|
WHEATLEY, VERA
[MARY MAUD] (30 Nov 1890 – 4 Mar 1975)
(née Semple)
1920s – 1960s
Author of nearly 20 works of fiction for adults and children. These include
two related titles, Lilias Next-Door
(1924) and Lilias Goes to School
(1928), the latter a school story. Other children's titles are Into the Picture Screen, or, The Time of
Enchantment (1931), Summer with the
Morrisons (1954), and Always the
Wetherby Girls (1966). Her novels for adults appear to have romantic
themes, and include Devices and Desires
(1926), Single-Handed (1931), A Candle of Understanding (1947), and Love Has Many Tongues (1964). Wheatley
also published a biography, The Life
and Work of Harriet Martineau (1957).
|
|
WHEELER, MARGARET (dates
unknown)
1920s
Untraced author of one novel, The
Amazing Padre (1924), which sounds like a rather feisty
adventure/romance, and one girls' school story One Term at School (1925).
|
|
WHETTER, LAURA (21 Aug 1903 -
1960)
(married name Mannock)
1930s – 1950s
Author of more than two dozen romantic novels, including Empty of Heart (1934), Stolen
Thunder (1936), A Star Danced
(1940), Sunlight Sonata (1942), Dust for Dreams (1946), Whither Thou Goest (1952), Eve Without Her Eden (1953), and Bachelor Gay (1959).
|
|
Whibley, Polly
see JAMES, PAULINE M.
|
|
WHIPPLE, AMY (26 Mar 1854 – 18
Apr 1940)
1900s – 1930s
Author of more than 20 children's books, many with religious themes. Titles
include The Children of the Crag
(1913), Winning the Prize (1917), Two Pairs and an Old (1923), Dr. Appleby's Daughters (1925), and Purple-Splendour Island (1933).
|
|
WHIPPLE, DOROTHY (26 Feb 1893 –
14 Sept 1966)
(née Stirrup)
1920s – 1960s
Popular
novelist whose works have been revived by Persephone and has become their
bestselling author. She published 12 volumes of fiction for adults and four
more for children. Her eight full-length novels are Young Anne (1927), High
Wages (1930), Greenbanks
(1932), They Knew Mr. Knight
(1934), The Priory (1939), They Were Sisters (1943), Because of the Lockwoods (1949), and Someone at a Distance (1953). The last,
widely considered her best, is the tragic, lovely tale of a happy marriage
destroyed and a woman's efforts to rebuild her life in the aftermath. It's
also highly evocative of the immediate postwar years. The Priory is set during the leadup to the war, and includes a
poignant scene in which a pregnant woman imagines her chances of surviving a
bombing raid. (As a side note, E. M. Delafield's Provincial Lady in Wartime, published the following year,
recommends The Priory to a friend
as the perfect wartime reading.) And Hugh Walpole said of Greenbanks that it contained
"some of the best creation of living men and women that we have had for
a number of years in the English novel." Whipple's four other volumes of
fiction include the novella Every Good
Deed (1946) and three story collections, which have been recombined by
Persephone into two new volumes, The
Closed Door and Other Stories (2007) and Every Good Deed and Other Stories (2016). She also published a
memoir of her childhood, The Other Day
(1950), and Random Commentary
(1966), subtitled "Books and Journals Kept from 1925 Onwards" and
compiled from her working notebooks. The latter's first half contains
glimpses of her earliest successes as an author, as well as the trials and
concerns of day-to-day life, while the second half is composed of her
impressions of wartime life. After her final novel got a disappointingly
lukewarm reaction, she published four children's titles. I've written about
Whipple several times—see here.
|
|
Whistler, Mary
see POLLOCK, IDA [JULIE]
|
|
WHISTLER,
THERESA [THOMASIN DOLIGNON] (23 Apr 1927 – 20 Jul 2007)
(née Furse)
1950s, 1980s
Best known for her biography of Walter de la Mare, Imagination of the Heart (1993), she had earlier written two
children's books, The River Boy
(1955), which she also illustrated, and Rushavenn
Time (1988). She apparently married her brother-in-law a few years after
her sister's premature death.
|
|
WHITAKER,
MALACHI (23 Sept 1895 – 7 Jan 1976)
(pseudonym of
Marjorie Olive Whitaker, née Taylor, aka Ethel Firebrace [with Gay TAYLOR])
1920s – 1930s
Wildly acclaimed yet enigmatic author of four story collections—Frost in April (1929), No Luggage? (1930), Five for Silver (1932), and Honeymoon (1934). Vita SACKVILLE-WEST
compared her to Katherine Mansfield. In 1937, she published a humorous work
in collaboration with Gay TAYLOR called The
Autobiography of Ethel Firebrace, purportedly the memoir of a self-absorbed
best-selling author of delicate sensibilities—see here. She published
a memoir, And So Did I (1939),
described by ODNB: "Narrated
in her crisp and conversational style, it is a frank if fragmented account of
life just before the outbreak of the Second World War. Like her short stories
it is poised on a knife edge." In the same year, despite all the acclaim
she had received, she announced she had nothing further to say, and
thereafter published no new work. Her Selected
Stories appeared in 1946, but then it wasn't until 1984's The Crystal Fountain that her work
appeared in print again. In 2017 Persephone published a new collection called
The Journey Home and Other Stories.
|
|
WHITBY,
BEATRICE [JANIE] (c1856 – 20 Jan 1931)
(married name
Hicks)
1880s – 1910s
Daughter and wife of doctors, and author of about a dozen novels which ODNB
describes as "intelligent, very mildly feminist fiction".
Titles include The Awakening of Mary
Fenwick (1889), Part of the
Property (1890), Sunset (1897),
Bequeathed (1900), Flower and Thorn (1901), The Whirligig of Time (1906), The Result of an Accident (1908), and Rosamund (1911).
|
|
WHITE,
AGNES ROMILLY (4 Aug 1872 – 11 Jun 1945)
1930s
Irish author of two novels—Gape Row
(1934) and Mrs. Murphy Buries the
Hatchet (1936). Both were reprinted in the 1980s by White Row publishers
in Belfast. That publisher described the first book as "[a] boisterous,
rich, nostalgic book which immerses the reader in the cheerful chaos of
everyday life in a small Irish villlage on the eve of the First World
War." The second takes place in the same village ten years after the war
has ended.
|
|
WHITE, ANTONIA (31 Mar 1899 – 10
Apr 1980)
(pseudonym of Eirene Adeline Hopkinson, née Botting, earlier married
names Green-Wilkinson and Smith)
1930s - 1970
Translator and novelist best known for her debut, Frost in May (1933), an account of a
young girl in a Catholic boarding school, which has the distinction of having
been chosen as the very first Virago reprint and has been called the female
equivalent of Joyce's Portrait of the
Artist as a Young Man. White was by all counts a troubled soul—she was
committed to Bethlem Hospital (aka "Bedlam") for several months in
1922, suffered lifelong anguish due to doubts about her Catholicism, and had
troubled relationships with men (husbands and otherwise) and with her
children. Her personal turmoil
prevented her from publishing a second novel until The Lost Traveller in 1950, a sort of sequel to Frost in May (though the main
character has a different name). She continued the story in two more novels, The Sugar House (1952) and Beyond the Glass (1954). She also published
a story collection, Strangers
(1954). She worked on but never completed an additional novel, a portion of
which was published along with her memoirs in As Once in May (1983). She also wrote two children's books—Minka and Curdy (1957) and Living with Minka and Curdy: A Marmalade
Cat and His Siamese Wife (1970). Her diaries were published in the early
1990s. As a translator, White is known for her English translations of
multiple works by Colette, as well as the likes of Maupassant, Voltaire, and
Marguerite Duras.
|
|
WHITE, CONSTANCE MARY (2 Nov
1903 – 12 Sept 2004)
(née Lockett)
1930s – 1970s
Author of more than 40 volumes of fiction. Apart from five hospital stories,
beginning with Cadet Nurse at St.
