. First Night
(1932) traces the opening night of a play, through the eyes of those
participating and watching. Her other novel is Rachel Moon (1932), and her story collection is Six and Seven (1935).
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Read, Miss
see SAINT, DORA
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REANEY, MRS.
G. S. (1847 – 8 Jun 1929)
(pseudonym of Isabella
Emily Thomasa Reaney, née Edis)
1870s – 1910s
Author of religious-themed
fiction, as well as several non-fiction works about "our daughters"
and "our sons". Fiction includes Our Ben: A Tale of Home Influence (1876), The Romance of an Emergency (1901), Molly Brown: A Girl in a Thousand (1912), and A Daughter's Inheritance (1914). Her
name has sometimes been erroneously spelled "Reany".
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Redfern, John
see
PARGETER, EDITH
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(married name Christensen)
1930s – 1940s
Humorist,
travel writer, children's author, and novelist. Her humorous etiquette guide,
The Nice Girl's Guide to Good Behavior (1935), was reprinted in
recent years. She published two children's stories—Jam Tomorrow (1937), a housekeeping story about a rector, his
three children, and two cousins staying with them, who take over the running
of the house, and Five Farthings: A
London Story (1939), about a young girl, newly relocated to London with
her family, who explores the city, learns housekeeping, and falls happily
into the world of publishing. The latter was reprinted by Margin Notes Books
in 2011. Redlich also published four novels. Of her debut, Cheap Return: Portrait of an Educated
Woman (1934), the Melbourne Age
said it was "clever and amusing, though it is impossible to approve of
the lax moral standards of the central figure." Consenting Party (1934) appeared the same year, and was referred
to as a romantic comedy, but details are lacking. No Love Lost (1937) is, according to the Perth Western Mail, "a simply-told
story of the reactions of a schoolgirl to the unhappy marriage of her
parents." Details are also lacking for The Various Light (1948), except for the rather odd fact that psychoanalyst
Carl Jung apparently recommended it to a friend. She married a Danish
diplomat, and published Danish Delight
(1939) about her experiences adapting to life in Denmark, and a subsequent
travel book, Summer Landscape: Denmark,
England, U.S.A. (1952). After her death, her husband edited The Unfolding Years: A Fragment by Monica
Redlich (1970), which may be an unfinished memoir.
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REED, MARGARET
BAINES (1882 - 1957)
1920s – 1940s
Daughter of boys' school
story author Talbot Baines Reed. Author of a dozen volumes of children's
fiction, much of it fictional retellings of historical events. These include The Foundling of Thornesford: A Story of
Norman and Saxon (1926), Sir Adam's
Orchard: A Story of York and Lancaster (1926), and Cousin Timothy: A Story of Cavalier and Roundhead (1927). A few
later titles, however, seem like more general fiction, including H.R.H. Miss Johnson (1929) Betty Lends a Hand (1930), and A Major Mystery (1943).
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REED, MAUD
D[OROTHY]. (12 Jun 1908 - 2003)
1940s – 1960s
Children's writer and
author of several passion plays and nativity plays. Two of her children's
titles, Angela at School (1946) and
The New Girl at 'Fir Trees' (1948),
are school stories, while four later titles form a series—It Was Candy's Idea (1955), Candy Finds the Clue (1958), Candy Does It Again (1960), and Candy in the Alps (1964).
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Rees, Helen
see OLIVER, JANE
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REES, JEAN
A[NGLIN]. (10 Nov 1912 – 18 Nov 1980)
1940s - 1980
Author of more than 20
volumes of fiction, including Christian-themed children's titles and novels,
and several biographies of religious figures. She published four
"evangelistic" girls' school stories—Carol & Co. (1946), The
Conways of Chelwood House (1951), Penelope
and Jane (1952), and Carol and
Nicola (1958). Other children's titles include Junior Detectives Limited (1954), Junior Detectives Work Again (1958), and Danger, Saints at Work! (1958). Her adult fiction includes The Lady with the Sun Lamp (1954), Madame Estelle (1956) Wife of Hamish (1957), Road to Sodom (1961), Rose Among Thistles (1963), and Embarrassing Relations (1967).
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Reeve, Christopher
see WEBB, DOROTHY
ANNA MARIA
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REEVES, AMBER
(1 Jul 1887 – 26 Dec 1981)
(married name Blanco
White)
Daughter of author and activist Maud Pember Reeves
and known in part for her scandalous affair and child with novelist H. G.
