|
DALE, CELIA [MARJORIE] (15 Jan 1912 – 31 Dec 2011)
(married name Ramsey)
1940s – 1980s
Daughter of stage actor James Dale, and a secretary to Rumer GODDEN early in
her career. Author of 13 highly-praised crime novels. Susan Hill reportedly
called her "a past mistress of
the bizarre truth behind normal facades" and Ruth Rendell called her
work "quiet, clever, subtle—and terrifying. I can’t think of anyone
whose stories of suspense I appreciate more." The titles are The
Least of These (1943), To Hold the Mirror (1946), The Dry Land
(1952), The Wooden (1953), Trial of Strength (1955), A
Spring of Love (1960), Other People (1964), A Helping Hand
(1966), Act of Love (1969), A Dark Corner (1971), The
Innocent Party (1973), Helping with Inquiries (1979, aka Deception),
and Sheep's Clothing (1988). The last was reprinted by Virago.
|
|
Dale, Frances
see CRADOCK, FANNY
|
|
DALE, LUCY [MARGUERITE] (9 Aug 1875 – 22 Dec 1945)
(née Hanson)
1910s
Historian and author of two novels in
collaboration with Gertrude FAULDING—Time's
Wallet (1913), an epistolary novel, and Merely Players (1917), about a woman writer's troubled marriage. OCEF says the first, "although
not original in form or style, is of interest in that the characters are
young, intellectual, progressive Liberal women." Researcher John
Herrington discovered she was born in Edinburgh and achieved a "women's
first" in History at Somerville College, Oxford, in the days before
women were granted degrees.
|
|
DALE, MARGARET (dates unknown)
1930s
Untraced author of three novels—Limited
Variety (1933), Maze (1934),
and Serena (1935). Bookman called Maze "just a light-hearted frolic in which a group of
leisured young people get themselves into a muddle of relationships and then
get themselves out again." Not to be confused with Margaret J. MILLER,
whose married name was Dale.
|
|
DALTON, MAY (dates unknown)
1920s - 1930s
Untraced author of 14 romantic novels, of which 9 appeared in 1922-23. Titles
include Her Husband's Secret
(1922), The Enchanting Rebel
(1922), A Fascinating Fraud (1922),
Her Cave Man (1923), Love's Hide-and-Seek (1923), Her Money Against Her (1929), His Mad Moment (1933), and A Fascinating Firebrand (1934).
|
|
DALTON, MORAY (6 May 1881 – 1963)
(pseudonym of Katherine
Mary Deville Dalton Renoir, née Dalton)
1900s – 1950s
Author of two early novels—Olive in
Italy (1909), about a young woman working as an artist's model in Italy,
and The Sword of Love (1920), an
adventure set in the late 1400s in Florence—followed by 29 mysteries and
thriller beginning with The Kingsclere
Mystery (1924). Fifteen of these feature her series character Inspector
Hugh Collier. In her non-series titles, she occasionally made forays into
other genres, including the post-apocalyptic The Black Death (1934) and the wartime adventure Death at the Villa (1946). Other
titles include The Shadow on the Wall
(1926), One by One They Disappeared
(1929), The Night of Fear (1931), The Belfry Murder (1933), The Mystery of the Kneeling Woman
(1936), The Strange Case of Harriet
Hall (1936), Death in the Forest
(1939), The Art School Murders
(1943), Inquest on Miriam (1949),
and The House of Fear (1951). Dean
Street Press released several of her mysteries in e-book and paperback in
early 2019.
|
|
DALY, ANNE (22 May 1896 - ????)
1940s
Sister of novelist Margaret HASSETT and author of one children's book, Green Eyes: A Faraway Tale (1943), and
two plays produced at the Abbey Theatre—The
Window on the Square (1951), covering 25 years of rural life, and Leave It to the Doctor (1959), about a
match-making physician.
|
|
DAMON, CELIA (dates unknown)
(aka Marjory Damon, in
collaboration with Constance MILES [aka Marjory Royce])
1920s
Untraced author, in collaboration with Constance MILES, of two girls' school
stories, Sara Sat-Upon at School
(1927) and The Slow Girl at St Jane's
(1929), the latter published as by "Marjory Damon." She also published
a handful of books for younger children.
|
|
Damon, Marjory
see DAMON, CELIA and MILES,
CONSTANCE
|
|
DANBURY, IRIS (dates unknown)
(pseudonym of Iris Leigh)
1950s – 1970s
Author of 30+ romantic novels for Mills & Boon, including The Gentle Invader (1957), My Heart a Traitor (1958), The Rose-Walled Castle (1959), The Silent Nightingale (1961), Store de Luxe (1963), Bonfire in the Dusk (1965), Doctor at Drumlochan (1966), Isle of Pomegranates (1969), Jacaranda Island (1972), and The Windmill of Kalakos (1976).
|
|
Danby, Frank
see FRANKAU, JULIA
|
|
DANE, CLEMENCE (21 Feb 1888 – 28 Mar 1965)
(pseudonym of Winifred
Ashton)
1910s – 1960s
Playwright, screenwriter,
mystery author, and novelist, author of around two dozen works of fiction in
all. Widely known for A Bill of
Divorcement (1921), a successful early play about changing divorce laws
(mentioned by Vera BRITTAIN in Testament
of Youth), and for Regiment of
Woman (1917), a novel about lesbianism in a girls' school, which was
reprinted by Virago. Some of her most acclaimed fiction is set in the theatre
and grew out of her decades-long success as a playwright, including Broome Stages (1931), about several
generations of a theatre family, her three mysteries in collaboration with
Australian novelist Helen Simpson—Enter
Sir John (1928), Printer's Devil
(1930), and Re-enter Sir John
(1932)—and The Flower Girls (1954),
about the offspring of a successful theatre family. Enter Sir John was the source for Alfred Hitchcock's early film Murder! (1930) and reportedly also inspired
Dorothy L. SAYERS' Strong Poison. The Arrogant History of White Ben
(1939) is an allegorical novel about the rise of Hitler and the Nazis. At the
beginning of the war, Dane published The
Shelter Book (1940), subtitled "A Gathering of Tales, Poems, Essays,
Notes, and Notions … for Use in Shelters, Tubes, Basements and Cellars in
War-Time." Other novels include Legend
(1919), Wandering Stars (1924), Julia Newberry's Diary (1933), The Moon Is Feminine (1938), He Brings Great News (1944), and The Godson (1964).
|
|
D'ANETHAN, BARONESS ALBERT (1858 – 20 Nov 1935)
(pseudonym of Eleanora
Mary d'Anethan, née Haggard)
1890s – 1920s
Sister of H. Rider Haggard and author of eight novels of her own, some of
which made use of her time living in Japan with her diplomat husband. Titles
are His Chief's Wife (1897), It Happened in Japan (1905), Two Women (1909), The Twin-Soul of O'Take San (1914), Her Mother's Blood (1918), Enter
Caroline (1921), Veronica
(1923), and John's Penelope (1926).
Her diaries, which OCEF calls
"rather dull," were published as Fourteen Years of Diplomatic Life in Japan (1912).
|
|
DANIELL, OLIVIA (dates unknown)
1930s
Author of a single novel, The Road from
Jericho (1938), about which the Guardian
(without giving away anything of the actual plot) said "The writing is
so crisp and so infected with a joy in beauty, whether in music or in nature,
that Miss Daniell's quite delightful literary style alone would bring
sunshine into the dark corners."
|
|
DARCH, WINIFRED (7 Feb 1884 – 8 Oct
1960)
1920s – 1930s
Author of just under two dozen girls'
school stories and a schoolmistress herself for nearly three decades. She
retired from teaching to care for aging parents in 1935, which, along with
the lack of day-to-day school interaction, may have been factors in her
giving up writing. Titles are Chris and
Some Others (1920), Jean of
the Fifth (1923), Poppies and
Prefects (1923), Cecil of the
Carnations (1924), Heather at the
High School (1924), Katharine Goes
to School (1925), Gillian of the
Guides (1925), The New School and
Hilary (1926), Cicely Bassett,
Patrol Leader (1927), Varvara Comes
to England (1927), The Upper Fifth
in Command (1928), For the Honour
of the House (1929), The Fifth Form
Rivals (1930), Margaret Plays the
Game (1931), The Girls of Queen
Elizabeth's (1932), The Lower
Fourth and Joan (1932), The School
on the Cliff (1933), The Head Girl
at Wynford (1935), Susan's Last
Term (1936), Elinor in the Fifth
(1937), Alison Temple—Prefect
(1938, reprinted as Alison in a Fix),
The Scholarship and Margery (1938),
and The New Girl at Graychurch
(1939). I wrote about two of her books here.
|
|
DARE, CYNTHIA (dates unknown)
1920s – 1930s
Untraced author of a dozen or so short romances for J. Leng. Titles include Pam the Pretender (1922), The Wrong Girl (1923), Her Glorious Idea (1924), Sally the Upstart (1925), His Pretty Neighbour (1925), A Perfect Torment (1925), Captivating Peggy (1925), Priceless Peg (1926), All a Game (1932), Judy Warrender (1932), The Trickster (1937), and Clipped Wings (1939).
|
|
Dare, Evelyn
see EVERETT-GREEN, EVELYN
|
|
Dare, Simon
see HUXTABLE, MARJORIE
|
|
Darnley,
Jane
see LINDSAY, KATHLEEN
|
|
DART, EDITH [CHARLOTTE MARIA] (1872 – 5 Jul 1924)
1900s - 1920
Poet and author of five novels. Likeness (1911), about a typist who is
the twin of a millionairess and impersonates her at a ball, sounds almost
farcical, but Sareel (1920), about
a girl from a workhouse who becomes a servant on a farm on the moors, may be
darker. The others are Miriam
(1908), Rebecca Drew (1910), and The Loom of Life (1916).
|
|
Dashwood, Jane
see HESELTINE, OLIVE
|
|
DAVIDSON, H[ELEN]. B[EATRICE]. (14 Jul 1898 – 18 Jan 1998)
1920s – 1930s
Author of numerous Guide and Brownie books, including several school stories.