Mark's (1958), which seem to have been marketed to adults, her work was
primarily for children, many for the "teen" market that publishers
had only just discovered. Sims & Clare counted 17 girls' school stories,
often with creative settings. These include A Sprite at School (1947), Ponies
at Westways (1949), four books set in a ballet school (1951-58), Film Stars at Riverlea (1952), Schoolgirl Reporter (1953), and School Afloat (1965), about a school
on a cruise ship. Non-school titles include The Adventurous Three (1939), Set
to Music (1954), Lynne Goes East
(1959), Rashid to the Rescue
(1961), The House with Blue Shutters
(1969), and Mystery of Matmos
(1970).
|
|
WHITE, DOROTHY VERNON [HORACE] (31
Jan 1877 – 27 Jul 1967)
(née Smith)
1900s – 1910s
Author of three novels—Miss Mona (1907), Frank
Burnet (1909), and Isabel
(1911). Her Times obit describes Frank Burnet as "a moral fable
about weakness and strength of character, written with great intelligence and
gusto." At age 30, she married William Hale White, who wrote fiction as
"Mark Rutherford" and was 45 years older than she. He died only two
years later, and she stopped publishing fiction. However, her Times obit also singles out The Groombridge Diary (1924), a
powerful account of their life together. For many years, White taught Bible
classes for impoverished youths, and wrote about her experiences in Twelve Years with My Boys (1912).
|
|
WHITE, ETHEL LINA (2 Apr 1876 –
13 Aug 1944)
1920s – 1940s
Author of seventeen novels, many of them thrillers involving young women in
peril. By far her best remembered work is The
Wheel Spins (1936), the source for Alfred Hitchcock's film The Lady Vanishes (1938, many reprints
of Wheel make use of this title), which
deals with the disappearance of a governess from a moving train. Hitchcock
adapted the novel freely—I wrote a bit about it here. White's first major success was Some
Must Watch (1933), which was also destined to be made into a famous
film—Robert Siodmak's The Spiral
Staircase (1948, subsequent reprints also make use of this title), about
a young woman spending the night in a remote Cornwall mansion, whose fellow
guests include a serial strangler. The
Third Eye (1937), reprinted by Greyladies, is about a young games
mistress at a girl's school going up against the evil second-in-command of
the school. And While She Sleeps
(1940), according to Contemporary
Authors, is about a woman
"randomly picked to be the victim of a murder. … [A]s one irritation
after another plagues her on the trip, she feels her luck has dried up.
Unbeknownst to her, however, each of these annoyances actually save her from
becoming the victim of foul play." White's other titles are The Wish-Bone (1927), 'Twill Soon Be Dark (1929), The Eternal Journey (1930), Put Out the Light (1931), Fear Stalks the Village (1932), The First Time He Died (1935), Wax (1936), The Elephant Never Forgets (1937), Step in the Dark (1938), She
Faded Into Air (1941), Midnight
House (1942), The Man Who Loved
Lions (1943), and They See in
Darkness (1944).
|
|
WHITE, HEATHER (12 Feb 1902 – 2
Jan 1979)
(pseudonym of Jess[ie] Mary Mardon Ducat, married name Foster)
1920s – 1950s
Author of 12 works of children’s fiction. She wrote several Guiding
adventures, as well as two school stories—The
New Broom at Prior's Rigg (1938) and The
Two B's and Becky (1939). Watersmeet
(1940) is about a "perky Cockney rebel" evacuated to a quiet
English village in the early days of WWII. Other titles include The Extravagant Year (1929), The Golden Road (1931), Daffodil Row (1937), Rowan in Search of a Name (1941), and Holiday in Rome (1955).
|
|
WHITE, JEAN (JEANIE) [GEORGINA] (23 May
1892 – 1960)
(née Will)
1930s
Scottish author of two novels set in
and around Buchan in Aberdeenshire. The Moss Road (1932) focuses on a
young woman’s early development, including her time at school and at a
training college in Aberdeen (White herself attended Aberdeen University). The
Sea Road (1935), set in a fishing village in northeastern Scotland,
focuses on the illegitimate daughter of a local woman who grows up and finds
success as a singer. Both novels seem to use "the guid aul' Scots
tongue" throughout. White’s father was the schoolmaster of New Pitsligo,
where she grew up.
|
|
WHITE, SYLVIA SCOTT (dates
unknown)
1960s
Author of two girls' pony stories—Ten-Week
Stables (1960) and its sequel, Pony
Pageant (1965). See here for more details.
|
|
WHITEHEAD, CHRISTINA [LILIAS WINGATE]
(15 Nov 1893 – 14 Jan 1970)
(née Morrison)
1930s
Author of a single novel, Youth on
the Prow (1935), an adventurous tale set in the Sudan during the 19th
century Nile explorations. One critic suggested it might be too youthful in
tone for most adult readers, too advanced in subject for most boys, but found
her knowledge of the region excellent. She had lived for a time in the Sudan
with her husband, Noel Tancred Whitehead, a “government bacteriologist” and
later on the staff of the Royal Infirmary at Hull.
|
|
WHITEHEAD, ELIZABETH (dates
unknown)
1940s
Author of one children's title, Adventurous
Exile (1946), about a party of English schoolgirls and teachers trapped
in France during World War II. There are a couple of religious-themed titles
with similar author names, but it's unclear if they're by the same person.
|
|
WHITEHEAD,
KATE (5 Aug 1896 – 22 Feb 1978)
(married name
Oxley)
1920s – 1930s
Wife of Selwyn Oxley, a pioneer educator of the deaf. Author of two novels, The King's Legacy (1928) and For Prince Charlie (1929), and several
children's books about cats, including Stubby:
The Story of a Cat as Told by Himself (1931) and Kellyann: Being the Story of a Manx Cat (1933).
|
|
Whitehouse, Peggy
see MUNDY-CASTLE, FRANCES
|
|
WHITELAW,
MARGOT (dates unknown)
1930s
Untraced author of more than a dozen short romantic novels, including The Flirting Bride (1931), A Wilful Woman (1932), A Broadway Butterfly (1932), The Girl Who Interfered (1932), The Marriage of Mockery (1933), Betty Breaks Away (1935), Beyond Her Reach (1936), Double-Crossed (1937), The Climber (1939),
|
|
WHITHAM, GRACE I[SABELLE]. (7
Feb 1874 – 16 Nov 1965)
1900s – 1930s
Author of more than 20 volumes of fiction, mostly historical children's
titles. These include Squire and Page:
A Story of Olden Days (1905), Basil
the Page: A Story of the Days of Queen Elizabeth (1908), The Nameless Prince: A Tale of Plantagenet
Days (1912), and When I Was a King
(1937). Works that appear to be for adults include Marjorie Conyers (1921), As
I Hear Tell (1924), Stinging
Nettles (1927), and Sarah's Husband
(1929).