Wells (she married her husband while pregnant with Wells' child, though all
apparently remained friendly). Author of four novels and several widely
varied nonfiction works. Her fiction focused on women's roles and
frustrations. The Reward of Virtue (1911) demonstrates how inadequate women's education was for the
demands even of married life. A Lady and Her Husband (1914), now
reprinted by Persephone, is about a middle-aged woman who, following her
daughter's engagement, channels her energies into her husband's teashop
business. The others are Helen in Love (1916) and Give and Take
(1923). Wells' novels Ann Veronica (1909) and The Research
Magnificent (1915) contain somewhat autobiographical portrayals of their
relationship. Margaret Drabble wrote admiringly about Reeves' work here.
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Reginald, Sister/Mother
Mary
see CAPES, HARRIET M[ARY].
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Reid, Eleanor
see SMITH, CONSTANCE
ISABEL
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REID, HILDA
STEWART (1898 – 24 Apr 1982)
1920s – 1930s
A member of the group of
Somerville College friends that included Winifred HOLTBY, Vera BRITTAIN, and
Margaret KENNEDY. Author of four novels. Of Phillida, or, The Reluctant
Adventurer (1928), the Guardian
said, "Rarely have we been so taken with a story of adventure as we were
with this chronicle of Richard Carey's thrilling Odyssey in Africa in the
seventeenth century and of his belated love-affair with his Phillida." Two
Soldiers and a Lady (1932) is set in the days of Cromwell, while Emily
(1933) has a contemporary setting. The Daily Telegraph said
of it, "The cranks, the nut-eaters, the uplifters, the earnest remakers
of post-war Europe are paraded in company with the most comic little group of
Balkan intriguers London has ever sheltered." Her final novel, Ashley
Hamel (1939), is about life in a Dorsetshire village from the 18th to the
20th century. She published two later historical works, One Hundred Years
in a Chelsea Parish (1938) and The Story of the County of London
Branch (1948), about the London branch of the Red Cross. She also
co-edited Winifred HOLTBY's posthumously published story collection, Pavements
at Anderby (1937).
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REID, LIZZIE
C. (dates unknown)
1900s – 1910s
Untraced author of six
children's titles, including one girls' school story, Jo Maxwell, Schoolgirl (1913). The other titles are The Kidnapping of Ursula, or, Aunt
Abigail's Mistake (1904), Jacyntha,
A Merry-Hearted Girl (1905), The Way of a Girl (1907), Roy of Daisydale, or, The Heir of Cragmere
(1909), and Grantley Carr's Test.
The date of the last, very rare title is unknown. We know that Reid lived in
Belfast for a time and had died by 1927, but other details are lacking.
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RENAULT,
MARY (4 Sept 1905 – 13 Dec 1983)
(pseudonym of Eileen Mary
Challans)
1930s – 1980s
Author of more than a dozen novels, which were often
trailblazing in their representation of gay and lesbian characters, as well
as biographical and historical work. Best known for her eight novels set in
the ancient Greek world. The Last of the Wine (1956)
focuses on two male lovers in the Peloponnesian War. The King Must Die (1958) and The
Bull from the Sea (1962) are about Theseus. The Mask of Apollo (1966) deals with Greek theatre. Fire from Heaven (1970), The Persian Boy (1972), and Funeral Games (1981) form a trilogy
about Alexander the Great. And The
Praise Singer (1979) is about Simonides. Her six earlier novels have
contemporary settings. Purposes of Love
(1939), Kind Are Her Answers
(1940), and Return to Night (1947)
make use of her experiences as a nurse. The
Friendly Young Ladies (1944) is a surprisingly matter-of-fact portrayal
of a lesbian couple living on a houseboat during World War II. The North Face (1948), according to
Jenny Hartley, takes the main character's predilection for rock-climbing as a
symbol for life in the postwar years. And The
Charioteer (1953) deals with a wounded soldier's triangular relationships
with a conscientious objector and a naval officer while in a hospital in the
midst of blackout and bombings. In later years, Renault published a book
about famous Greek battles, Lion in the
Gateway: The Heroic Battles of the Greeks and Persians at Marathon, Salamis,
and Thermopylae (1964), and a biography of Alexander the Great, The Nature of Alexander (1975). She
worked as a nurse until 1946, when the film rights to Return to Night were sold to MGM, which allowed her to relocate
to South Africa, where she remained for the rest of her life, and to focus on
her writing.
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Rexford, Nina
see DULCIE SANCIER
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REYNOLDS, AMY
DORA (1860 – 11 Jun 1957)
(née Percy Williams, aka
Mrs. Fred Reynolds)
1890s – 1930s
Author of more
than 40 works of fiction, apparently including crime and romance novels,
though details are lacking. Titles include Llanartro (1895), The Hut
on the Island (1902), A Quaker
Wooing (1905), Hazel of Hazeldean
(1906), The Lady in Grey (1909), The Granite Cross (1913), Trefoil (1923), Miss Anne Tankerton (1926), The
Loram Picture (1930), Green
Stockings (1933), and The Woman
Drives (1936).