Titles include Pat of Whitehouse
(1924), Peggy's School Pack (1925),
The Ardice Fortune (1926), Peter Lawson, Camper (1931), Brenda in Belgium (1934), and Bunch, A Brownie (1940).
|
|
DAVIES, JOYCE (dates unknown)
1930s
Untraced author of a single short romance, The Heiress (1930).
|
|
DAVIES, MARGARET CONSTANCE (4 May 1923
– 25 Aug 2013)
(née Brown, later married name Mitchell, went by
Davies-Mitchell)
1950s
Expert on French modernist poetry, University of Reading professor, and
author of a single novel, Two Gold
Rings (1958), described as about a romance between two Left Bank artists
in Paris. She also published scholarly books on Colette and Apollinaire.
|
|
Daviot, Gordon
see TEY, JOSEPHINE
|
|
DAVIS, JOYCE (dates unknown)
1920s
Untraced author of one romance for J. Leng, Molly Meets Her Match (1924).
|
|
DAVISON, MAY (dates unknown)
1930s – 1940s
Untraceable author of four novels—The
Ivory Warrior (1938), Day In, Day
Out (1939), Young Bill Peach
(1946), and Barzie (1947). Young Bill Peach, at least, appears to
deal with rural themes.
|
|
Davys, Sarah
see MANNING, ROSEMARY [JOY]
|
|
DAWSON, LOUISA ALICE (13 Jan 1856 – 22
Mar 1926)
(married name Baker, seems to have gone by Louie,
aka Alien)
1890s - 1910
Author of more than a dozen novels, including A Daughter of the King (1894), In Golden Shackles (1896), Wheat
in the Ear (1898), Over the
Barriers (1903), A Slum Heroine
(1904), The Perfect Union (1908),
and A Double Blindness (1910). She
spent her late childhood and early adulthood in New Zealand, where she wrote
popular newspaper advice columns, before returning to England and success as
a novelist. Most of her works seems to have appeared under her rather unusual
pseudonym.
|
|
DAWSON-SCOTT, C[ATHERINE]. A[MY]. (Aug 1865 – 4 Nov 1934)
1900s – 1930s
Poet, playwright, novelist, and founder of International PEN (and later its
historian), Dawson-Scott also wrote rather dark, somewhat feminist novels,
the later of which were, according to OCEF,
influenced by Dorothy Richardson. Titles include The Story of Anna Beames (1907), The Agony Column (1909), Madcap
Jane (1910), Ulalia (1912), Against the Grain (1919), The Haunting (1921), Blown by the Wind (1926), and The House in the Hollow, or, Tender Love
(1933).
|
|
Day, Mary
see GRIGS, [ETHEL] MARY
|
|
D'Evelyn,
Rose
see BROEMEL, ROSE
|
|
DE BARY, ANNA (1869 – 25 Jan 1954)
(née Bunston)
1920s
Though primarily the author of Christian-themed verse (her Collected Poems appeared in 1947), De
Bary also wrote at least two novels—By
Olive and Fir (1921) and The House in
Horton Hollow (1928). Letters of a
Schoolma'am (1913) is apparently comprised of the letters of a Miss
Marston, edited by De Bary.
|
|
DE CRESPIGNY, MRS. PHILIP CHAMPION (c1860 – 10 Feb 1935)
(pseudonym of Rose
Champion de Crespigny, née Key)
1910s – 1930s
Painter and
novelist. Author of 20 volumes of fiction in all, including 18 novels and 2
story collections. According to OCEF,
From Behind the Arras (1902) is set
in 18th century France, features a young girl narrator, and "is based on
the 'tomboy tamed' pattern then fashionable in fiction for girls." She
published several novels with Mills & Boon 1910-1917. Some later works,
such as The Mark (1912) and The Dark Sea (1927), deal with
supernatural and spiritualist themes, as does her memoir This World—and Beyond (1934). She also published several
mysteries or thrillers late in her career, including Tangled Evidence (1924), The
Missing Piece (1927), and A Case
for the C.I.D. (1933).
|
|
DE FOUBERT, EDITH MARY (11 Jul 1873 – 5 Mar 1967)
1920s – 1930s
Author of a dozen
girl's school stories with, according to Sims and Clare, standard plots but
convincing characters. Titles are That
Term at the Towers (1927), Queen of
the School (1928), The Girl from
Back-of-Beyond (1929), The Fourth
Form Mystery (1930), First Term—Worst
Term (1932), The Fighting Fourth
(1934), Two on Their Own (1935), For the Sake of Shirley (1935), The League of the Links (1936), The Vac at St. Verda's (1938), Sally's Sporting Chance (1938), and Penny in Search of a School (1939).
|
|
DE FRAINE, JOAN (1 Feb 1901 – 23 Jul 1988)
(married name Smith)
1930s
Author of three novels—Adventure for
Three (1933), No Fuss (1934),
and Eighty in the Shade (1935), the
last described by a bookseller as "the story of a suburban family over a
Bank Holiday weekend." She also wrote a one-act play, Saturday Sensation (1933), and an
abridged edition of Wilkie Collins’ The
Moonstone for children (1971).
|
|
de
Guise, Elizabeth
see HUNTER, ELIZABETH [MARY
TERESA]
|
|
DE KERPELY, THERESA (29 Nov 1898 – 27
Aug 1993)
(aka Teresa Kay)
1950s – 1980s
Novelist and memoirist whose dramatic life provided background for her
novels. Her real-life experiences in World War II Budapest, covered in her
memoir Of Love and Wars (1984),
included not only the usual wartime hardships, bombing raids, food shortages,
etc., but also the fact that near the end of the war she and her husband (a
well-known Hungarian cellist) provided shelter for two months to a Jewish
composer disguised as a Catholic priest. After the war, she relocated to the
U.S., but her first two novels, A Crown
for Ashes (1952), set in wartime Budapest, and The Burning Jewel (1957), were published pseudonymously to
protect family still living behind the Iron Curtain. Her other novels are Kiss from Aphrodite (1968), Arabesque (1976), and Fugue (1977).
|
|
de la Pasture, Mrs. Henry
see BONHAM, ELIZABETH LYDIA
ROSABELLE
|
|
DEAKIN, [MARY] DOROTHEA (19 Dec 1876 – 15 Apr 1924)
(married name Reynolds)
1900s - 1910
Niece of Edith NESBIT and author of seven novels described by OCEF as "fairly tedious comedies
of village or country house life." Contemporary critics referred to her
work as "frothy," "thoroughly amusing," and "freshly
and brightly written." Titles are The
Smile of Melinda (1903), The Poet
and the Pierrot (1905), 'Georgie'
(1906), The Princess and the Kitchen
Maid (1906), The Young Columbine
(1908), Tormentilla (1908), and The Goddess Girl (1910). She also
published a considerable amount of periodical fiction. She died in a clinic
in Lugano, Switzerland, which suggests tuberculosis. She had married in 1910,
perhaps not coincidentally the date of her final novel.
|
|
DEAL, PAULA (26 Sept 1920 - 2007)
(pseudonym of Doris Lilian Gudgin, née Smith)
1950s – 1960s
Nurse and author of six books on the subject. The first, Nurse! Nurse! Nurse! (1959) was described as a memoir, but it's
unclear whether the other five—Forward,
Staff Nurse (1960), Nurse at
Butlin's (1961), Surgery Nurse
(1962), Factory Nurse (1963), and Village Nurse (1964)—might have
strayed more into fiction.
|
|
Dealtry, Kit
see GROOM, KATHLEEN [CLARICE]
|
|
Dean, Mrs. Andrew
see SIDGWICK, MRS. ALFRED
|
|
DEAN, ANGELA (dates unknown)
1940s
Untraced author of a single novel, Till
the Corn Grows Brown (1942), about which no information is available.
|
|
DEAN, LYN (20 Dec 1909 – 15 Sept 1978)
(pseudonym of Winifred Selina Garrett, married name
Lindop)
1937
Author of two novels, both published in 1937—Ask No Questions and The
Rope Waits—which might be mysteries.
|
|
Dean, Peter
see HINKSON, PAMELA
|
|
DEAN, PRUDENCE (dates unknown)
Untraced author of six romantic novels—Her
White Sin (1920), A Foolish Choice
(1924), His Luxury Bride (1929), Her Double Part (1929), The Fair Imposter (1933), and Haunted by the Past (1933).
|
|
DEANE, LORNA (3 Jan 1909 – 3 Feb 1973)
(pseudonym of Lorna Hilda
Kathleen Gibbs, married name Wilkinson)
1940s
Poet and author of three novels—The
Solitary Reaper (1944), Strawberry
Street (1946), and Portrait of a
Man (1947). She also wrote one play, Portrait
of Anna (1955).
|
|
DEANE, MARY [BATHURST] (3 Aug 1844 –
13 Apr 1940)
1880s - 1920
Aunt of P. G. Wodehouse, and reportedly the inspiration for Bertie Wooster's
Aunt Agatha. Novelist and children's author whose final work, The Invisible Chain (1920), qualifies
her for this list. Some of her novels were historical, including The Rose-Spinner (1904), set in the
Georgian period, and The Other Pawn
(1907), set in mid-Victorian Bath. Others include Quatrefoil (1883), Three
Little Maids, or, Chronicles of Acacia Garden (1889), Eve's Apple (1894), and The Little Neighbour (1905).
|
|
DEANE, SONIA (12 Jan 1904 - 1997)
(pseudonym of Gwendoline
Amy Placeham, married name Soutar?)