|
|
WHITING, MARY BRADFORD (1863 – 9
Dec 1935)
1880s – 1930s
Biographer and author of more than 20 works of fiction for both adults and
children. Titles include Stronger than
Fate (1889), The Torchbearers
(1904), Meriel's Career: A Tale of
Literary Life in London (1914), A
Daughter of the Empire (1919), and a girls' school story called What Hazel Did (1924). She also
published two biographical books about Dante.
|
|
WHITLOCK,
PAMELA (21 Mar 1920 – 3 Jun 1982)
1930s – 1940s
Novelist and children's author, best known for four popular children's books
co-written with Katharine HULL, most famously The Far-Distant Oxus (1937), written when the pair were still
teenagers, about six children on their own in Exmoor. Their other
collaborations are Escape to Persia
(1938), Oxus in Summer (1939), and Crowns (1947). On her own, Whitlock
also published one adult novel, The
Sweet Spring (1952), described as “a charmingly evocative, chiefly
romantic, story of childhood and youth in a Devonshire Roman Catholic
family.” The dust jacket of a 1960 edition of Oxus featured a publisher's advert for another book by Whitlock,
called The Brockens: A Country Family,
to be published the following year, but in fact this book never seems to have
appeared. That the advert contains a fairly detailed summary of the book
suggests it was well under way or even finished, but if so it is unknown what
became of the manuscript.
|
|
WHITNEY,
JANET PAYNE (6 Sept 1889 - 1974)
(née Payne)
1940s – 1950s
Biographer and novelist. A Quaker who married an American and moved to
Pennsylvania, Whitney wrote six novels, some or all about 19th century
Quakers. Titles are Jennifer
(1941), Judith (1944), Intrigue in Baltimore (1952), The Quaker Bride (1954), The Ilex Avenue (1956), and Not for Ransom (1959). She also
published four biographies, including Abigail
Adams (1949).
|
|
Whittingham, Sara
see BRADLEY, NORAH MARY
|
|
WHITTLE,
NORAH [MARGUERITE] (20 Sept 1895 – 24 Jul 1971)
1950s – 1970s
Author of two early children's titles, The
Moated Manor and The Ring (both
1950), followed by more than a dozen novels which seem to be romantic in
nature, including Caroline (1964), Grapes from Thorns (1965), Crowsfell (1967), Poor Little Rich Girl (1973), and Thyme and Rue (1975).
|
|
WHITTON,
BARBARA (1921 – 21 Sept 2016)
(pseudonym of
Margaret Hazel Chitty, née Watson)
1940s
Author of one published novel, Green
Hands (1943), an enthusiastic and entertaining tale of a group of girls
in the Women's Land Army during World War II, which has been reprinted by the
Imperial War Museum. In correspondence, the author’s daughter mentioned that,
having recently married a surveyor in the Royal Artillery, her mother “wrote
it in a week sitting in a willow tree in Amesbury while my father was on a course
on the Salisbury Plain.” Later in the war, she served as a FANY and then a
driver in the ATS; she recorded these experiences in a second novel, The
Khaki Thread, which remains unpublished, though her daughters confirm the
manuscript still exists. Given her Land Army experience, it's perhaps
appropriate that she later worked as a florist. (Thank you to Deborah Edlmann
and Peter Andrews for providing information.)
|
|
WHITTON,
[FLORENCE] DOROTHY (16 May 1901 – 31 Oct 1984)
1940s
Author of two historical novels—White
Lady (1946), set in medieval England with a scullion as heroine, and Halo of Dreams (1948), about a young
girl inspired by Joan of Arc who gets involved with trying to put Henry VI
back on the throne.
|
|
WHYTE, ANNA D[UNLOP]. (12 Dec 1908 – 23
Dec 1994)
(married name Winchcombe)
1930s
Author of two novels
published by the Hogarth Press, complete with Vanessa Bell covers. Change
Your Sky (1935) is set among English folk escaping a dreary March in a
pension in Florence, and how the improved climate affects their
sensibilities. Lights Are Bright (1936) is about the adventures
(including hurricane and earthquake) befalling a heroine in pursuit of the
man she loves, and the new love she finds instead. Her writing was sometimes
compared to Virginia Woolf, but her own relationship with Woolf seems to have
been ambivalent and her admiration to have faded with time. She was born and raised in New
Zealand, but her parents were Scottish and she returned to England to attend
Cambridge and seems to have remained for the rest of her life. She was one of
the young women present at Newnham College for Virginia Woolf’s famous
lecture, as well as one by E. M. Forster. She worked for the BBC during World
War II, and in later years moved to Dorset with her family and managed Thomas
Hardy’s birthplace near Dorchester for the National Trust.
|
|
WHYTE,
CHRISTINA GOWANS (11 Jan 1869 – 18 Jul 1961)
(married name
Geddes)
1900s - 1910
Scottish author of seven children's books. Her debut, The Adventures of Merrywink (1906), won a £100 Bookman competition. The others are The Story-Book Girls (1906), Nina's Career (1908), Uncle Hilary's Nieces (1909), For the Sake of Kitty (1909), The Five Macleods (1909), and The Girls Next Door (1910).
|
|
Whyte, Violet
see STANNARD, HENRIETTE ELIZA
VAUGHN
|
|
Wick, Stuart Mary
see FREEMAN, KATHLEEN
|
|
WICKSTEED, HILDA M[ARY]. (3 Aug
1884 – 23 Oct 1950)
1920s – 1930
Author of three children's books—Titch:
The Story of a Dog (1920), Titch
& Jock (1922), and Jerry &
Grandpa (1930)—as well as a biography of her father, engineer Charles
Wicksteed (1933).
|
|
WILCOX, BARBARA [MAUD/MAUDE] (1
Jul 1896 – 19 Aug 1964)
(married name Smith)
1940s
Author of four children's books—Bunty
Brown: Probationer (1940), Bunty
Brown's Bargain (1942), Bunty of
the Flying Squad (1943), and Susan
at Herron's Farm (1946)—as well as cookbooks and non-fiction about rural
life with her future husband.
|
|
WILCOX, SUSAN (dates unknown)
1950s
Untraced author of a single girls' school story, Twins at Highfields (1954).
|
|
WILDIG, LAURA [MARY] (12 Aug 1880 – 7
Oct 1972)
(married name Pendred)
1920s
Playwright, artist, and author of a
single novel, Pandora's Shocks (1927), a farcical tale with
supernatural elements, in which an impoverished scientist pays his rent by
providing to his wealthy young landlady a “genie,” a man’s mind extracted
from his body, with whom she has many adventures. Wildig wrote at least four
plays produced in London—Once Upon a Time (1919), Priscilla and the
Profligate (1920), Punchinello (1924), and (after a considerable
absence noted in the play’s reviews) The Boleyns (1951). She was part
of an informal group known as The Launderers (see here), which also included a number of young actors
and artists, as well as a young Antonia WHITE, Mary GRIGS, and Naomi JACOB,
the last of whom also appeared in one of Wildig’s plays.
|
|
WILENSKI, MARJORIE [ISOLA] (26
Jun 1889 – 25 May 1965)
(née Harland)
1940s
Wife of art critic and historian Reginald Wilenski.
Author of one novel, Table Two
(1942), about a group of women translators in the fictional Ministry of
Foreign Intelligence in London, just before and during the Blitz. I reviewed
it here, and it was
reprinted in 2019 as a Furrowed Middlebrow book from Dean Street Press. On
the 1939 England & Wales Register, she was working as a luggage buyer for
a department store
|
|
WILKES,
MARY (dates unknown)
1940s
Untraced author of one novel,The Only
Door Out (1945), discussed in Anna Bogen's Women's University Fiction,
1880–1945. Other details
about her are lacking.
|
|
WILKINSON, ELLEN [CICELY] (8 Oct
1891 – 6 Feb 1947)
1920s – 1930s
Journalist,
political figure, activist, and author of two novels. She is most widely
known as one of the first women MPs, representing Jarrow, and was part of the
iconic 1936 Jarrow March, about which she published the non-fiction The Town that was Murdered (1939). She
was later a junior minister under Churchill during World War II and became
Minister of Education in 1944, only the second woman to serve as a minister.