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REYNOLDS, GERTRUDE
M[INNIE]. (1861 – 22 Nov 1939)
(née Robins, aka Mrs.
Baillie-Reynolds)
1880s – 1930s
Author of more than 50 volumes of fiction which seem
to lean toward melodrama. The Girl from
Nowhere (1910) is about a disgraced man who saves a girl from suicide. The Cost of a Promise (1914) appears
to deal with women's suffrage. The Lonely Stronghold (1918) is about a young bank employee who
inherits a fortune and is made unhappy by it, and Also Ran (1920) is about a Red Cross nurse whose love for a
wounded officer is threatened by a forced marriage to another man. Other
titles include Keep My Secret
(1886), The Ides of March (1891), The Silence Broken (1897), Phoebe in Fetters (1904), The Supreme Test (1908), The Notorious Miss Lisle (1911), The Court Favourite (1915), The Lost Discovery (1923), Accessory
after the Fact (1928), Stranglehold
(1930), Intrusive Tourist (1935),
and It Is Not Safe to Know (1939).
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RHODES,
[ANNIE] KATHLYN (KATHLEEN) (4 Jul 1877 – 15 Jan 1962)
1890s – 1950s
Sister of
Hylda BALL. Author of more than 50 volumes of fiction, including mysteries,
romances, and works for children. Her romances, often set in exotic locales
and inspired by her own travels in Egypt, include The Lure of the Desert (1916), Desert Lovers (1922), Desert
Nocturne (1939), and It Happened in
Cairo (1944). Her children's titles include several school stories, which
Sims and Clare note are competent but contain "more snobbishness and
racism than usual." Those include Schoolgirl
Honour (1912), Dodo's Schooldays
(1913), Headmistress Hilary (1914),
Schoolgirl Chums (1922), The Head of the House (1924), We Three at School (1934), A Schoolgirl in Switzerland (1936),
and A Schoolgirl in Egypt (1937).
It's unclear which of her books might
be mysteries, but Crime on a Cruise
(1935) and In Search of Stephanie
(1941) seem like possibilities. Her memoir is December Brings Me Roses: A Book of Memories (1950).
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RHYS, GRACE (1865 - 1929)
(née Little)
1890s –
1920s
Children's author, poet, and novelist whose works
were often set in Ireland. Titles include Mary
Dominic (1898), The Wooing of
Sheila (1901), The Prince of
Lisnover (1904), The Bride (1909),
The Charming of Estercel (1913),
and Eleanor in the Loft (1923).
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RHYS, JEAN (24
Aug 1890 – 14 May 1979)
(pseudonym of Ella
Gwendoline Rees Williams, married names Lenglet, Smith, and Hamer)
1920s – 1930s, 1960s – 1970s
Author of five novels and several story collections,
now considered one of the major writers of the 20th century. Born in Dominica of a British father and a
white Creole mother, Rhys came to England in her teens to go to school and
remained for the rest of her life. Her first collection, The Left Bank and Other Stories (1927), was published with the
aid of Ford Madox Ford. Her four early novels—Quartet (1928), After
Leaving Mr Mackenzie (1930), Voyage
in the Dark (1934), and Good
Morning, Midnight (1939)— were modernist in style and reflected her own
troubled and conflicted life, including bold and controversial portrayals of
alcoholism, abortion, and female sexuality. After her fourth novel, Rhys sank
into obscurity and personal turmoil. Twice during these years advertisements
had to be placed in newspapers for information on her whereabouts, in order to
obtain rights for BBC adaptations of her work. It wasn't until the 1960s when
a renewed interest in her early work allowed her to publish one final novel, Wide Sargasso Sea (1966), the story of
the first Mrs. Rochester from Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, which she had been planning for decades and which is
widely considered her masterpiece. Two more collections of stories followed, Tigers Are Better Looking (1968) and Sleep It Off, Lady (1976). Rhys's
unfinished memoir, Smile Please,
was published posthumously in 1979. Jean Rhys: Letters 1931–1966 appeared in 1984, and her Collected
Short Stories, including three previously uncollected stories, in 1987.
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RHYS, JULIA (dates unknown)
(née Clark)
1950s – 1960s
Author of two children's titles—Crab Village (1954) and The
Tinsel November (1962). The latter is described as: "A fantasy tale
of a gloomy All Hallow's Eve, an old English house, some mysterious antique
marionettes and a magical time of dark November days which will usher in the
candle-glow of Christmas."
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RHYS, MARY (1888 – 17 Sept 1946)
(aka Mimpsy Rhys)
1920s – 1930s
Author, while still a child herself, of a children's
book, Mr. Hermit Crab: A Tale for
Children by a Child (1929), about two children wildly misinterpreting the
events around them. She later published an eccentric memoir of her eccentric
family, Scenes from Family Life
(1938). According to a family member, her death in her late 50s was due to
suicide.