1930s – 1980s
Author of more than sixty romantic novels. Early works take a particular
interest in divorce, with titles such as Decree
Absolute (1937), Hotel Register
(1938), Co-Respondent Unknown
(1942), Divorce Anniversary (1944),
and Evidence for Divorce (1953),
while later works are often hospital romances. Other titles include The Other Woman (1940), Winter Harvest (1947), Nurse Trent (1958), Private Ward (1965), Free-Lance Nurse (1970), and Red Roses from the Doctor (1979).
|
|
Deane, Spencer
see PETTMAN, GRACE
|
|
DEANS, MARJORIE [ELIZABETH] (1 Dec 1901 – 1982)
1930s
Screenwriter, translator, and author of three novels—Not With Me (1937), Take
Cover! (1939), and Men Don't Know
(1946). Not With Me deals with a
doubting clergyman and his family, while Take
Cover! deals with the Munich Crisis and the reactions of various London
residents. She also published Meeting
at the Sphinx (1946), a glitzy book about the filming of Caesar and Cleopatra with Claude Rains
and Vivien Leigh. Among her screen credits were several adaptations of George
Bernard Shaw plays.
|
|
DEARDEN, HILDA DANVERS (4 Sept 1892 – 6 Jul 1981)
(née Glasson)
1930s
Founder of a dance school in London and author of at least nine novels which
appear to be adventure and spy stories. Titles are "This Road Is Dangerous!" (1930), The Mystery at the Skating Rink (1931), "In the King's Name—!" (1932), The Blonde Madonna (1933), Strange
Rendezvous (1934), Revolt from
Bondage (1935), The Trappings Are
Gorgeous (1937), Sally Blair
(1937), and Dust in Her Eyes
(1940). Her profession on the 1939 England & Wales Register is
"author & professional ice skater".
|
|
DEASE, ALICE [MARY FRANCES] (13 Feb 1874 – 27 Oct 1949)
(married name Chichester)
1900s – 1910s
Author of several volumes of short stories—some about Irish Catholic themes,
others (published by the Catholic Truth Society) apparently about
missionaries in China—as well as at least two novels, The Lady of Mystery (1913), about a man buying back his
ancestor's estate, and The Debt of Guy
Arnolle (1919). Other volumes include The
Beckoning of the Wand: Sketches of a Lesser Known Ireland (1908), The Marrying of Brian and Other Stories
(1910), and Down West and Other
Sketches of Irish Life (1914).
|
|
DEBENHAM, MARY H[ARRIETTE]. (22 Nov 1864 – 7 Dec 1947)
1880s – 1920
Prolific author of Christian-themed fiction, non-fiction, and plays for
children and adults. Among her fiction titles are St Helen's Well (1888), Household
Troops, or, Small Service Is True Service (1893), The Captain of Five (1895), Two
Maiden Aunts (1896), The Waterloo
Lass (1901), Under Forest Boughs
(1903), Stars in the Twilight
(1910), The Court of the King: A
Christmas Mystery (1919), and Setala
and the Storm (1920).
|
|
DEE, CATHERINE (dates unknown)
1940s – 1950s
Unidentified author of three novels published by Peter Davies—No Complaints in Hell (1949),
apparently set in a prison, Nothing Is
Chance (1952), and Never Carry the
Donkey (1954), about a young woman rebelling against her family. The Birmingham Daily Post called the last
"well-written and quietly enjoyable."
|
|
DEERING, ANN (1 Feb 1913 – 26 Jan
1957)
(pseudonym of Nancy Mary Collier)
1930s – 1950s
Sister of Susan TAYLOR and author of around 20 MIlls & Boon romances.
Titles include Handsome Stranger
(1938), Never Goodbye (1940), Music for Magnolia (1947), Petals in the Wind (1948), Dearest of All (1950), Serenade to Columbine (1951), The Sky Changes (1952), and Villa in the Sun (1957).
|
|
Dehan, Richard
see GRAVES, CLOTILDE
|
|
DEHN, OLIVE [MARIE] (29 Sept 1914 – 21
Mar 2007)
(married name Markham)
1930s - 1980
Children's author who was also
a passionate activist and pacifist and, along with her husband, a
trailblazing organic farmer. Her works include The Basement Bogle (1935), The
Nixie From Rotterdam (1937), Higgly-piggly
Farm (1957), The Pike Dream (1958),
the Caretakers series (1960-1967),
and Good-bye Day (1980). Dehn has
the pleasant distinction of having been deported from Nazi Germany in 1933,
where she was visiting, as a result of a German-themed poem she had published
in Punch, and then, in 1974, being
also deported from Communist Russia for protesting for the release of Soviet
dissidents.
|
|
DELAFIELD, E. M. (9 Jun 1890 – 2 Dec 1943)
(pseudonym of Edmee
Elizabeth Monica Dashwood, née de la Pasture)
1910s – 1940s
Daughter of Elizabeth BONHAM and mother of Rosamund Dashwood. Author of more
than 30 volumes of fiction, including the perennially popular Provincial
Lady novels—Diary of a Provincial Lady (1930), The Provincial Lady Goes Further
(1932, aka The Provincial Lady in
London), The Provincial Lady in
America (1934), and The Provincial
Lady in Wartime (1940)—which deal humorously with marriage, motherhood,
and literary life. Straw Without Bricks
(1937), a more serious book Delafield wrote about a trip to Russia, was later
reprinted as The Provincial Lady in
Russia to capitalize on the popularity of the series. Many of Delafield's
other novels are more serious, including Consequences
(1919), reprinted by Persephone, The
Way Things Are (1927), a semi-autobiographical novel about marriage, Thank Heaven Fasting (1932), and Nothing Is Safe (1937), about children
scarred by divorce. Her final novel, Late
and Soon (1943), deals with a widow taking in evacuees during World War
II. Among her non-fiction are The
Brontës: Their Lives Recorded by Their Contemporaries (1935) and Ladies and Gentlemen in Victorian Fiction
(1937). I wrote about one of her less well-known novels here. I also had the chance to share previously unseen
photos and details about her daughter here.
|
|
DELAMAIN, ANN (dates unknown)
1930s – 1950s
Author of more than 20 novels, apparently romantic in theme. Titles include All Our Dear Relations (1935), Never Stoop to Conquer (1937), Arrow in the Air (1939), Sammy Comes to Stay (1942), Merry Widow's Waltz (1943), Miss Bennet Knows Best (1945), Lark Lady (1948), Mabel Has Mink (1950), and Mr.
Treadgold (1952). Among her later novels are The Best Butter (1948), about a bored widow who adopts two
children and runs for political office, and My Bee Stings (1949), about a successful playwright facing the
death of her husband.
|
|
Delgairn,
Harriet
see CAPES, HARRIET M[ARY].
|
|
Delius, Peter
see BLACK, DOROTHY
|
|
DELL, ETHEL M[ARY]. (2 Aug 1881 – 17 Sept 1939)
(married name Savage)
1910s – 1930s
Author of more than 30 romantic novels, beginning with the massive bestseller
The Way of an Eagle (1912) (in its 30th printing by 1915). Her books
often featured Indian settings (though she never actually visited India),
torrid drama, and the pairing of girly girls with he-men. Other titles are The Knave of Diamonds (1913), The Bars of Iron (1916), The Lamp in the Desert (1919), The Obstacle Race (1921), A Man under Authority (1925), The Gate Marked 'Private' (1928), The Prison Wall (1932), The Juice of the Pomegranate (1938),
and Sown among Thorns (1939).
|
|
DELVES, NANCY (ANNIE) [MYFANWY] (3 Sept 1905 - 1959)
(married name Fitzhugh)
1920s – 1930s
Author of six girls' school stories—The
Fourth Form (1929), Well Played,
Scotts! (1930), Fifth Form Rivals
(1931), The Rebel of the Fifth
(1933), Trouble in the Fourth
(1934), and Thrills for the Lower Fifth
(1935). According to Sims and Clare, she was "clearly a disciple"
of Angela Brazil.