Her first novel, Clash (1928), set
during the 1926 General Strike, provides fascinating insight from Wilkinson's
own experiences. Her second novel was a mystery, The Division Bell Mystery (1932), about the murder of a wealthy
financier in the House of Commons, which has been reprinted in the British
Library Crime Classics series.
|
|
WILLANS, KATHARINE M[ARY]. (27
Aug 1907 – 27 Sept 1965)
(married name Rustige, aka Martha Holt)
1930s
Author of four novels—Faith Unfaithful
(1933), The Proceedings of the Society
(1935), Virgin Martyr (1936), and The Banker and His Daughter (1939),
the last published under her pseudonym.
|
|
WILLARD, BARBARA [MARY] (12 Mar
1909 – 18 Feb 1994)
1930s – 1990s
Author of more than 70 volumes of fiction. She began with nearly a dozen
adult novels, including Love in Ambush
(1930), Name of Gentleman (1933), Joy Befall Thee (1934), about a family
of theatrical costumiers, Set Piece
(1938), The Dogs Do Bark (1948),
and Portrait of Philip (1951),
about Philip Sidney. It's unclear whether 1951's Celia Scarfe, published in the U.S., might be an American edition
of an earlier book or if it wasn't published in the U.K. at all—it's theme of
an unwed mother giving up her son for adoption, then getting a chance to
adopt him back, could possibly have been unpalatable to her British
publisher? After 1958's Winter in
Disguise, she turned to children's fiction, and was most famous for her
Mantlemass series, nine tales, beginning with The Lark and the Laurel (1970), tracing one English family from
the 15th to the 17th century. Other children's titles include a trio of tales
about children spending holidays with their lively aunt—Snail and the Pennithornes (1957), Snail and the Pennithornes Next Time (1958), and Snail and the Pennithornes and the
Princess (1960)—as well as Eight
for a Secret (1960), The Suddenly
Gang (1963), The Richleighs of
Tantamount (1966), The Battle of
Wednesday Week (1968), The Country
Maid (1978), and The Ranger's
Daughters (1992). I've written about her here.
|
|
WILLCOCKS, M[ARY]. P[ATRICIA].
[SUSAN] (17 Mar 1869 – 22 Nov 1952)
1900s – 1930s
Critic, biographer, translator, and author of sixteen works of fiction. Some
of her early fiction, such as Widdicombe
(1905) and A Man of Genius (1908),
was influenced by Hardy. Other titles include The Sleeping Partner (1919), Ropes
of Sand (1926), Delicate Dilemmas
(1927), and The Cup and the Lip
(1929).
|
|
WILLCOX, KATHLEEN M[ARY]. (30
Jul 1899 – 24 Apr 1990)
1920s – 1960s
Author of three girls' school stories—The
Mystery of the Third Form Room (1926), Averil's Ambition (1927), and The
Stanford Twins at St. Faith's (1934). She is probably the same author who
wrote travel books for children in the 1960s. John Herrington found a
newspaper story from 1938 about a court case in which Willcox and a woman
with whom she had lived for five years sued one another for alleged expenses
and debts.
|
|
WILLETT, HILDA [MARY] (11 Nov 1878 – 13 Apr 1960)
1920s – 1940s
Author of twelve novels, of which at least nine are
mysteries or thrillers. So It Goes On
(1930) is a tale of married life, first from the husband’s point of view,
then from the wife’s, and April, May
and June (1931) features an immature young woman novelist who grows up
quickly after finding both love and tragedy during a visit to her sister in
Cornwall. Her final novel, Lilac Silk (1947), is referred to by a
bookseller as a Cornish romance, but I could locate no details about it. Of
her crime novels, the first two, Tragedy
in Pewsey Chart (1929) and Diamonds
of Death (1930), both feature international intrigue surrounding famous
jewels. Murder at the Party (1931)
and Found Shot (1934) both deal
with murderous festivities, while Mystery
on the Centre Court (1933), about the disappearance of a prestigious
accountant, opens at Wimbledon. Bucket
in Well (1932) is a humorous tale of a young couple who enter domestic
service to escape financial problems, only to have to protect their employer
from a gang of confidence tricksters. Accident
in Piccadilly (1935) involves missing jewels, a shady boarding-house, and
an auto “accident” in the heart of London. Peril in Darkness (1935), set in Cornwall, features a medical
student on holiday, who gets mixed up in intrigue after befriending a young
blind girl. And It's Quiet in the Country
(1946) features a young girl fresh from the blitz, led to a quiet English
village by a dying man’s last words—and finding German spies.
|
|
WILLIAMS, ELMA M[ARY]. (3 Jun
1913 – 3 Aug 1971)
1950s – 1960s
Author of 16 volumes of fiction, some or all of
which appear to be romantic thrillers. Titles of these include The Waiting Years (1957), To Africa—the Bride (1958), Love in a Mist (1960), Strange Legacy (1961), Escape to Death (1961), Tomorrow a Stranger (1962), Owls Do Cry (1964), and Where Is Sylvia? (1967). Paul's Secret Courage (1967) appears
to be her one work for children. In later years, she was better known for her
memoirs about her animal sanctuary, Pant Glas, which overlooked Dovey
Estuary. These titles include Pig in
Paradise (1964), Animals Under My
Feet (1965), Heaven on my Doorstep
(1970), and Ride a Cock Horse
(1971).
|
|
WILLIAMS,
GRACE LLOYD (dates unknown)
1930s
Untraced author of a single short romance, Her Son's Choice (1932).
|
|
WILLIAMS,
[ANNIE] MARGUERITE (dates unknown)
1920s – 1940s
Biographer and author of eight novels, possibly with religious themes—The Garden of Healing (1925), Splendid Joy (1926), Steeps to the Stars (1927), A Mother of Men (1929), The Hands of a Man (1934), Our Folk (1937), Just Common Clay (1939), and Be
Merry, My Dear (1942). She also published Blazing the Trail: A Pageant of British Baptist History (1940).
|
|
WILLIAMS, M[ARION]. P[ERCY].
(1920 – 17 Jul 2015)
(née McLoughlin)
1950s – 1970s
Irish author of seven children's titles—Nigerian
Holiday (1959), All Because of Dash
(1960), Jewel of the Light (1961), Adventures at Sandend (1963), Teenage Talking Point (1964), Terry's Triumphs (1973), and Friends for Jeremy (1975). A 1954
passenger list shows her arriving in the U.K. from a previous home in
Nigeria, planning to settle in Belfast with her missionary husband. She later
lived in Swansea.
|
|
Williams, Mary
see NETHERCOT, MARY
|
|
WILLIAMS, PATRY
(pseudonym of Marguerite Patry [26 Aug 1884 – 10
Mar 1958] & Dorothy Frances Williams [29 Oct 1889 - ????])