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Rhys, Victoria
see PRICE, MARJORIE MURIEL
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RICE, DOROTHY
MARY (26 Apr 1913 - 1975)
(aka Dorothy Vicary, aka
Dorothy Borne)
1930s – 1960s
Author of nine works of
children's fiction. These include four girls' school stories. Three—Good for Gracie! (1938), Niece of the Headmistress (1939), and Lucy Brown's Schooldays (1941)—appeared
under her Vicary pseudonym, the fourth, A
Secret at Sprayle (1955), under her own name. Also under her own name are
Hugh Nameless (1950), The Boy on the Boat-Train (1952), and The Gate in the Wall (1959). She
apparently published two late titles—A
House with a Secret (1963) and Ringer's
Roost (1964)—as Dorothy Borne.
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RICE, GRACE DOROTHY (4 Nov 1899 - 1986)
1930s
Author of a single children's title, Winsome's Game (1930).
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RICHARDSON, DOROTHY
[MILLER] (17 May 1873 – 17 Jun 1957)
(married name Odle)
1910s – 1960s
Journalist and novelist, now recognized as one of
the major figures in early modernist literature, and particularly as one of
the innovators of the stream of consciousness technique. She believed that
women's prose should be "unpunctuated, moving from point to point
without formal obstructions." Her major work, Pilgrimage, is a series of thirteen novels tracing the
development of its main character, Miriam Henderson, over the course of more
than two decades. The works are at least somewhat autobiographical. The first
12 volumes of the work appeared by the late 1930s, but the final volume
appeared only after her death. Titles are Pointed
Roofs (1915), Backwater (1916),
Honeycomb (1917), The Tunnel (1919), Interim (1919), Deadlock (1921), Revolving
Lights (1923), The Trap (1925),
Oberland (1927), Dawn's Left Hand (1931), Clear Horizon (1935), Dimple Hill (1938), and March Moonlight (1967).
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Richardson,
Flavia
see THOMSON, CHRISTINE CAMPBELL
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RICHINGS, MILDRED [GLADYS] (1879 – 6 Apr 1951)
(aka John Knipe)
1920s – 1930s
Author of three pseudonymous novels—The Watch-Dog of the Crown (1920), The Hour Before the Dawn (1921), and Whited Sepulchres (1924)—which may be
thrillers, and a later historical novel under her own name, Men Loved Darkness (1935). She also
published a well-regarded history, Espionage:
The Story of the Secret Service of the English Crown (1934).
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Richmond, Mary
see LINDSAY,
KATHLEEN
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RICKARD, JESSIE
(JESSICA) LOUISA (1876 – 28 Jan 1963)
(née Moore, earlier
married name Ackland, aka Mrs. Victor Rickard)
1910s – 1950
Author of nearly 40 novels, including some mysteries
and thrillers. These seem to include Not Sufficient Evidence (1926), The Empty Villa (1929), The
Dark Stranger (1930), Murder by Night (1936), and The Guilty
Party (1940). She published several novels dealing with World War I. The
Light Above the Crossroads (1918) deals with a young man who becomes a
British spy despite his conflictedness because his best friend is German. The
Fire of Green Boughs (1918) is also about conflictedness, as a
compassionate young woman who takes in a dying German finds herself arrested
for aiding the enemy. And in The House of Courage (1919), women
working in a prisoner of war camp face similar moral complexity. Other titles
include Young Mr. Gibbs (1911), A Reckless Puritan (1921), Blindfold
(1922), A Bird of Strange Plumage (1927), Sorel's Second Husband
(1932), Cuckoo Street (1937), White Satin (1945), and Shandon
Hall (1950).
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RIDDELL,
FLORENCE [GERTRUDE] (c1885 – 30 Mar 1960)
(née McDonald)
1920s – 1930s
An adventurous figure who
lived in India and Africa after her husband's death and wrote novels about
similarly independent women in exotic locales. Titles include Kenya Mist (1924), Dream Island (1926), The Misty Pathway (1928), The House of the Dey (1929), and Wives Win (1931). She also published a
memoir, I Go Wandering: A Travel
Biography (1935), presumably the source of her wry quotation: "I
have faced hydrophobic dogs & prowling lions, but I have never been in
any of those perilous situations in which a woman has to fight desperately
for her virtue. My sex-appeal, you will perceive, must be limited."
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RIDDELL, MARJORIE
(8 Sept 1923 – 12 May 1985)
1950s – 1960s
Author of four works of fiction, most famously her
debut, M Is for Mother (1953), an E. M. DELAFIELD-esque comedy about a
young woman with an overbearing mother. A contemporary critic compared it to
the cartoons of Helen Hokinson. Information is sparse about what appears to
be a second novel, The Big City
(1958), but it was followed by two career novels for girls, A Model Beginning (1962) and Press Story (1964).