|
|
DELVES-BROUGHTON,
JOSEPHINE (6 Sept 1916 – 4 Jun 1975)
(aka John
Bryan)
1930s – 1960s
Author of a dozen novels, at least some of them historical. Officer and Gentleman (1944) is set in
the 19th century and includes the famous Charge of the Light Brigade, while Crown Imperial (1949, aka The Heart of a Queen) is about
Elizabeth I. She published three novels as "John Bryan"—The Difference to Me (1957), The Contessa Came Too (1961), and The Man Who Came Back (1961). Others
under her own name are The Siege
(1939), The World Is a Bridge
(1943), Story of Andria (1946), I Saw No Sun (1952), The Past Returned (1953, aka Find a New Heaven), A Sojourn in England (1956), and The Quality of Love (1963).
|
|
DEMAREST, PHYLLIS GORDON (31 Mar 1908 – 22 Dec 1969)
1930s, 1950s – 1970s
Stepdaughter of actor William Demarest (see here for background on her family). Author of at least
nine novels, many first published in the U.S. (to which she relocated
following her mother's second marriage). Children
of Hollywood (1929) and Hollywood
Gold (1930) take Hollywood as their subject. These were followed by Lady Gone Wild (1933), The Past Is Ours (1934), This Strange Love (1939), The Naked Risk (1954), The Wilderness Brigade (1957,
reprinted in the U.K. as Trumpet of
Wrath), The Angelic City
(1961), and What Happened on the
'Melisande' (1971). Wilderness
Brigade is set during the American Civil War.
|
|
DEMUTH, AVERIL [CONSTANCE] (5 Jan 1906 – 2000)
(married name Cockbain)
1930s – 1950s
Author of five
children's titles which seem to feature fantasy elements. Trudi and Hansel (1937) is set in the
Austrian Tyrol, The House in the
Mountains (1940) in Switzerland, and The
House of the Wind (1953) in Cornwall. The others are The Enchanted Islands (1941) and The Sea Gypsies (1942). She later published The Minack Open-Air Theatre (1968) about a theatre for which she
also wrote at least one play. Sadly, her husband died in World War II after
only one year of marriage and she does not appear to have ever remarried.
|
|
DENDY, MARY (1855 – 9 May 1933)
1910s
Author of one Sunday school themed collection of children's tales and one
apparent novel, Only a Business Man: A
Story (1910), which just barely qualifies her for this list.
|
|
DENHAM, PHYLLIS H[ELEN]. (3 May 1900 –
10 Feb 1982)
(married name Hadley)
1930s – 1940s
Author of one romantic tale, The
Glorious Adventure (1930) and one story collection, Tales of Love and Romance (1944).
|
|
DENNISON, DOROTHY [ROSINA] (14 Sept 1899 – 3 Mar 1978)
(married name Wright)
1920s – 1950s
Author of ten "evangelistic" girls' school stories (according to
Sims & Clare), as well as several novels for adults. The school stories
listed in Sims & Clare are Rumours
in the Fourth Form (1925), Paddy
the Pride of the School (1928), Chronicles
of the Lower Fifth (1929), The
Rebellion of the Upper Fifth (1930), The
Sixth Form Goes Abroad (1932), The Trio
of Grangecourt School (1932), The
Historic Third & Other Stories (1933), The Odd House of Grange Court (1934), The Rival Schools of Trentham (1934), and Mystery at St Mawe's (1936). One additional children's title, In Spite of Miss Tweedle (1948), appears
to also have school themes, and her adult novel, Full Circle (1954), traces the life of a woman who spends her
life working as a servant in a boys' school. Two other adult novels—Steep Ascent: The Story of a Surgeon
(1949) and Physician Heal Thyself (1954)—make
use of her experiences as a doctor's wife. Among her final published works
were two volumes of the "Courtney Chronicles," a series of family
stories. Spotlight on Penelope
(1958) is apparently the first in the series and to Call Me Jacqueline (1958) is the third. Dennison's daughter,
Gillian GOLDEN, published the other two books in the series—Over to Paul (1958) seems to be #2,
and Bouquet for Susan (1958) is #4.
|
|
DENNYS, [ISOBEL DOROTHY] JOYCE (14 Aug 1883 – 23 Feb 1991)
(married name Evans)
1930s – 1940s
Artist,
illustrator, playwright, and humorist, best known now for Henrietta’s War
(1985) and Henrietta Sees It Through
(1986), her humorous fictional home front diaries first published in Sketch during World War II, presumably
based on her own life in Budleigh Salterton in Devon. In the 1930s, Dennys
had published several humorous works of fiction stemming from her life as a
doctor's wife—Mrs Dose, the Doctor's
Wife (1930), Repeated Doses
(1931), and The Over-Dose (This Really
is the Last One) (1933). Simon at Stuck in a Book mentioned another
vanishingly rare title, Economy Must Be
Our Watchword (1932), here. In the 1950s and early 1960s, Dennys wrote
numerous short plays for her local amateur dramatic society.
|
|
DERING, JOAN [ROSALIND CORDELIA] (29 Apr 1917 – 22 May 1994)
1950s – 1960s
Author of seven novels, several of which seem to fall into the romantic
suspense genre. Anthony Boucher called her debut, Louise (1956), "A romantic suspense-novel in the du Maurier
tradition … contains some nice observations of a convalescent home and a
second-rate public school. The ending is ill-contrived and resoundingly
anti-climactic; but the going's a pleasure up to that point…" But Barzun
and Taylor, in their Catalogue of Crime,
are more enthusiastic about her last novel, Not Proven (1966): "The women in it are intelligent,
courageous, and consecutive in their actions and feelings; the writing is
first-rate and the plot (in the Jane
Eyre category) is admirably put together, as is the solution of the
antecedent murder." Number Two,
North Steps (1965) is perhaps a bit more of a conventional mystery, with
a vicar's daughter helping to clear her cousin of a murder charge. The other
titles are Mrs Winterton's Rebellion
(1958), The Caravanners (1959), Marianne (1960), and The Silent Witness (1962).
|
|
DERRY, VIDA [WINIFRED] (2 Dec 1912 – 23
Apr 1986)
(married name Usher)
1950s – 1970s
Author of more than a dozen romantic novels. Titles include Love in Blue (1958), Two Loves Have I (1959), Love in Shadow (1961), A Kind of Magic (1962), My Wife Virginia (1963), Escape to Summer (1964), Tell Me, Nurse (1965), The Luck of Dereham House (1968), and Roses for the Nurse (1971). She
apparently also published serial fiction with supernatural themes.
|
|
DERWENT, LAVINIA (23 Feb 1909 – 26 Nov
1989)
(pseudonym of Elizabeth Dodd)
1930s – 1980s
Popular and prolific children's author and memoirist, best known now for her
successful series of memoirs of Scottish life, including A Breath of Border Air (1975), Another Breath of Border Air (1977), A Border Bairn (1979), God
Bless the Borders (1981), Lady of
the Manse (1983), A Mouse in the
Manse (1985), and Beyond the
Borders (1988). According to ODNB,
her big break came with the reading of her early Tammy Troot stories on the
BBC Children's Hour. She published one romantic novel for adults, Dinner of Herbs (1950), but then
focused on children's books, including two popular series, the Macpherson
series and the Sula series, "set on a fictional Hebridean island and
featuring a crofter's son who could talk to seals."
|
|
Desmond,
Barbara
see WILSON, DESEMEA
|
|
Desmond,
Hugh
see LINDSAY, KATHLEEN
|
|
DEVAS, NICOLETTE (1 Feb 1911 – 10 May 1987)
(née Macnamara, later
married name Shephard)
1930s
Sister-in-law
of Dylan Thomas (Caitlin Thomas was her sister). Artist and author of four
novels—Bonfire (1958), about
"the destructive impact of the intrusion of an outsider into an
established and happy family," Nightwatch
(1961), about "skullduggery in the London art world," Black Eggs (1970), which deals with
birdwatching, and Pegeen Crybaby
(1986), "a rip roaring tale of love, promiscuity, academic jealousy and
vengeance." (Quotes taken from here.) She is best known, however, for the memoir Two Flamboyant Fathers (1966), which
tells of her childhood moving freely between two households—her own, led by
an eccentric Irish poet father, and that of the family's neighbor, artist
Augustus John, who was leading a bohemian lifestyle with numerous friends and
family members. A subsequent memoir, Susanna's
Nightingales (1978), traces the maternal line of her family. Dylan,
Caitlin, and Nicolette are all portrayed in the 2008 film The Edge of Love.
|
|
DEVEREUX, [MARGARET ROSE] ROY
[PEMBER-] (22 Feb 1867 – 8 Oct 1947)
(née McAdam)
1900s, 1930s – 1940s
Travel writer and novelist who began her career with The Ascent of Woman (1896), a fashion guide for the New Woman.