1920s – 1950s
Joint authors of ten novels. The
Gulf Invisible (1925) is focused on a young Englishwoman’s difficult
marriage to a French nobleman. The Other Law (1926) features the
dramatic financial and emotional ups and downs of a pair of twins. Fool's
Wisdom (1928) looks at the effect on its hero of wealth acquired in
newly-developed regions (those overseen by “the sleepy, intriguing Latin
temperament”). Jacob's Ladder (1929) is about a young woman’s loss of
wealth and decision to make a fresh start in Paris. In Word of Tomorrow
(1931), two cousins who share a name get into trouble involving an
inheritance, and later concerning a woman. Holly Hedge (1934) is about
a young married couple’s love problems. Over the Garden Wall (1936)
features a man’s resistance to the suburban sprawl eating into his estate.
After that, the authors turned to historical writing, with a particular
interest in early British history. I Am Canute (1938) focuses on
Ethelred the Unready and Edward Ironside, as well as the title king. God's
Warrior (1942) "deals with one of the most exciting periods of early
English history, when young Edgar was on the throne, with his lovely and
lively Queen Elfrith, and the saintly Dunstan was Archbishop." And Alfred
the King (1951) is set during the years of brutal Viking incursions. On
the 1939 England & Wales Register, the two women are living together in
Farnham, Surrey, but I still have been able to trace Williams in later
records. [Thanks to Mark Harris for alerting me to these authors.]
|
|
Williams, Peggy
see EVANS, MARGIAD
|
|
WILLIAMS,
URSULA MORAY (19 Apr 1911 – 17 Oct 2006)
(married name
John)
1930s – 1980s
Illustrator and author of more than
60 children's titles. Her best known work is probably Adventures of the Little Wooden Horse
(1938), about a toy pony who sets out in the world to make a living. She also
published pony stories and family adventures. Titles include Jean-Pierre (1931), Anders and Marta (1935), A Castle for John-Peter (1941), Gobbolino the Witch's Cat (1942), The Three Toymakers (1945), The Binklebys at Home (1951), The Binklebys on the Farm (1953), The Moonball (1958), Beware of This Animal (1964), The Cruise of the "Happy-Go-Gay"
(1967), Man on a Steeple
(1971), The Kidnapping of My
Grandmother (1972), No Ponies for
Miss Pobjoy (1975), and Paddy on
the Island (1987).
|
|
WILLIAMS, WINIFRED (dates
unknown)
1930s – 1940s
Author of a story collection, Fellow-Mortals
(1936), and one novel, The Beehive
(1941), set in a large Yorkshire mill. According to this site, she was born in Stainland and taught at the Bolton Brow School in
Sowerby Bridge, but there are still too many possibilities in the records to
positively identify her.
|
|
WILLIAMS-ELLIS, [MARY] AMABEL
(ANNABEL) [NASSAU] (25 May 1894 – 27 Aug 1984)
(née Strachey)
1920s – 1930s
Cousin of Lytton Strachey as well as Dorothy STRACHEY and Marjorie
STRACHEY. She began writing in collaboration with her husband, architect
Clough Williams-Ellis. She later published numerous non-fiction works for
children, and several collections of fairy tales because she felt there was
“a real need for authentic re-tellings of traditional tales if Disney and
Enid BLYTON were not to reign supreme." She published five novels—Noah’s Ark (1925), about a young
couple vainly resisting their instincts to marry and reproduce, The Wall of Glass (1927), which
surveys the political scene of the day, including fictional versions of
recognizable figures, To Tell the Truth
(1933), a fable about communism and capitalism, The Big Firm (1938), about the workings of a large chemical
company, and Learn to Love First
(1939), described as a Ruritanian political fantasy. A volume of stories
focused on the Russian Revolution, Volcano
(1931), resulted from her 1928 trip to Russia. A book of games Williams-Ellis
wrote with her husband, In and Out of
Doors (1937), was popular during World War II as a means of entertaining
children during long nights in air raid shelters. Headlong Down the Years: A Tale of To-Day (1951), written with her
husband, is described by the Orlando Project as a satire written in the style
of Thomas Love Peacock. I reviewed her first novel here.
|
|
Williamson, Ethel
see VEHEYNE, CHERRY
|
|
WILLMOT, [ANNIE] FLORENCE (17
Oct 1857 – 19 Apr 1955)
1900s – 1920s
Author of seven volumes of Christian-themed children's fiction, including one
school story, Care of Uncle Charlie (1912).
Other titles are The Tender Light of Home
(1908), Benedicite: A Karoo Reverie
(1909), Loyal Hearts and True
(1910), The Heart of a Friend: A Story
for Girls (1911), Kitty and Kit
(1912), and Sheila's Inheritance
(1924).
|
|
WILLOUGHBY,
[LOUISE] CECILIA (4 Jun 1905 – 26 Aug 1985)
(married name
Craven)
1930s
Author of three novels, including Friday's
Moon (1932), which the Bookman compared
(unfavorably) with Mary WEBB's Precious
Bane. The others are Mellory's Yard
(1934) and The Silver Fountain
(1935).
|
|
WILMOT-BUXTON, ETHEL MARY (c1870 – 22 Apr 1923)
1880s – 1920s
Prolific author of children's non-fiction and
retellings of classic stories and folk tales. Her late novel Gildersleeves (1921) is included in
the Encyclopaedia of Girls' School
Stories on a list of grownup school stories.
|
|
WILSON, DESEMEA (20 Jun 1878 –
16 Mar 1964)
(née Newman, aka Barbara Desmond, aka Diana Patrick)
1920s – 1940s
Mother of Romilly CAVAN. Author of more than 30 romantic
novels, most under the name "Diana Patrick", including The Islands of Desire (1920), Dusk of Moonrise (1922), Dreaming Spires (1923), Gay Girl (1927), Outpost of Arden (1930), Fragile
Armour (1936), and A Little Season
(1943).
|
|
WILSON, G[ERTRUDE]. M[ARY]. (25
Jul 1899 – 13 Jul 1986)
(née Bryant)
1940s – 1970s
Schoolteacher, comic strip writer, children’s writer, and author of two dozen
novels, many of them detective stories with genuinely unexplained
supernatural elements. These often feature series characters Miss Purdy (a
mystery writer herself) and Inspector Lovick. Risky (1948), her debut, was a non-series title about a young
woman mixed up in her grandfather’s murder and adventures that make those of
her own heroine, in the serial adventure stories she writes, look tame. My
Cousin Gary (1951) is about two cousins who loath one another and who
jointly inherit their grandmother’s wealth, leading to intrigue and murder.
Next, she tried her hand at a children’s book, Cousin Jenny (1954), before turning to crime writing. Those
titles include Bury That Poker
(1957), It Rained That Friday
(1960), Witchwater (1961), Murder on Monday (1963), Nightmare Cottage (1963), Do Not Sleep (1968), Death is Buttercups (1969), She Kept On Dying (1972), and Death on a Broomstick (1977). John at
Pretty Sinister has posted enthusiastically and informatively about her
work—see here—and, inspired by John, Martin Edwards made Nightmare Cottage one of his "forgotten books" here.
|
|
WILSON, ROMER (26 Dec 1891 – 11
Jan 1930)
(pseudonym of Florence Roma Muir Wilson, married name O'Brien)
1910s – 1920s
Novelist, playwright, and biographer, whose fiction often focuses on artists
and the impacts of war. Martin Schüler
(1918), is about a relentlessly ambitious German composer, while If All
These Young Men (1919),
according to ODNB, is about "the enervating impact of the war on
the home front." The Death of Society (1921), which won the
Hawthornden Prize, traces the love of an Englishman for an older Norwegian
women. Her other novels were The Grand Tour (1923), Dragon's Blood (1926),
and Greenlow (1927). She also published two novellas, Latterday
Symphony (1927) and The Hill of Cloves (1929), as well as three
collections of fairy tales from around the world. Her one biography was All
Alone: The Life and Private History of Emily Jane Brontë (1928). Wilson
died of tuberculosis at age 38.
|
|
WILSON, THEODORA WILSON (13 Jan
1865 – 8 Nov 1941)
1900s – 1940
Social worker, Biblical writer, and author of more
than 40 volumes of fiction for children and adults. Among her children's
fiction are two school stories, The
Founders of Wat End School (1932) and The
St Berga Swimming Pool (1939). Other fiction includes T'Bacca Queen (1901), Father M.P. (1904), Sarah the Valiant (1907), Moll o' the Toll-Bar (1911), The Children of Trafalgar Square
(1915), Netherdale for Ever!