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RIDLEY,
ALICE (30 Oct 1860 – 6 Jun 1945)
(née Davenport)
1890s – 1910s
Author of six
novels which seem to be melodramatic in tone, including The Story of Aline (1896), A
Tempered Wind (1897), Anne
Mainwaring (1901), A Daughter of
Jael (1904), The Sparrow with One
White Feather (1905), and Margery
Fytton (1913).
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Rift, Valerie
see BARTLETT, MARIE
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RILEY, SALLY
(dates unknown)
1950s
Untraced author of a
single girls' school story, The Madcap
of St Monica's (1954).
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RITA (14 Jun
1856 – 1 Jan 1938)
(pseudonym of Eliza
Margaret Jane Gollan, married names Booth and Humphreys, aka Mrs W. Desmond
Humphreys)
1870s – 1930s
Author of well
over 100 romantic novels, often featuring aristocrats in glamorous
international settings, and considered a rival of Ouida and Marie CORELLI. Sheba (1889) makes use of her time in
Australia as a young girl. A Husband of
No Importance (1894), playing on an Oscar Wilde title, was a critique of
the "New Woman" novel, while Peg
the Rake (1894) was set in Ireland and became a massive bestseller. Souls (1903), another bestseller, was a
satire of the "smart set," while Grandmother (1927), The Wand'ring
Darling (1928), and Jean and
Jeanette (1929) form a trilogy set in Victorian times. Other titles
include Vivienne (1877), My Lady Coquette (1881), Good Mrs. Hypocrite (1897), Rita's Calvary (1909), and The Marriage Comedy (1934).
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RITCHIE, BARBARA
[JEAN] LOGIE (c1861 - 1941)
(née Logie)
1910s
Irish author of a
single novel, The Tenant of Sea Cottage
(1916), about which little information is available.
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Ritchie, Claire
see BRADLEY, NORAH MARY BRADLEY
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Rivers, Dorothy
see STARR, LEONORA
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RIVETT, EDITH
CAROLINE (1894 – 2 Jul 1958)
(aka ECR Lorac, aka Carol
Carnac, aka Carol Rivett)
1930s - 1950s
Author of more than 70 mystery novels, mostly in two
series. One, using her E.C.R. Lorac pseudonym, features the Scottish Chief
Inspector Robert MacDonald of the London Metropolitan Police. The other,
written under the name Carol Carnac, features Inspector Julian Rivers. Among
the former are Triple Death (1936),
Murder at Mornington (1937), The Striped Suitcase (1946), It's Her Own Funeral (1951), The Burning Question (1957), and Death of a Lady Killer (1959). The
latter series includes The Murder on
the Burrows (1931), Death on the
Oxford Road (1933), Murder in
Chelsea (1934), Bats in the Belfry
(1937), Tryst for a Tragedy (1940),
Murder by Matchlight (1945), Accident by Design (1950), Shroud of Darkness (1954), and Death in Triplicate (1958). Two early
novels—Outer Circle (1939) and Time Remembered (1940)—appeared under
her Carol Rivett pseudonym.
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ROBERTS, [ANNE] GRACE (1879 – 7 Dec 1962)
(married name Bowen-Jones)
1950s
Welsh author of a single novel, Lowri (1956), set in a village in Wales in the late 19th century
and recommended by Ann, a reader of this blog who discussed the book on her own
blog here. Roberts was born and died in Ruthin, Denbighshire
in Wales.
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ROBERTS,
KATE (13 Feb 1891 – 4 Apr 1985)
(married name Williams)
1920s – 1980s
Welsh writer best known for her short stories,
especially those in the collection Tea in the Heather (1959), but who also
wrote novels, including Feet in Chains
(1936) and The Living that Sleep
(1956). A more comprehensive story collection appeared in 1991 as The World of Kate Roberts: Selected
Stories 1925-1981.
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ROBERTS, LYNETTE (EVELYN) [BEATRICE] (4 Jul 1909 –
26 Sept 1995)
(married name Rhys)
1940s
Although best known for her poetry—especially from
the WWII years—Roberts' wartime diaries, reminiscences of T. S. Eliot and the
Sitwells, and short stories were collected in 2008. Roberts also wrote one
novel, Nesta (1944), which was
never published and appears to have been lost.
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Roberts, Ursula
see MILES, SUSAN
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ROBERTSON, E[ILEEN].
ARNOT (20 Jan 1903 – 21 Sept 1961)
(pseudonym of Eileen
Arbuthnot Robertson, married name Turner)
1920s – 1960s
Film critic and author of nearly a dozen novels.