Her five novels—Rebrobate Silver
(1903), The Incredible Truth
(1930), Blue Magic (1937), When They Came Back (1938), and A Brown Eye or So (1945)—sound a bit
melodramatic. The Incredible Truth,
for example, is about a man who commits suicide and leaves money to his
unrequited love so she can marry another man, with unhappy results. She also
published travel books about South Africa and Algeria.
|
|
DEW ROBERTS, BARBARA (1885 - 1961)
(pseudonym of Elizabeth
Mary Dew Roberts, originally Dew, aka Elizabeth Dew Roberts)
1940s – 1950s
Historian and author of at least four novels, some or all of them historical
in subject, including Still Glides the
Stream (1940), Some Trees Stand
(1945), The Island Feud (1947), and
The Charlie Trees: A Jacobite Novel
(1951). Some Trees Stand is set in
modern Wales where a contemporary romance seems to echo that of their
ancestors. She appears to have been born Elizabeth Mary Dew, but may have
been adopted by two of her aunts, named Roberts, and appended their name to
hers. Rather strangely, she seems to have used "Elizabeth" for two
of her novels and "Barbara" for the other two.
|
|
Dexter,
Lynne
see DONISTHORPE, SHEILA
G[LADYS].
|
|
Dick,
Alexandra
see DICK-ERIKSON, CICELY SIBYL
ALEXANDRA
|
|
DICK, KAY (29 Jul 1915 – 19 Oct 2001)
1940s – 1980s
Companion of Kathleen FARRELL. Author of seven somewhat autobiographical
novels—By the Lake (1949), Young Man (1951), An Affair of Love (1953), Solitaire
(1958), Sunday (1962), They (1977), and The Shelf (1984). She also published two volumes of interviews
with literary friends, including Ivy
& Stevie (1971), featuring interviews with Ivy COMPTON-BURNETT and
Stevie SMITH, and Friends and
Friendship (1974), including interviews with Olivia MANNING and Isobel
ENGLISH, among others. Dick is also notable for having been the first woman
director of an English publishing house, P.S. King & Son.
|
|
DICK, MARGARET (dates unknown)
1950s
Scottish author of two novels—Point of
Return (1958), "set mainly in the offices of a large works in a
provincial town," and Rhyme or
Reason (1959), set in a northern university town. From contemporary
articles, we know she was unmarried and was born and raised in Fife, and she
could be the Margaret D. Dick 7 Mar 1920 – 21 Jul 2003, but information about
her is scarce. She is not to be confused with Australian microbiologist
Margaret Dick, though as the latter's family hailed from Scotland as well,
and an article describes the novelist visiting Australia with her Australian
cousin, author Elizabeth Harrower, it's not impossible there could be a
relationship. A book about Australian novelist Kylie Tennant, by a Margaret
Dick, appeared in 1966 and seems likely to be by the same author.
|
|
DICK, R. A. (8 Jun 1898 – 28 Apr 1979)
(pseudonym of Josephine
Aimee Leslie, née Campbell)
1940s – 1970s
Author of nine
novels, most famously The Ghost and
Mrs. Muir (1945), which was immortalized by its classic film adaptation.
Among her other works are Light and
Shade (1956), about an elderly woman travelling to Africa with her
granddaughter, and Duet for Two Hands
(1960), about a pianist with a split personality. Unpainted Portrait (1954) and The
Devil and Mrs. Devine (1974) appear to also have gothic themes. The
others are Adventures of Jama
(1949), She Walked to the Wedding
(1953), The Second Blessing (1958),
and Wanted (1962).
|
|
DICKBERRY, F. (?c1856 - ?1931)
(pseudonym of Fernande Blaze de Bury? [several
sources note this, but no definite identification found])
1900s – 1910s
Edwardian author of four novels—The
Storm of London: A Social Rhapsody (1905), The Nymph (1906), Phantom
Figures (1907), and Stephen Ormond:
A Man's Life (1913).
|
|
Dickens, Irene
see COOPER, GWLADYS
DOROTHY
|
|
DICKENS, MARY ANGELA (31 Oct 1862 – 7
Feb 1948)
(aka His Grand-Daughter)
1890s – 1910s
Granddaughter of Charles Dickens and cousin of Monica DICKENS. Author of a
dozen novels and story collections, including Cross Currents (1891), A
Mere Cypher (1893), A Valiant
Ignorance (1894), Against the Tide
(1898), Unveiled and Other Stories
(1906), The Debtor (1912), and Sanctuary (1916).
|
|
DICKENS, MONICA [ENID] (10 May 1915 – 25 Dec 1992)
(married name Stratton)
1930s – 1990s
Great-granddaughter of Charles Dickens and author of more than 40 volumes of
fiction and memoir. Her two humorous memoirs—One Pair of Hands (1939), about her attempts to be a cook, and One Pair of Feet (1942), about her
wartime nursing experience—have been reprinted in recent years. Her novels Mariana (1940) and The Winds of Heaven (1955) have been
reprinted by Persephone. Other novels include The Fancy (1943), which makes use of her subsequent experience
working in a wartime factory, The Happy
Prisoner (1946), about a wounded soldier adapting to life after the war, My Turn to Make the Tea (1951), which
utilized her experiences as a reporter, and The Nightingales Are Singing (1953), about a woman who (like
Dickens) marries an American Naval officer. In the 1970s, she published two
series of well-received children's books, the Follyfoot series and the
World's End series, as well as a memoir, An
Open Book (1978).
|
|
DICK, ALEXANDRA (6 May 1906 – 29 Sept 1989)
(pseudonym of Cicely Sibyl
Alexandra Abercrombie Dick-Erikson, née Dick or Abercrombie-Dick, aka Frances
Hay)
1930s – 1960s
Author of more than two dozen novels, many of them mysteries which seem to
have been well-received in their day, and some of which featured series
character Alastair MacAlastair. She also published several historical novels,
including four as Frances Hay. Titles include The First Man (1937), Yellowing
Hay (1939), A Pack of Cards
(1940), An Old-Fashioned Christmas
(1944), Many a Flower (1944), The Curate's Crime (1945), The Sleeping Beauty's Daughter (1947),
Cross Purposes (1950), The Witch's Doing (1951), The Innocence of Rosamond Prior
(1953), Crime in the Close (1955), There Was No Moon (1957), Lady with a Rose (1960), and Barbary Kate (1964).
|
|
DILLON, EILÍS (7 Mar 1920 – 19 Jul 1994)
(married names O
Cuilleanain and Mercier)
1940s – 1990s
Irish author of nearly three dozen volumes of fiction, including children's
adventure stories, historical novels, and three well-received mysteries.
Among her many children's titles are The
Lost Island (1952), The House on
the Shore (1955), The Island of
Horses (1956), The Singing Cave
(1959), The Coriander (1963), The Road to Dunmore (1966), Under the Orange Grove (1968), A Herd of Deer (1969), The King's Room (1970), The Shadow of Vesuvius (1978), The Island of Ghosts (1989), and Children of Bach (1992). Her first
adult fiction consisted of three mysteries—Death at Crane's Court (1953), set in a
"hotel-sanitorium" near Galway, Sent
to His Account (1954), set in an Irish village, and Death in the Quadrangle (1956), set at King's College Dublin. I
reviewed Sent to His Account here. Dillon proceeded to
write eight non-mystery novels, many of them historical and the most
successful of which was Across the
Bitter Sea (1973), which spans seven decades of the struggle for Irish
independence. Others are The Bitter
Glass (1958), The Head of the Family
(1960), Bold John Henebry (1965), Blood Relations (1977), Wild Geese (1980), Citizen Burke (1984), and The Interloper (1987). There's an
informative website about Dillon and her work here.
|
|
Dimont, Penelope
see MORTIMER, PENELOPE [RUTH]
|
|
DINES, AUDREY (?16 Jun 1900 - ?1987)
(née Colenutt [tentative
but probable identification])
1950s, 1970s
Author of five children's titles, including both girls' and boys' school
stories, all with strong Christian themes. Titles are Holiday Adventure (1950), Pine
Tree House (1951), The Secret of
Lockerby Hall (1955), It Couldn't
Have Been Willett! (1955), and Four
at Fourways (1956). She appears to have also been the author of the later
title The Strange Story of Simon
(1978).
|
|
DITMAS, EDITH MARGARET ROBERTSON (26 Jan 1896 – 28
Feb 1986)
1950s
Historian, archivist, and author of a single novel, Gareth of Orkney (1956), an Arthurian romance featuring the
younger brother of Sir Gawain on a quest. She also published retellings of
other legends and romances and a history of Glastonbury Tor, and was General
Secretary of the Association for Information Management (ASLIB) 1946–1950.
|
|
DIVER, [KATHERINE HELEN] MAUD (9 Sept 1867 – 14 Oct 1945)
(née Marshall, possibly
aka Jane Langslow [see separate entry below])
1900s - 1940
Half sister of
Margaret Rivers LARMINIE. Author of about two dozen volumes of fiction, much
of it romantic in nature, characterized by her first-hand knowledge of India
and Ceylon and by "marvelously voluptuous overwriting" (according
to Twentieth-Century Romance and
Historical Writers). She also published historical and non-fiction works
about India. Novels include Capt.