(1919), The Undaunted Trio (1923), The Explorer's Son (1928), The Sole Survivor (1935), Margot Fights Through (1936), and The Disappearing Twins: A Lakeland Yarn
(1940). Wilson is discussed in some depth in Rediscovering Forgotten Radicals, edited by Angela Ingram and
Daphne Patai. She was a committed pacifist and a Quaker.
|
|
WILSON-FOX, ALICE [THEODORA]
(1863 – 4 Dec 1943)
(née Raikes)
1900s – 1920s
Author of about 10 works of fiction for adults and children,
including The General's Choice (1905), A Dangerous Inheritance (1909),
Hearts and Coronets (1910), Love in the Balance (1911), A
Regular Madam (1912), Too Near the Throne (1918), and Charmian:
Chauffeuse (1925).
|
|
WILTSHIRE,
MARY (1887 – 7 May 1958)
(pseudonym of
Frances Mary Isborn)
1920s – 1940s
Cellist, music teacher, and author of ten novels, often set in and around
Wiltshire. Titles are Patricia Ellen
(1924), Thursday's Child (1925), The Lesser Breed (1926), The Burying Road (1928), He Who Come After (1931), John Quaintance (1932), Heritage (1933), Cockle and Barley (1935), To-Morrow
(1938), and These Maintain the City
(1947).
|
|
WINCH,
EVELYN M. (17 Jul 1895 – 23 May 1939)
(pseudonym of
Marie Elspeth Agnes Winch, née Makgill)
1920s – 1930s
Born in Auckland to British parents, but living in Scotland by age 4. Author
of 16 novels, most of them romantic with mystery and suspense elements.
Titles include The Mountain of Gold
(1928), The Hunting of Hilary
(1929), Enemy's Kiss (1935), The Luck Shop (1935), The Dark Path (1936), Passport to Happiness (1937), Happily Ever After (1938), and Mankiller (1939). In 1939, with mental
health issues exacerbated by overwork and anxieties about the approaching
war, Winch committed suicide.
|
|
Winch, John
see BOWEN, MARJORIE
|
|
WINGATE,
LITITIA BERYL (11 Dec 1881 – 24 Oct 1944)
(née Tucker,
aka Mrs. Alfred Wingate)
1920s – 1930s
Novelist and historian who specialized in writing about China. Her six novels
are A Servant of the Mightiest
(1927), about Genghis Khan, Jên
(1928), about Marco Polo, Before Sunset
(1929), Thereabouts (1933), London Luck (1933), and Within a Generation (1939).
|
|
WINNCROFT, EILEEN (1 Nov 1901 -
1992)
(pseudonym of Henrietta Winifred Macloughlin, née Pryke, earlier
married name Franckeiss, aka Martha Blount)
1930s
Journalist and author of two novels—Be
a Gent, Little Woman, Be a Gent (1938) and Angels in Ealing (1939), both discussed by Brad Bigelow at
Neglected Books here. She wrote for The Daily Express
under her Blount pseudonym, and also collaborated with Else Wendel on her
memoir of life in Germany during wartime, Hausfrau
at War (1957). She later wrote about child-rearing. Thank you to Brad for
the heads up about his discoveries and identification of her.
|
|
Winstanley, Edith Maud
see HULL, E[DITH]. M[AUDE].
|
|
WINSTANLEY, LILIAN (18 Nov 1875
– 28 Sept 1960)
1900s, 1920s
Literary scholar, poet, and author of five novels—Stolen Banns (1907), a melodrama set
in Yorkshire, The Winged Lion
(1908), about “a man who grows tired of civilisation, and takes to the open
road,” The Scholar Vagabond (1909),
set in Wales, “a summer idyll, a gentle dreamy tale with a poetic touch,” The Double Disappearance (1925), a
mystery involving the disappearance of two husbands, and The Face on the Stair (1927), set in the days of the stage coach
and concerning a young man’s attempts to avoid capture by mysterious
pursuers. Winstanley wrote several critical works about Shakespeare, as well
as volumes on Shelley and Tolstoy.
|
|
Winter, John Strange
see STANNARD, HENRIETTE ELIZA
VAUGHN
|
|
Winterton, Mark
see KIDD, BEATRICE ETHEL
|
|
WOGAN, JANE REES (13 Jul 1899 –
17 Nov 1979)
(pseudonym of Janet Evelyn Cousins)
1930s
Author of two historical novels—Go
Down, Moses (1936) and Green
Heritage (1937)—both apparently set in Jamaica after the abolition of
slavery.
|
|
WOLFE, ELIZABETH [SOPHIA
FRANCIS] (8 Mar 1898 – 18 Jan 1966)
(née Heygate, aka Evylyn Fabyan [with French author Fabienne Lafargue])
1940s
Sister of novelist John E. M. Heygate, reportedly the model for John Beaver
in Evelyn Waugh's A Handful of Dust.
Wolfe co-authored, with French author Fabienne Lafargue, several novels under
the pseudonym Evylyn Fabyan. John Herrington found traces of a joint contract
with the two for Painted Toys
(1940), The Varleys of the New Forest
(1941), I Do Betray (1942), and In Loving Thee (1943). It's not clear
whether a fifth novel using the name, Margot
(1945), is also by both authors. According to a blurb, The Varleys of the New Forest is set in and around the movie
industry in Hollywood.
|
|
WOOD, LESLEY (dates unknown)
1920s
Author of a single girls' school story, The
Tangled Twins (1928).
|
|
WOOD, LORNA M[ARY]. (16 Jun 1913
– 10 Dec 2010)
(married name Swire)
1930s – 1970s
Author of more than 20 volumes of fiction, best known for her series of
children's books about the "hag" Dowsabel, which included The People in the Garden (1954), The Hag Calls for Help (1957), Holiday on Hot Bricks (1958), Seven-League Ballet Shoes (1959), Hags on Holiday (1960), Hag in the Castle (1962), Rescue by Broomstick (1963), and Hags by Starlight (1970). Her first
published title was The Crumb-Snatchers
(1933), a novel which the Spectator
called "vivacious." Two subsequent titles, Gilded Sprays (1935) and The
Hopeful Travellers (1936), appear to also be for adults. Her childhood,
which she described in a Contemporary
Authors entry, was clearly unconventional—no formal education, raised in
a home without gas or electricity, then discovered as a musical prodigy and
giving regular concerts. She and her husband visited Spain during the Spanish
Civil War, and she contributed a piece about their experiences,
"Correspondent's Wife," to the 1939 anthology Nothing But Danger.
|
|
WOOD, MOLLY (19 Oct 1909 – 16
Oct 1994)
(married names Phillips and Troke, aka Hester Bourne, aka Lyn Arnold)
1940s, 1960s – 1970s
Author of four early novels as Lyn Arnold—Joy
as It Flies (1940), The Home-Coming
(1943), Tea with Lemon and Flash of Joy
(1943), and Holiday from Life
(1945), followed by seven later crime and romance novels as Hester Bourne—The Spanish House (1962), In the Event of My Death (1964), Where Is Evie Alton? (1968), After the Island (1969), The Red Raincoat (1970), A Scent of Roses (1971), and The House Across the Water (1972).