Best known for three early novels
reprinted by Virago in the 1980s—Cullum (1928), Four Frightened
People (1931), set in the Malayan jungle (despite the fact that she had never
been there), and Ordinary Families (1933), a family comedy set in
Suffolk. The Signpost (1943) is
about a wounded RAF pilot and his relationship with a French woman in a
remote Irish fishing village. Her other novels are Three Came Unarmed (1929), Thames
Portrait (1937), Summer’s Lease
(1940), Mr. Cobbett and the Indians
(1942), Devices and Desires (1954),
Justice of the Heart (1958), and The Strangers on My Roof (1964), the
last of which was published posthumously. As a film critic, she was known for
her battle with MGM, who had said, according to her ODNB entry, that her reviews were "unnecessarily harmful to
the film industry." Following her beloved husband's accidental death,
she committed suicide.
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Robertson, Helen
see EDMISTON, HELEN
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ROBERTSON, MIMA (JEMIMA) [SIMPSON TAYLOR] (1901 - 1985)
(Mima was a nickname for Jemima, aka Alison Taylor)
1920s – 1950s
Author of ten works of fiction, some of which may be
for children. Titles are The Leopard's
Skin (1928), After Stormy Seas
(1929), The Sport of Circumstance
(1929), Bitter Bread: A Tale of Old
Dunfermline (1929, as Alison Taylor), Evil
Enchantment (1930), Music in the
Air (1932, as Alison Taylor), Margaret
Takes Charge (1941), And One Stood
By (1941), Three on Their Own
(1941), and The Castilion (1953). She
later wrote a book about Old
Dunfermline (1979). She seems to have also published numerous later works
of fiction in The People's Friend.
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ROBERTSON, OLIVIA [MELIAN] (13 Apr 1917 – 14 Nov 2013)
1940s – 1950s
Novelist and writer on the occult. The first of her
five novels, Field of the Stranger
(1948), was a Book Society choice—the cover blurb says it's "[a] witty
novel in which the ancient charm of Irish county life contends with currents
as new as existentialism." The others are The Golden Eye (1949), Miranda
Speaks (1950), It's an Old Irish
Custom (1953), and Dublin Phoenix
(1957).
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ROBINS, DENISE
[NAOMI] (1 Feb 1897 – 1 May 1985)
(née Klein, later married
name Pearson, aka Denise Chesterton, aka Ashley French, aka Harriet Gray, aka
Hervey Hamilton, aka Julia Kane, aka Francesca Wright)
1920s – 1970s
Mother of Patricia ROBINS. Author of more than 200
romantic novels, most under her own name but a few under her various
pseudonyms. She was known for exploring serious issues and pushing the bounds
of her genre. Titles include The
Marriage Bond (1924), The
Inevitable End (1927), It Wasn't
Love (1930), Slave-Woman
(1934), Dear Loyalty (1939), Set the Stars Alight (1941), War Changes Everything (1943), Love Me No More! (1948), The Other Love (1952), The Enchanted Island (1956), Lightning Strikes Twice (1966), Sweet Cassandra (1970), and Dark Corridor (1974).
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ROBINS, PATRICIA [DENISE] (1 Feb 1921 – 4 Dec 2016)
(married name Clark, aka Claire Lorrimer, aka Susan
Patrick)
1940s – 2000s
Daughter of Denise ROBINS. Author of more than 80
novels, most of them romances, though late in life she also wrote a series of
mysteries under her Lorrimer pseudonym. Titles include To the Stars (1944), Awake
My Heart (1950), Heart's Desire
(1953), The Long Wait (1962), Where Duty Lies (1957), Lady Chatterley's Daughter (1961), Topaz Island (1965), Laugh on Friday (1969), and Frost in the Sun (1986). Her Lorrimer
myseries include Over My Dead Body
(2003), Dead Centre (2005), and Dead Reckoning (2009).
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ROBINSON,
MARTHA (dates unknown)
1940s – 1950s
Author of more than a
dozen children's books, including two girls' school stories known for their
realism and focus on ordinary school life—High
School (1948) and Three Friends
(1950). Others include A House of Their
Own (1949), Family Holiday
(1951), Trouble at Talltrees
(1953), Matty in Films (1953), and The Vet's Family (1963). She was
apparently in the film industry, judging from her earlier memoir, Continuity Girl: An Account of the
Author's Experiences in the Film Industry (1937), but we've been unable
to trace her.
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ROBSON, ISABEL
SUART (1862 – 25 Aug 1950)
(née Suart)
1890s – 1910s
Author of around 30 works
of fiction. Most are for children, including school stories for both boys and
girls, but a few seem to be for adults. Titles include How the Village Was Won (1890), Two Little Sisters and Humphrey (1896), Marjorie's Stranger (1897), The
Bright Kernel of Life (1899), The
Oddity: A Story of High School Life (1901), Henshawe of Greycotes (1904), The
Troublesome Bevans, or, Laurence, The Hero of Great Morvans (1906), Girls of the Red House (1909), The Girls at the Stone House (1912), and
Eight Girls and Their Adventures
(1916).