Desmond, V.C. (1907), Lilamani
(1911, aka Awakening), The Hero of Herat (1912), Desmond's Daughter (1916), Unconquered (1917), Lonely Furrow (1923), But Yesterday— (1927), Ships of Youth (1931), The Dream Prevails (1938), and Sylvia Lyndon (1940). Martin Edwards
has suggested she may have been the Jane LANGSLOW who co-wrote Gory Knight (1937) with Larminie.
|
|
DIXON, JOYCE CECILIA (18 May 1904 – 11 May 1981)
(née Barton)
1940s
Author of two children’s books—The
Rustication of Randy (1945) and Titania
Had a Daughter (1948). Her Author's
and Writer's Who's Who entry in 1948 says she wrote "country
novels," but it's unclear if this refers to the two known titles only or
to others as yet unidentified. It's also unclear if she’s also the Joyce
Dixon who published Christian stories for children.
|
|
DIXON, MARJORIE [NELLIE] (17 Apr 1887
– 11 Jul 1981)
(née Mack, aka Marjorie Mack)
1930s - 1960
Children's author, novelist, and memoirist. Her debut, The Red Centaur (1939), about the affairs of an aristocratic
French family seen through the eyes of an English child, was enthusiastically
reviewed by Graham Greene. According to a bookseller, Velveteen Jacket (1941) is a novel about a gamekeeper. Those two
titles were released as adult novels, though both deal substantially with
children and their perceptions of the world around them. She then made the
switch to writing directly for children. According to Kirkus, The Forbidden
Island (1960) is about the "wonderful and sometimes sinister world
of fairies." Other titles are The
King of the Fiddles (1941), Runaway
Boy (1942), and The Green-Coated
Boy (1957). She published two memoirs—Hannaboys
Farm (1942), presumably about her farming life with her husband in
Surrey, and The Educated Pin
(1944). I wrote enthusiastically about The
Red Centaur here, and rather less enthusiastically about Velveteen Jacket here.
|
|
DOBRÉE, VALENTINE (2 Nov 1894 – 14 May 1974)
(pseudonym of Gladys May
Mabel Dobrée, née Brooke-Pechell)
1920s – 1930s
Artist and writer, a fringe member of the Bloomsbury group via her friendship
with Dora Carrington (and, apparently, love affairs with both Carrington's
husband and her lover). Dobrée's two novels—Your Cuckoo Sings by Kind (1927) and The Emperor's Tigers (1929)—were praised by the likes of T. S.
Eliot and Graham Greene. Cuckoo
centers around the development of a young girl, while Tigers is described as an allegory about an emperor who sets up a
lush garden to contain the pet tigers only he is allowed to see. She also
published a story collection, To Blush
Unseen (1935), and a late volume of poetry, This Green Tide (1965). I reviewed Cuckoo here.
|
|
DODD, CATHERINE I[SABEL]. (1860 – 13 Nov 1932)
1900s – 1930s
Originally a writer on education and domestic economy, Dodd later published
around a dozen novels, including A
Vagrant Englishwoman (1905), Queen
Anne Farthings (1928), Scarlet
Gables (1929), Bells of Thyme
(1930), and Paul and Perdita
(1932), as well as a biography of Mary Shelley (1933).
|
|
Dodge, Mary Thurston
see LE FEUVRE, AMY
|
|
DOE, JANE (6 Apr 1891 - 1979)
(pseudonym of Nettie Ada
Lewis, née Brockley)
1930s
Journalist and columnist for the Daily
Chronicle and Sunday News, and
author of a single novel, The Enchanted
Duchess (1931), described by one source as a "bodice-ripper."
She also published three collections of her columns—Through the Glad Eyes of a Woman (1923), Glad Eye Views (1924), and Jane
Doe Calling! (1927).
|
|
DONALD, WINIFRED [WILSON] (1917 – 1 Sept 1999)
1940s – 1950s
Author of five girls' mystery tales with some school content, including Linda—the Schoolgirl Detective (1949),
Linda in Lucerne (1950), Linda and the Silver Greyhounds
(1952), Linda in Cambridge (1955),
and Linda in New York.
|
|
DONISTHORPE, G[LADYS]. SHEILA (17 Dec
1885 – 1 Sept 1946)
(née Leon, aka Lynne Dexter, Sheila appears to be an
adopted name replacing her real middle name, Milly)
1920s – 1930s
Playwright, novelist, and memoirist who appears to have had connections to
the theatre, since her memoir is called Show
Business (1943). Her novels are You
(1927), Loveliest of Friends!
(1931), described in a Neglected Books review of another book as an
"early classic of lesbiana" and marketed as lesbian pulp fiction
but apparently culminating in a preachy warning against such things, and Sets Your Star (1933, published in the
US as The Blind Journey). She also
wrote several plays, including one under her "Lynne Dexter"
pseudonym.
|
|
DONNELLY, [MARJORIE] MORWENNA (29 Mar 1917 - 1991)
(married name Collins)
1940s
Poet and author of several books on spiritual concerns, including Art and the Life of the Spirit (1947)
and Founding the Life Divine: An
Introduction to the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo (1955). She also wrote
one novel, The Dark Descent (1946).
She won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize for her volume of poetry, Beauty for Ashes (1942).
|
|
DORIEN, RAY (30 Apr 1897 – 4 Jun 1979)
(pseudonym of Eudora Rachel Dingle)
1930s – 1960s
Author of nearly forty romantic novels, including Fools in Paradise (1934), Anchor
at Hazard (1935), Flaw in the
Emerald (1937), Bridal Wreath
(1941), Gallant to Be Gay (1947), Not Saints, Sweet Lady (1948), Love Is a Masquerade (1950), Ladder of Desires (1953), Heart's Content (1956), Lyn Darling, M.D. (1958), Call Dr. Margaret (1961), and Dr. Drusilla's Folly (1963). Starting
in 1950, she published several travel books, including Venturing Abroad (1950), Venturing
to Australia (1951), and Venturing
Abroad: Majorca and Ibiza (1961).
|
|
Dormer, Daniel
see CORDEUX, KATE MARION
|
|
DORSET, JANE (dates unknown)
1940s – 1950s
Unidentified author of more than a dozen romance novels, including To-Morrow I'll Tell (1944), Beauty Married (1945), No Afternoon Bed (1947), Enter a Lady—Laughing (1950), The Deeper Dream (1952), and Two Kinds of Love (1957). Pam, a
reader of this blog, pointed out that a character in one of her novels is
named Caroline COMSTOCK, also the name of the unidentified author of a single
mystery—could this be a clue? Also, an article by “Jane Dorset, British
Fashion Writer” appears in a 1947 issue of the Ottawa Journal, but no further identification has so far been
made.
|
|
DORSET, F. H. (7 Sept 1890 – 22 Sept 1970)
(pseudonym of Frances
Beatrice Caroline Llewellyn-Thomas, née Carré)
1930s
Author of five novels, which seem to have been well-reviewed. The most famous
may be her last, The Marching Cloud
(1937), which reflects the women's suffrage movement and women's changing
social roles through the life of one woman. The Observer reviewer compared it to Trollope, no less. According to BBC Talk, Surging Tide (1931) "ends with a long and dramatic trial
scene which will key you up deliciously." Beggarman's Fortune (1934) is about a wealthy man whose legacy to
his nephews and nieces takes the form of a treasure hunt, complicated by
jewel thieves. The others are Silent
Meadows (1932) and The Window of
the World (1932).
|
|
DOUBTFIRE, DIANA [JOAN] (18 Jan 1918 – 1 May 2000)
(née Abrams)
1960s – 1980s
Author of psychological novels and thrillers, including Lust for Innocence (1960), Reason
for Violence (1961), Kick a Tin Can
(1964), Behind the Screen (1969),
and This Jim (1974). A contemporary
review of Reason for Violence
sounds thoroughly mad, involving a woman with a phobia about beetles who
murders the cousin who used to torment her with them. That novel, at least,
also seems to have some lesbian themes. Doubtfire also published books about
stamp collecting, creative writing, and self help.
|
|
DOUGAN, OLIVE [CONSTANT] (16 Sept 1904 – 4 Jan 1963)
(née McMicken)
Author of seven children's titles, including several girls' school
stories. Sims & Clare describe The
Bendon Bequest (1934) as her most conventional and formulaic book, but
compare some of her later titles to the works of Josephine Elder. The Schoolgirl Refugee (1940) and Schoolgirls in Peril (1944) deal with
the war. Her other titles are Tubby of
Maryland Manor (1945), Princess
Gwyn (1946), Nancy Finds Herself
(1947), and The Forbidden Holiday
(1948).
|
|
DOUGLAS, MARGARET (dates unknown)
1920s – 1940s
Untraced author of more than 20 romantic novels for J. Leng, including what
looks like a mystery, Murder at the
"Mike" (1936). Other titles include Diana Dean (1922), Love's
Sunlit Way (1924), The Loom of Love
(1925), Denholm's Daughter (1929), Nancy Pretty (1931), Riding for a Fall (1935), Though Seas Divide (1937), and For Love of Linda (1941).
|
|
Douglas, O.
see BUCHAN, ANNA
|
|
DOUGLAS IRVINE, HELEN [FLORENCE] (29
Feb 1880 – 22 May 1946)
1930s – 1940s
Scottish historian and author
of seven novels. 77 Willow Road
(1945) appears to be Gothic in themes, based on its jacket description:
"Told against the background of a sinister gaslit Victorian house, this is
the story of a lovely girl driven to ruin by the vicious jealousy of her
older sister." Others seem more romantic in theme. Titles are Magdalena (1936), Mirror of a Dead Lady (1940), Angelic
Romance (1941), Sweet is the Rose
(1944), Torchlight Procession
(1946), and Fray Mario (1949). Her
three earliest published works were histories—Royal Palaces of Scotland (1911), History of London (1912), and The
Making of Rural Europe (1923). She seems to have died of pneumonia while
researching a book in Chile.
|
|
DOUGLAS-PULLEYNE, HELEN ELIZABETH (25 Jul 1893 - ????)
