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RADFORD, M[ONA]. A[UGUSTA]. (3 Aug
1894 – 8 Nov 1990)
(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] (15 Aug 1882 – 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 – 25 May 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 – 24 Jun 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. (22 May 1905 – 15 Jul 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. (14 Jan 1879 – 6 Mar 1946)
(pseudonym of Mary Ramsay
Calder)
1900s – 1920s
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 only recently identified her.
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RAMSAY, PHYLLIS (26 Mar 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] (10 Oct 1875 – 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]. (30
Jan 1877 – 15 Feb 1974)
Author of one
girls' school story, An Island for Two:
A School Story (1927). This identification is not absolutely certain, but
this candidate is quite plausible—she was a schoolmistress and journalist
and, on the 1939 England & Wales Register, an organizer for the Women's
Voluntary Services.
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RAMSEY, OLIVIA (30 Dec 1852 – 28 Feb 1926)
(pseudonym of Laetitia/Letitia
Selwyn Oliver)
1900s – 1910s
Author of nine novels which seem to revel in melodrama. The Marriage of Lionel Glyde (1908) is about a pious rector who,
confronted with his wife's infidelity, commits suicide in order to leave her
free to marry her lover. The others are 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 six 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), and The Seeds of Time (1952). She also
published a memoir, When Days Were
Years (1939). She became close friends with Storm JAMESON and Nancy
Cunard, among others.
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RATHBONE,
LETTICE (14 Aug 1895 – 16 Aug 1984)
1930s – 1940
Author of two
novels—Occupation: Spinster (1935),
about a young woman's search for happiness in the English countryside,
London, and Europe, and Autumn
Adventure (1940), about the unusual friendship between a spoiled boy and
his mother's middle-aged house guest. Rathbone spent much of her life in
Smarden, Kent, and I give warm thanks to the Smarden Heritage Center for
their help in confirming her identity. Among other films that organization
has available online is one focused on Rathbone's own recollections of World
War II in the village—see here.
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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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RAYMOND,
MARY (30 Sept 1914 – 22 Jul 1994)
(pseudonym of Mary Constance Keegan, née Heathcott)
1930s – 1990s
Children's
writer and author of more than two dozen romantic novels, including Forgotten Sweetheart (1934), With All My Love (1936), Paradise Is Here (1953), Love Be Wary (1958), Hide My Heart (1961), Shadow of a Star (1963), The Divided House (1966), That Summer (1970), The Pimpernel Project (1972), April Promise (1980), and Grandma Tyson's Legacy (1992). Her
children's titles were The Adventures
of the Pinkle Ponkle (1935) and Stories
about the Floppo Woppo (1937).
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REA, LORNA [MITCHELL] (12 Jun 1897 – 11 Dec 1978)
(née Smith)
1920s – 1930s
Author of four novels and one story collection. Six Mrs. Greenes (1929), which I reviewed here, 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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REDLICH, MONICA [MARY] (3 Jul 1909 – 28 Jun 1965)
(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. I've written
about her a couple of times—see here. 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 (30 Nov 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." I wrote about the latter (and my splurge to
purchase it) here.
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]. (11 Jul 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 (12 Jul 1865 – 15 Mar 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). I reviewed
the last of these here. 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 (4 Apr 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 – 14
Sept 1986)
1930s
Author of a single children's title, Winsome's
Game (1930). On the 1939 England & Wales Register, she is shown as a
"general medical practitioner" in Stratford-on-Avon.
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RICHARDS, [ETHEL] MARJORIE (1 Jan 1887 – 24 Jan 1980)
(née Chappell)
1930s – 1950s
Author of six novels. According to the Observer,
King's Soldier (1944) "makes a
leisurely pilgrimage from 1895 to the present day … It is the Odyssey of a
private soldier, born of a family of soldiers, through the Boer War and
peace-time soldiering in Malta and China until, too old and ill for this war,
he finds that his son has taken his place." Her final novel, Gates of Jade (1956) is set in China.
The others are Opera House (1935), No Lease of Life (1946), Restless Dust (1947), and A Leaf of Gold (1954). It's possible
that Marjorie was a pseudonym rather than a middle name, as it's not shown on
birth record.