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ROCHE, KAY (KATHLEEN) [MARGARET] (15 Mar 1911 – 21
Sept 1997)
1950s
Author of two novels which may be mysteries or
otherwise crime-oriented. The Shuttered
House (1950) appears to be set in Tangier, while The Game and the Candle (1951) takes place in Spain.
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ROHMER, ELIZABETH
SAX (1886 - 1979)
(pseudonym of Rose
Elizabeth Knox Ward)
1950s
Wife of thriller
writer Sax Rohmer and the author of a single novel of her own, Bianca in Black (1958), about a model
who believes herself to be cursed. She later collaborated with Rohmer's
former assistant on Master of Villainy:
A Biography of Sax Rohmer (1972).
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Roland, Mary
see BRAND, CHRISTIANNA
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RONELL, KATHERINE
(dates unknown)
1940s
Untraced author of a
single novel—Fortune's Yoke (1940).
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ROSE, ISABEL BROWN (29 Apr 1883-?1951)
(née Brown)
1920s
Author of fiction and non-fiction dealing with India.
She was married there and may have worked as a missionary. She wrote at least
three novels—Red Blossoms (1925), The Measure of Margaret (1927), and Diana Drew (1928)—all set in India,
and Diana's Indian Diary (1930) may
well be fiction too. She also published Our
Parish in India: Lights and Shadows of Missionary Life (1926). She later
emigrated to the U.S.
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Ross, Catherine
see BEATY, BETTY [JOAN CAMPBELL]
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ROSS, ISHBEL
(15 Dec 1895 – 21 Sept 1975)
(married name Rae)
1930s – 1940s
Best known for her journalism and for biographies of
American women such as Clara Barton and Mary Todd Lincoln, Ross also
published five novels. Of her debut, Promenade
Deck (1932), the Bookman said:
"Passengers on a world cruise undergo everything from love to suicide.
The stereotyped characters—a siren and a spinster school-teacher, a
misogynist and a gigolo, a dissolute flapper and a clean college girl—are
made extraordinarily interesting by the author's real gift for character
drawing." The others are Marriage
in Gotham (1933), Highland Twilight
(1934), Fifty Years a Woman (1938),
and Isle of Escape (1942).
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ROSS, JEAN
(1907 – 14 Oct 1985)
(pseudonym of Irene Dale
Hewson)
1930s – 1960s
Children's writer
and author of nearly two dozen novels. Under her own name, she wrote numerous
children's plays in the 1920s, before turning to fiction. Novels include Flowers
Without Sun (1938), Strangers Under Our Roof (1943), Aunt Ailsa
(1944), Jania (1948), The Gothic House (1950), A Picnic by
Wagonette (1953), Under a Glass Dome (1956), The Night Outside
(1960), The Great-Aunts (1964), and A View of the Island: A
Post-Atomic Age Fairy Tale (1965). Not to be confused with Jean Iris
Ross, who inspired Christopher Isherwood's character, Sally Bowles.
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ROSS, KATHLEEN
(dates unknown)
1910s
Untraced author of a
single girls' school story, The Girls
of Elville College (1917), which follows its main characters into early
adulthood.
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ROURKE, LOUISE [MUSGRAVE-] (1899 - ????)
(née Dickerson-Watkins)
1930s
Poet, memoirist, and author of a single novel, The Tree's Shadow (1930), included in
a list of works dealing with the Canadian prairies. The Land of the Frozen Tide (1928) is a memoir of her life in
Fort Chipewyan in Northern Canada.
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Rowan, Barbara
see POLLOCK, IDA [JULIE]
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ROWAN, MARGARET
(dates unknown)
1950s
Untraced author of a
single girls' school story, Thea and
Her Secret Societies (1956).
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Rowlands, Effie
see ALBANESI, ADELAIDE MARIA
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Roy, Gordon
see WALLACE, HELEN
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Royce, Marjory
see MILES, CONSTANCE
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(originally Naomi Holroyd
Smith, married name Milton)
1900s, 1920s – 1960
Travel writer, playwright,
biographer, and author of more than three dozen novels. Jane Fairfax
(1940) is a prequel to Austen’s Emma that mixes other characters—and
their creators—into the plot. Other novels include The Tortoiseshell Cat (1925), Children
in the Wood (1928), The Delicate Situation (1931), The Bridge (1932), All Star Cast
(1936), Rosy Trodd (1950), Love at First Sight (1956), and Love and a Birdcage (1960). During
World War II, Royde-Smith published Outside
Information (1941), a book with the voluminous subtitle, "Being a
Diary of Rumours Collected by Naomi Royde Smith; Together with Letters from
Others and Some Account of Events in the Life of an Unofficial Person in
London and Winchester during the Months of September and October 1940."