(née Douglas, aka Mrs.
Douglas-Pulleyne)
1920s
Author of three novels—Spring Sorrel
(1926), about a dancer following her love around the world, This, My Son (1927), and The Frantic Master (1927). She was an
English lecturer in India in the 1930s, before relocating to Rhodesia, where
she was apparently still living in 1969.
|
|
DOUIE, MARJORIE [ELIZABETH GILFILLAN] (c1888 – 28 Feb 1946)
1910s
Author of three mystery/thrillers set in exotic locales—The Pointing Man: A Burmese Mystery (1917), The Man from Trinidad (1918), and The Man Who Tried Everything (1919).
|
|
DOWDALL, MARY FRANCES HARRIET (11 Feb
1876 – 18 May 1939)
(née Borthwick, aka Hon. Mrs. Dowdall)
1910s – 1920s
Author of seven novels about which information is sparse—The Book of Martha (1913), Joking
Apart (1914), The Kaleidoscope
(1915), Susie, Yesterday, To-Day, and
Forever (1919), Three Loving Ladies
(1921), The Tactless Man (1922),
and The Second Book of Martha
(1923).
|
|
DOWLING, NORA O'BEIRNE (c1880 - ????)
(née O'Beirne, earlier
married name Callanan)
1920s – 1930s
Author of two novels—The Grinding of
the Mills (1926) and Noon-Day Devil
(1933). We've not been able to trace her beyond a marriage record.
|
|
D’OYLEY, ELIZABETH (27 Jan 1880 – 16 Jun 1959)
1930s – 1950s
Author of at least 10 historical novels, often praised for their vivid
atmosphere. Titles are Goslings in the
Ashes (1934), Cavalier (1936), Young Jemmy (1947), Even as the Sun (1948), Lord Robert's Wife (1949), The Mired Horse (1951), The English March (1953), Prince Rupert's Daughter (1954), Play Me Fair (1956), and Why, Soldiers, Why? (1957). She also
edited numerous anthologies of poetry, essays and diaries, and produced an
adaptation of Ben-Hur for use in
schools.
|
|
DRAKE, MARGARET EVELYN (30 Dec 1904 - 1977)
1940s
Author of a single novel, Chrysantha
(1948), described as being about a 19-year-old girl’s search for “a suitable
man.” She had earlier published a book about gardens, Challenge to Gardeners (1943).
|
|
DREW, ANNE STANTON (c1890 - ????)
(pseudonym of ????)
Author of five romantic novels—Overture
(1931), Starlight (1933), The Gay Road (1934), Haven (1935), and The Capable Girl (1937). According to researcher John Herrington,
this seems to have been the pseudonym of a well-known actress, but her true
identity remains veiled.
|
|
DREW, ELIZABETH (17 Dec 1887 - 1965)
(married name Downs)
Critic, biographer, and novelist. She was
best known for her critical works, including The Modern Novel (1926)
and Jane Welsh and Jane Carlyle (1928). She published one novel, Six
Hearts (1930).
|
|
Drower, E. S.
see STEVENS, E[THEL].
S[TEPHANA].
|
|
Drury, C. M.
see ABRAHALL, CLARE HOSKYNS
|
|
DU GRIVEL, CLAUDE (29 Apr 1895 – 11 Nov 1964)
(pseudonym of Florence
Marie DuGrivel Oxenford, née Jandot)
1940s – 1950s
Mother of actress Daphne Oxenford, known for BBC radio's Life With Mother and a small role on To the Manor Born. Author of three historical novels—King, Queen, Knave (1946), set in
"the stirring days of King John and Magna Carta," The Tide Is High (1950), and Shadow King (1952).
|
|
DU MAURIER, ANGELA (1 Mar 1904 – 5 Feb 2002)
1930s – 1960s
Sister of Daphne DU MAURIER, daughter of actor Gerald du Maurier, and
granddaughter of George du Maurier, author of the bestselling Trilby. Author of 10 novels—The Perplexed Heart (1939), The Spinning Wheel (1940), The Little Less (1941), Treveryan (1942), Lawrence Vane (1946), Reveille
(1950), Shallow Waters (1952), The Road to Leenane (1963), Pilgrims by the Way (1967), and The Frailty of Nature (1969). She also
published two memoirs—It's Only the
Sister (1951), the title of which makes light of the fact that she was
perpetually overshadowed by her more famous sister, and Old Maids Remember (1965).
|
|
DU MAURIER, DAPHNE (13 May 1907 – 19 Apr 1989)
(married name Browning)
1930s - 1980
Sister of Angela DU MAURIER, daughter of actor Gerald du Maurier, and
granddaughter of George du Maurier, author of the bestselling Trilby. Author of sixteen novels and
several volumes of stories, as well as acclaimed histories and biographies. Her
most famous works remain the classic Gothic novel Rebecca (1938)
and the story "The Birds," from her collection The Apple Tree (1952, later reprinted under the titles Kiss Me Again, Stranger and The Birds and Other Stories), both
made into classic films by Alfred Hitchcock. It's less well-known that her
novella "Not After Midnight," from the collection of the same name
(1971, published in the U.S. as Don't
Look Now), was the source of Nicolas Roeg's classic thriller Don't Look Now. Her novels Jamaica Inn (1939), Frenchman's Creek (1944), and Hungry Hill (1946) were also made into
successful films. Other novels are The
Loving Spirit (1931), I'll Never Be
Young Again (1932), The Progress of
Julius (1933), The King's General
(1946), The Parasites (1948), My Cousin Rachel (1951), Mary Anne (1954), The Scapegoat (1957), Castle
d'Or (1961), The Flight of the
Falcon (1965), The House on the
Strand (1969), and Rule Britannia
(1972). Her memoir was Myself When
Young (1977, aka Growing Pains).
|
|
DUCAT, EVA (23 Sept 1875 – 1 Feb 1975)
1930s – 1940s
Friend, mentor, and "musical agent" of William Butler Yeats and
author of a memoir, Another Way of
Music (1928), which includes mention of many of her famous friends. She
later co-wrote three pony stories—The
Ponies of Bunts (1933), Sea Ponies:
The Story of a Children's Riding Holiday (1935), and Ponies and Caravans: Being Further Adventures from Bunts
(1941)—with Marjorie Mary OLIVER.
|
|
DUDENEY, MRS. HENRY (21 Oct 1866 – 21 Nov 1945)
(pseudonym of Alice Louisa
Dudeney, née Whiffin)
1890s – 1930s
Author of more than 50 volumes of fiction, many of them focused on working
class life, which earned her comparisons to Thomas Hardy and American writer
Mary Wilkins Freeman. According to OCEF,
"Her view of the predicament of women and the relationship of the sexes
is extremely pessimistic; and she paints a dark picture of the life of rural
agricultural labourers." Titles include Hagar of Homerton (1898), Folly
Corner (1899), Spindle and Plough
(1901), The Wise Woods (1905), A Country Bunch (1905), Trespass (1909), A Large Room (1910), Set to
Partners (1914), The Head of the
Family (1917), The Next Move
(1924), Seed Pods (1927), The Peep Show (1929), The House in the High Street (1931), Put Up the Shutters (1935), and Petty Cash (1937). Her diaries
appeared as A Lewes Diary, 1916-1944
in 1998.
|
|
Dudley, Helen
see HOPE-SIMPSON, JACYNTH
|
|
DUFF, JANET (4 Jun 1872 – ?1946)
(death year uncertain but probable)
1930s
Author of two novels, The Gay Cockerel
(1936) and Black Ritter (1937). A
publisher blurb for the latter calls it "A swift-moving drama of love,
passion and thwarted ambition played against a background of great wealth in
London and Austria." She was presumably also the author of an acting
guide published in 1934.
|
|
DUFF, MILDRED [BLANCHE] (26 Jan 1860 – 8 Dec 1932)
1900s - 1910
Salvation Army officer and author of various biographies for children,
focused on major historical and religious figures. She also published at
least two works of children's fiction, Rude
Rosa (1904) and Rosa's Resolve
(1910). Among her non-fiction was also a biography of Salvation Army
co-founder Catherine Booth (1901).
|
|
Duffy, Hans
see CLIVE, MARY
|
|
DUKE, WINIFRED [AMY] (22 Mar 1890 – 4 Apr 1962)
1920s – 1950s
Author of nearly 50 volumes of fiction, specializing in historical works and
tales focused on the psychology of crime. She seems to have had a particular
interest in Scotland's criminal court verdict of "Not Proven," the
effects of which she explored in Bastard
Verdict (1934) Skin for Skin
(1935), and The Dancing of the Fox
(1956). Other fiction includes The
House of Ogilvie (1922), The Laird
(1925), set in the mid-1700s, Heir to
Kings (1927), about Bonnie Prince Charlie, The Drove Road (1930), Magpie's
Hoard (1934), Room for a Ghost
(1937), Death and His Sweetheart
(1938), The Spider's Web (1945), Funeral March of a Marionette (1945), Dirge for a Dead Witch (1949), The Needful Journey (1950), Lost Cause (1953), and My Grim Chamberlain (1955). I've
written about several of Duke's novels—see here.
|
|
DUNCAN, JANE (10 Mar 1910 – 20 Oct 1976)
(pseudonym of Elizabeth
Jane Cameron, aka Janet Sandison)
1950s – 1970s
Author of
nearly 30 novels, as well as several works for children. She is noted for the
fact that, having written for years without attempting to be published (and
having apparently discarded many manuscripts), she had her first seven novels
accepted by Macmillan all at once, an unprecedented beginning to her career.