Could she have used other pseudonyms in the years in between?
|
|
WOODGATE,
MILDRED VIOLET (26 Jan 1886 – 27 Feb 1978)
(aka Oliver
Barton)
1920s – 1930s
Author of numerous biographies of religious figures, as well as at at least
seven novels and a children’s book. Under her Barton pseudonym, she published
The Eye of the Peacock (1928), a treasure adventure set in Persia, The
City of Death (1934), about the discovery of a lost tribe in Mexico, and The
Ring of Fate (1939), set in ancient Athens. The Children of Danecourt Park (1924) is children’s fiction. In
the 1930s, she wrote several crime novels. The Secret of the Sapphire Ring (1930) is about the murder of a
wealthy Englishman and a ring which holds an amazing secret. The Two Houses on the Cliff (1931) is
described as a “gripping murder puzzle” set on the Dorset coast. Pauline's Lady (1931), a murder
mystery set in the Victorian period and narrated by a governess, was compared
to the works of M. E. Braddon, and The
Silver Mirror (1935) is based on the case of Constance Kent, a girl who
murdered her brother through jealousy. A later work, The Cross of Twigs
(1945), was also published by Mellifont Press, as were several earlier
novels; it could also be fiction, but information about it is extremely
scarce. Steve at Bear Alley discussed Woodgate in depth here.
|
|
WOODHOUSE, FRANCES (dates unknown)
1930s
Unidentified author of a single
novel, Country Holiday (1935), about "an extremely shy young
doctor who misses the happiest things in life, but manages to make a good
business of it after all."
|
|
WOODHAM-SMITH, CECIL [BLANCHE]
(29 Apr 1896 – 16 Mar 1977)
(née Fitzgerald, aka Janet Gordon)
1930s – 1940s
Best known as the author of four acclaimed historical volumes—Florence Nightingale 1820-1910 (1950),
The Reason Why (1953), about the
Light Brigade, The Great Hunger:
Ireland 1845-9 (1962), and Queen
Victoria: Her Life and Times Vol. 1 (1972) (she died before completing a
planned volume 2). She began her career with three pseudonymous novels. April Sky (1938) tells what happens
when a young office worker falls for her employer's son, and a critic noted
that it "contains dozens of passages describing frocks, food and houses,
yet every line will be absorbed with interest by the Cathy's of the world who
imagine that someday they, too, will be whisked from their office chair to
live the heroine's life." Tennis
Star (1939) features a shop-girl’s rise to fame as a tennis champion. And
Just Off Bond Street (1940) was
described as "the happiest kind of escapist reading—a vivid, fast-moving
love story of Elizabeth and Larry, told in a series of enthralling
episodes." A blurb for her first novel calls her "a writer whose
short stories are famous on both sides of the Atlantic."
|
|
WOODHOUSE, RENA (3 Sept 1898 –
21 Aug 1965)
(full name Rena de Vere Woodhouse, Baroness Terrington, née Swiney,
other married names Howell, Humphrey, and Billingham, aka Rena Woodhouse)
1930s
Journalist, socialite, and author of two novels—All That For Nothing (1931), in which she stated that she had
tried to capture the spirit of her youth, and It Happened to Me (1937), the latter as Rena Woodhouse. Her third
marriage was to Harold James Selbourne Woodhouse, 2nd Baron Terrington, but
their wedded bliss was short-lived as he soon after spent several years in
prison.
|
|
Woodroffe, Daniel
see WOODS, MARY
|
|
WOODS, MARGARET LOUISA (20 Nov
1855 – 1 Dec 1945)
(née Bradley)
1880s – 1920s
Poet and author of ten volumes of fiction. Her
well-received debut, A Village Tragedy
(1887), deals with the plight of an unwed mother. The Vagabonds (1894) deals with a group of circus performers. The Invader (1907) is the tale of a
woman whose hypnotism results in a sexually free alternate personality. Other
novels are Esther Vanhomrigh
(1891), Sons of the Sword (1901), The King's Revoke (1905), A Poet's Youth (1923) and The Spanish Lady (1927). Come Unto These Yellow Sands (1915) is
a collection of children's tales with supernatural themes. She also published
a story collection, Weeping Ferry and
Other Stories (1897).
|
|
WOODS, MARY (1 Oct 1860 – 18 Nov
1943)
(née Woodroffe, aka Daniel Woodroffe, aka Mrs. J. C. Woods)
1890s – 1910s, 1930s
Author of
at least five novels as Daniel Woofroffe—Her
Celestial Husband (1895), Tangled
Trinities (1901), The Beauty Shop
(1905), The Rat-Trap (1912), and The Quicksand (1933)—and one as Mrs.
J. C. Woods, The Evil Eye (1903).
|
|
WOODTHORPE, GERTRUDE [IRENE] (7
Aug 1888 – 1 Mar 1977)
1930s
Author of one volume of poetry, Sunflower
and Elm (1930), and one novel, Spring
Head (1935), the latter about the growth of a young girl to maturity and
her eventual marriage to the elderly widower of her good friend. It received
an enthusiastic review from the Observer.
|
|
WOODWARD,
AMY [LUCY] (17 Jun 1883 – 23 Jan 1974)
(née Temple)
1930s – 1950s
Author of nearly 20 volumes of fiction for children and adults. Titles
include The Treasure Cave (1931), The Missing Diamonds (1934), The Two Adventurers (1934), The Quest (1938), Michael Drives the Car (1939), Mrs. Bunch's Caravan (1940), The
Serpents (1947), and The Haunted
Headland (1953). Life Is Sweet: The
Intimate Diary of an Author's Wife (1943) could be non-fiction, but if so
I haven't determined who her author husband was.
|
|
WOOLF, BELLA SIDNEY (1876 – 24
Nov 1960)
(married names Lock and Southorn)
1890s – 1930
Sister of Leonard Woolf. Travel writer and author
of nearly a dozen children's books. Titles include Jerry and Joe: A Tale of the Two Jubilees (1897), All in a Castle Fair (1900), Dear Sweet Anne, or, The Mysterious Veres
(1906), The Twins in Ceylon (1909),
More About the Twins in Ceylon
(1911), The Golden House (1912),
and Chips of China (1930). Her
travel writing includes the first Western guidebook to Ceylon, How to See Ceylon (1914), as well as Killarney and Round About (1901), Eastern Star-Dust (1922), and Under the Mosquito Curtain: Sketches of
Life in the East (1935).
|
|
WOOLF, [ADELINE] VIRGINIA (25
Jan 1882 – 28 Mar 1941)
(née Stephen)
1910s – 1940s
A central
figure in 20th century British literature, Woolf published ten novels, as
well as short fiction, voluminous essays and reviews, biography, a play, and
a famous diary spanning most of her career. Her novels are The Voyage Out (1915), Night and Day (1919), Jacob's Room (1922), Mrs. Dalloway
(1925), To the Lighthouse (1927), Orlando (1928), The Waves
(1931), Flush (1933), The Years (1937), and Between the Acts (1941). She wrote two
very famous long essays, A Room of
One’s Own (1929), about the difficulties for women of being creative
artists, and Three Guineas (1938),
a passionate condemnation of war and fascism. So much critical and
biographical work on Woolf exists that it's impossible to even approach here,
but Hermione Lee's biography (1996) is an excellent place to begin.
|
|
WOOLFITT,
SUSAN (13 May 1907 – 29 Aug 1978)
1940s
Memoirist and author of one children's title, Escape to Adventure (1948), about youngsters having adventures on
the canals of England. This presumably draws on her own experiences as a
canal boat worker during World War II, recounted in her memoir Idle Women (1947).
|
|
WORGER,
BIDDY (6 Jun 1891 – 8 Sept 1958)
(full name
Edith Worgel, née Wotzel, earlier married name Gaskins)
1930s
Author of four humorous novels—A Page
from Life (1933), Bessie the Bus
(1934), Dusky Ladies (1935), and The Memoirs of Bartimus Winkle (1936).