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RUBENS, BERNICE
[RUTH] (26 Jul 1928 – 13 Oct 2004)
(married name Nassauer)
1960s – 1990s
Welsh
novelist and screenwriter, whose first book, Set On Edge,
appeared in 1960. Best known for Madame Sousatzka (1962), made into a film
starring Shirley MacLaine, and The Elected Member (1969), which won
the Booker Prize. Other titles include Mate in Three (1965), Sunday
Best (1971), I Sent a Letter to My Love (1975), Spring Sonata
(1979), Birds of Passage (1981), Kingdom Come (1990), Yesterday
in the Back Lane (1995), and I, Dreyfus (1999).
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RUBIEN, BARBARA [FRANCES] (1906 - 1996)
(née Courlander, aka Elizabeth Anthony)
1940s
Apparently the sister of mystery writer Shelley SMITH.
Author of a single novel under her own name, The Cup and the Song (1947), and two mysteries under her
pseudonym—Dramatic Murder (1948)
and Made for Murder (1950).
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RUCK, [AMY] BERTA
(ROBERTA) (2 Aug 1878 – 11 Aug 1978)
(married name Onions,
later Oliver, aka Amy Roberta Ruck)
1910s – 1960s
Author of more than 100 works of fiction, most
light-hearted romances, often characterized by humor and versatility of subject matter. A New
York World critic said, "Berta Ruck's books are sweet and
interesting. She seems just to pour herself into her stories." Titles
include His Official Fiancée (1914), Miss Million's Maid
(1915), The Subconscious Courtship (1922), The Mind of a Minx
(1927), Understudy (1933), Love on Second Thoughts (1936), Spinster's
Progress (1942), Spice of Life (1952), Sherry and Ghosts
(1961), and Shopping for a Husband (1967). The Girls at His Billet
(1916) is about three sisters thrilled by the arrival of an Army camp in
their village, and some of the characters reappear in the World War II-themed
Fiancees Are Relatives (1941). She also wrote Land Army novels for
both wars—A Land-Girl's Love Story (1919) and Jade Earrings
(1941). And in The Disturbing Charm (1919), Ruck includes a supporting
character suffering from trauma that we would now call PTSD. (Thanks to
Melissa, a reader of this blog, for the details about Ruck's wartime
writings.) She also published several volumes of memoir, including A
Story-Teller Tells the Truth: Reminiscences and Notes (1935), A Smile
for the Past (1959), and Ancestral Voices (1972).
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RUSSELL, IVY
[ETHEL] (6 Jan 1907 - 2005)
(née Southern, earlier
married name Williams)
1950s – 1960s
Playwright and author of more
than a dozen children's books. Her first, Four
With a Purpose (1950), was a school story. Others include Megan of the Welsh Hills (1952), Princess Susan (1954), Highland Cousin (1957), The Inn of Mystery (1959), and The Unexpected Visitor (1962). She
also published Christian-themed plays for children.
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Russell, Sarah
see LASKI, MARGHANITA
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RUTHERFORD, CONSTANCE
(c1887 – 2 Jun 1961)
1910s – 1940s
Author of six novels which display considerable
versatility of theme and style. The
Lily Field (1933) is set in France during the Hundred Years War. The Forgotten Terror (1938) is a
mystery acclaimed by the likes of Alexander Woollcott. Double Entry (1939) is about a young woman who finds that she can
travel in time to the 14th century, an affinity her archaeologist husband
exploits. And The Door Without a Key
(1948) is a psychological spy story. Information about her two earlier
novels—The Blazing Star (1914) and The Straight Furrow (1920)—is lacking.
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RUTLAND, HARRIET
(1901 - 1962)
(pseudonym of Olive Maude
Shinwell, née Seers)
1930s – 1940s
Mystery writer who published three novels, all
positively reviewed at the time and characterized by a dark sense of humor. Knock, Murder, Knock! (1938), which I
reviewed here, is set at a mundane watering spa, in which the
elderly guests enjoy spiteful gossip about the younger, especially when
murder takes the stage. Bleeding Hooks
(1940, aka The Poison Fly Murder)
is set among a group of fly fishers staying at a Welsh lodge. And Blue Murder (1942) is set during World
War II among an unsavory family whose members find themselves targets of a
killer. All three were reprinted by Dean Street Press.
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Ryall, Sybil
see BOLITHO, SYBIL
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Ryce, John
see BROWNE, ALICE MAUDE
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Rybot, Doris
see PONSONBY, DORIS ALMON
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RYLANDS, ANNA (dates unknown)
1930s
Untraced author of a single short romance, Faint Heart (1932).
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