Those seven, as well as twelve additional titles, are in her “my friend” or
Reachfar series, which traces the life and friendships of Janet Sandison from
her childhood in the Scottish highlands through numerous life changes.
According to ODNB, the novels
"explore the mysteries of friendship and change, with the remembered
croft, Reachfar, as symbol of value. A vanished highland life is evoked
idyllically in The Miss Boyds
(1959), and darkly in Flora (1962),
but Duncan's range and complexity are remarkable, as seen in the witty Muriel (1959), the tragic Macleans (1967), the meditative Hungry Generation (1968), and the
intimate Sashie (1972)."
Duncan later published four novels as
"Janet Sandison," purported to be written by the narrator of her
other books—Jean in the Morning
(1964), Jean at Noon, or, Summer's
Treasure (1971), Jean in the
Twilight, or, the Mists of Autumn (1973), and Jean Towards Another Day, or, Can Spring Be Far Away? (1975).
|
|
DUNKERLEY, ERICA [ISOBEL] (16 Feb 1890 – 28 Dec 1959)
(aka Pamela Hamilton, aka
Erica Oxenham)
1920s – 1930s
Sister of Elsie OXENHAM. Author of four novels—Out of the Strong (1925), Whin
Fell (1927), Southernwood
(1929), and Then Came Nicholas
(1936). She later wrote a biography of the girls’ father, J. O.: A Life of John Oxenham, pseudonym
of W. A. Dunkerley (1942). Of Whin
Fell, the New York Times said,
"This novel of the English countryside is concerned with the age-old
themes of love and labor and human service. Margery Eager, the central
figure, is a girl who at first is vaguely discontented with life, not because
she finds her environment particularly onerous, but because she has no proper
vent for her abundant energies."
|
|
Dunlop,
Mona
see HOCKING, [NAOMI] ANNE
|
|
DUNN, GERTRUDE [WILLOUGHBY CECILIA] (1884 – 12 Jan 1949)
(née Meade)
1920s
Not to be confused with Gertrude COLMORE, whose real name was also Dunn.
Author of three novels—Unholy Depths
(1926), The Mark of the Bat (1928),
and So Forever (1929)—dealing,
respectively, with ghosts, vampires, and the elixir of life.
|
|
DUNN, GWEN[DOLEN MARGARET] (1917 – 26 Oct 2015)
(née Geary, prior married name Gibson)
1950s
Teacher and author of a single novel, Simon’s
Last Year (1959), about a village school, apparently adapted from a
series of broadcasts Dunn did on the topic, based on her own experiences. She
later published a book about the effects of televisions on young children.
|
|
DUNN, MARY (6 Apr 1900 – 2 Feb 1958)
1930s – 1950s
Children’s author, travel writer, and humorist. Best known for her
creation of Lady Addle, a pretentious Edwardian precursor to Hyacinth Bucket,
in Lady Addle Remembers (1936) and its sequels, Lady Addle at Home
(1945), The Memoirs of Mipsie (1947), and Round the Year with Lady
Addle (1948). She also published what appears to be an unrelated novel, Beware
of the Dog: A Study in Social Disease in Ten Lampposts and Seven Diversions
(1938). Her children's titles include The Adventures of Johnny Balloon
(1941), Mossy Green Theatre (1949), Mountain Mystery (1951), Border
Mystery (1952), and a career novel, Cookery Kate (1955). In later
years, she published a series of travel books, beginning with We Go to
Paris in 1951.
|
|
DUNNING,
[RHONA] KATHERINE (28 Jun 1900 – 21 Apr 1975)
(née Rowe)
1930s, 1950s
Author of four novels—Stephen
Sherrin (1932), The Spring Begins
(1934), Whatever the Heart Appoints
(1950) and The Bright Blue Eye
(1952). Bookman called the first
"sensitive and charming," and Saturday
Review described the theme of The
Spring Begins as "[e]motional turmoil among the domestics of a large
English country estate."
|
|
DUNSTAN, MARY (2 Mar 1901 – 13 Dec
1956)
(pseudonym of Patience Mary Agar-Robartes, née
Basset)
1930s – 1950s
Author of eleven novels. Her debut, Jagged
Skyline (1935, aka Snow Against the
Skyline) is about mountain climbing, while Banners in Bavaria (1939) was praised by Time & Tide for its "extraordinarily impressive picture
of Munich on the night of the Anschluss celebrations." The others are Live On (1936), The Driving Fear (1946), Winter
Rhapsody (1947), He Climbed Alone
(1948), What Comes After (1950), She Was Always There (1951), Tom Tiddler's Ground (1952), Walled City (1955), and Trusty and Well-Beloved (1956), the
last subtitled "The Story of a Cornish Royalist."
|
|
DURANT. M[ABEL ELIZA AGNES]. (10 Feb
1857 – 11 Jun 1924)
1900s – 1910s
Author of five novels—A Raised Siege
(1909), First-Fruits (1915), Repentance (1917), Rainbow Ranch: A Canadian Romance
(1918), and White Harvest (1919).
|
|
DURHAM, MARY (dates unknown)
1940s – 1950s
Author of eleven mystery novels, some or all featuring series character
Inspector York, but her identity remains veiled in obscurity. Titles are Why Pick on Pickles? (1945), Hate Is My Livery (1945), Keeps Death His Court (1946), Cornish Mystery (1946), Crime Insoluble (1947), Murder Has Charms (1948), Murder by Multiplication (1948), Corpse Errant (1949), Castle Mandragora (1950), Forked Lightning (1951), and The Devil Was Sick (1952). Keeps Death His Court is included in
an online list of Christmas mysteries.
|
|
DÜRING, STELLA M[ARIA]. (14 Jul 1858 –
1 May 1933)
(née Robinson, possibly later changed to Jocelyn or
Josling)
1890s – 1930s
Author of about 13 novels and romantic tales—Between the Devil and the Deep Sea (1898), Malicious Fortune (1901), Disinherited
(1908), The End of the Rainbow
(1909), Love's Privilege (1911), In the Springtime of Life (1912), The Temptation of Carlton Earle
(1920), Her Second Best (1923), The Girl Who Came Home (1926), A Lover from the Clouds (1928), Kitty's Masquerade (1928), The Girl and the Gold (1929), and The One Who Knew (1932). She also
wrote periodical fiction. She appears to have actually been born Maria Stella
Robinson, but apparently switched her names for writing purposes.
|
|
DYKE, WATSON (11 Mar 1875 – 12 Jun 1949)
(pseudonym of May Bradley)
1890s – 1920s
Author of four novels spread across three decades. The Monthly Packet said that her first, Craiktrees (1897), was "monstrously overweighted with
dialect." According to the Outlook,
her second, As Others See Us
(1899), is about "a silly but open-hearted, a deceitful but ingenuous
governess in a seaside boarding school." The Hunter (1918), published in the U.S. where Bradley lived for
a time, appears to be set in the rural U.S. The fourth and last title was Cousin Matthew (1929).
|
|
DYMOKE, JULIET (28 Jun 1919 – 7 Dec
1997)
(married name de Schanschieff)
1950s – 1990s
Screenwriter and author of more than 30 works of fiction, including numerous
historical novels. Titles include The
Sons of the Tribune: An Adventure on the Roman Wall (1956), The Orange Sash (1958), Born for Victory (1960), Treason in November (1961), Bend Sinister (1962), Henry of the High Rock (1971), Serpent in Eden (1973), Prisoner of Rome (1975), six volumes
of her Plantagenets series
(1978-1980), A Kind of Warfare
(1981), The Queen's Diamond (1985),
Hollanders House (1991), and A Fragile Marriage (1995).
|
|
DYSON, ELIZABETH [MARY] (27 Feb 1915 – 14 Oct 1991)
(married name Sacker)
1950s – 1960s
Unidentified author of seven historical novels, most with Scottish settings. With Swords in Their Lips (1956) and King's Cavalier (1960) have 17th
century settings, while Sassenach Wife
(1960), about a young English woman who marries and moves to a Scots castle
only to find her life may be in danger, seems to have thriller elements. The
exception to her Scottish settings is presumably Virginian Heritage (1961). Her other titles are The Dancing Highwayman (1954), Proud Suitor (1959), and The Frivolous Puritan (1961).
|
No comments:
Post a Comment