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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] (30 Mar 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 (22 Oct 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] (12 Nov 1885 – 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." The
birthday shown above is probably correct, but there is some uncertainty about
the year, which she sometimes gave as late as 1894.
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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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RIDLEY, DIANA (22 Nov 1918 – 15 Jul
1997)
(full name Diana Ridley Thompson, married name
Szumowski or Szumowska)
1930s – 1950s
Author of more than two dozen romantic novels. Titles include Youth Is Wild (1937), That Lovely Miracle (1939), Love Is You (1941), That Was Yesterday (1943), Love Sees Clearly (1946), Such Sweet Sorrow (1947), My Own Felicity (1951), Obey the Heart (1953), and Man in a Million (1955).
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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 BALFOUR] LOGIE (26 Mar 1861 – 27 Jan 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 (16 May 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 (6 Aug 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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ROBINSON, SADIE (dates unknown)
1930s
Unidentified author of two novels—Bacon
and Olives and Take It and Pay,
both published in 1937. An ad for the latter says it's about "a
brilliant young man whose ability is obscured by laziness until a woman's
love gives him the urge to work."
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ROBSON, ISABEL SUART (21 May 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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ROBY, ADELAIDE Q. (12 Mar 1904 – 11 May 1973)
(pseudonym of Mary
Adelaide Roby, née Braddock)
1930s – 1940s, 1970s, ???
Author of five novels, most historical in setting and all released in e-book
format by Endeavour Media in recent years. The Pindars (1939) is a family saga moving from the Industrial
Revolution to World War I. Siren Song
(1940) is about the romance of a farmer's daughter educated by a kindly
clergyman. White Harvest (1941) is
another saga set within the cotton industry. Roby then apparently fell silent
until Sea Urchin (1974), set in an
18th century Cornish village. One additional novel, Charlotte Once Again, set in the 1960s and featuring ghostly
themes, has been released by Endeavour, but I've not been able to determine
its original publication date.
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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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ROLFE,
DIANA (7 May 1902 – 31 Dec 1986)
(pseudonym of Joyce Gertrude Mann)
1930s - 1940s
Author of five
humorous novels about the high society hunting crowd—Good Huntin' (1939), Plain
Sailin' (1940), Maiden Stakes
(1947), Ministering Angels (1948),
and Period Portrait (1949)—at least
some of which are set in Leicestershire.
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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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ROSENBERG,
ELIZABETH (dates unknown)
1950s – 1960
Unidentified co-author,
with husband John, of two mystery novels, Out
Brief Candle (1959) and Fanfare for
a Murderer (1960). She may be the Elizabeth Ann King 1925-2014 who
married Rupert John Rosenberg in 1953, but we have not yet found
confirmation.
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Ross,
Catherine
see BEATY, BETTY [JOAN
CAMPBELL]
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ROSS, HELEN HALYBURTON (21 Nov 1873 – 13 Feb 1936)
(born Helen Maud Ross,
adopted father's middle name Halyburton for her writing)
1920s – 1930s
Author of 11 novels, most or all of them adventure or thriller in theme, many
with Middle Eastern settings. Her debut, A
Man with His Back to the East (1926), is set in Egypt. A blurb from the Yorkshire Observer called The Mystery of the Lotus Queen (1931)
"a story of amazing adventures … proves most exciting in its atmosphere
of suspense." Other titles include The
House of the Talisman (1927), Sin
and Sand (1929), The Lost Oasis
(1933), and The Scarab Clue (1935).
The name Halyburton doesn't appear on any of her own records, but was her
father's middle name, so presumably she adopted it as a kind of pseudonym in
his honour.
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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 (26 Jun 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). I wrote about Women in Exile (1942)
here. 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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Rowe, Caroline
see LOMER, E[THEL].
H[ADDEN].
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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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ROYDE-SMITH, NAOMI [GWLADYS] (30 Apr 1875 – 28 Jul
1964)
(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," which I reviewed here.
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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] (16 Apr 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 (23 Feb 1887 – 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.
I wrote a bit about Double Entry here.
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RUTLAND, HARRIET (1901 - 1962)
(pseudonym of Olive Maude
Shimwell, 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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In respect of Sally Riley, you may be interested in this: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/madcapofstmonicas, where the author's daughter talks about her two books
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