Her second husband was a doctor and she apparently spent some years in the
Medical Service in Fiji, where some of her fiction appears to be set.
|
|
WORSLEY-GOUGH,
BARBARA [KATHLEEN] (29 Jul 1903 – 10 Oct 1961)
(married name
Hale)
1930s – 1950s
Author of seven well-received humorous novels and two mysteries, as well as
books on cooking and fashion. A Feather
in Her Cap (1936) is the tale of several Bright Young Things on a
month-long jaunt to Austria, while The
Sly Hyena (1951), according to the West
Australian, "tells of life in London today, with excursions to
country houses which include a castle in Ireland and a whimsy cottage in the
Surrey hills." I reviewed the former here. The other
novels are Public Affaires (1932), Sweet Home (1933), Nets to Catch the Wind (1935), Learn to Be a Lady (1938), and Old Father Antic (1955). Her two
mysteries are Alibi Innings (1954,
reprinted by Penguin), set in the cricketing world, and Lantern Hill (1957), set in the pop music industry.
|
|
WRAY, I. (20 Apr 1894 – 14 Feb
1969)
(pseudonym of Iris Elaine Bickford, married name Palliser)
1930s
Author of
two mystery novels. The Vye Murder
(1930) was praised by The Spectator
for its portrayal of women, and Murder—and
Ariadne (1931), about a murder following a "rowdy house party",
was praised by the West Australian
as "ingeniously constructed".
|
|
WRIGHT, CATHERINE [MARY] (22 Jan
1907 – 13 Feb 1985)
(née Pearson)
1930s
Author of three novels—Garment of
Repentance (1935), about a woman’s love from a Rhodesian planter, set in
both London and Africa, Primroses and
Peacocks (1936), about the disillusionment of a well-to-do woman of 19
who marries a farm laborer, and Odd Man
for Dinner (1936), which may have crime elements and deals with a man who
falls in love with a married woman. Her granddaughter is Daphne Wright, who
publishes crime fiction under her own name and several pseudonyms.
|
|
WRIGHT, CONSTANCE [METCALFE]
HAGBERG (12 Aug 1862 – 11 Jan 1949)
(née Lockwood, earlier married name Lewis)
1920s
Not to be confused with American author Constance Choate Wright. Author of
one children’s book, Tales of Chinese
Magic (1925), and one novel, The
Chaste Mistress (1930), about the 1779 murder of Martha Ray, which has
also been memorialized by Wordsworth and discussed by Elizabeth JENKINS.
|
|
WRIGHT, DOROTHY (1910 – 1996)
1930s, 1950s
Teacher and writer on basketmaking, playwright, screenwriter, and author six
novels. The Gentle Phoenix (1938),
a comedy about a young woman from a family of artists, earned a comparison to
Margaret KENNEDY's The Constant Nymph.
Laurian and the Wolf (1957) is
about a couple of young newlyweds on honeymoon in Italy and back home in
London. Among the Cedars (1959) is
about the neglected daughter of a divorced couple, who spends a summer in
Austria with a young widow and her family. Her other novels are Shadows in Sunlight (1936), Queens Wilde (1950), and Advance in Love (1953). In spite of a
mini-bio here, which provided the dates shown above, I've so far been unable to
trace her in public records.
|
|
WRIGHT,
ESTHER TERRY (17 Jan 1913 – Oct 1984)
(married name
Hunt)
1940s – 1950s, 1970s
Author of three novels. Pilot's Wife's
Tale (1942) is a more or less autobiographical portrayal of her pilot
husband's injuries and recovery after being shot down during the Battle of
Britain. The Prophet Bird (1958),
about a couple struggling in the postwar years, is, according to the author's
son, also autobiographical in theme. Her last, A Vacant Chair (1979), is the short, humorous tale of the owners
of a Covent Garden flower shop. Following her divorce, Wright took her first
job at the age of 46, going to work at the BBC. (Thank you to Charles Hunt
for his information about his mother and her books.)
|
|
WRIGHT, FRANCES C[AMILLIA].
(dates unknown)
1950s
Untraced author of one school story listed by Sims and Clare, The Mystery of the Trees (1954), and
its sequel, The Mystery of the Lovelace
Luck (1957), a non-school story in which the three main characters are on
holiday together. [Thank you to Nicola Davies for her information on these
titles.]
|
|
Wright, Francesca
see ROBINS DENISE NAOMI
|
|
WYATT, [MARY] ISABEL (22 Oct
1901 – 9 Jul 1992)
(née Foster)
1930s – 1970s
Children's author and popular reteller of legends
and folklore for children. Titles include The
Book of Fairy Princes (1949), Seven-Year-Old
Wonder Book (1958), The Dream of
King Alfdan (1961), King
Beetle-Tamer and Other Lighthearted Wonder Tales (1963), and The Witch and the Woodpecker (1970).
She also published non-fiction analyses of Shakespeare and the legends of
King Arthur. Two early titles published by Hodder & Stoughton—Maid's Malady (1930) and Cheese Carnival (1934)—appear to be
novels, but little information is available beyond the fact that the former
may be a dialect novel set on "the moors."
|
|
WYCHWOOD, SUSAN (dates unknown)
1930s
Untraced author of a single girls' school story, French Leave (1936), set in a small boarding school in a French
provincial town. I wrote a bit about it here.
|
|
WYLD, DOREEN (DORIS) [ELISE] (8
Oct 1897 – 6 Jul 1969)
1950s
Author of two girls' school stories which, according to Sims & Clare,
were published in reverse order, with Hilary
Takes a Hand (1952) beginning the major plotlines and The Girls of Queen's Mere (1950)
concluding them.
|
|
Wylde, Katharine
see COLVILL, H[ELEN].
H[ESTER].
|
|
WYLIE, I[DA]. A[LEXA]. R[OSS].
(16 Mar 1885 – 4 Nov 1959)
1910s – 1950s
Suffragist, popular short story writer, and author of more
than 30 works of fiction. Towards
Morning (1918) was praised as a relatively balanced portrayal of post-WWI
Germans. The Bookman called Ancient Fires (1924) "[a]n
exquisite love story set in a modern background that smacks nevertheless of
witch craft and medievalism and strange, sinister powers." Keeper of the Flame (1942) was made
into film of the same name starring Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy.
Other titles include The Native Born,
or, The Rajah's People (1910), The
Red Mirage (1913), Tristam Sahib
(1917), The Dark House (1922), The Silver Virgin (1929), Furious Young Man (1936), Strangers Are Coming (1941), Where No Birds Sing (1947), and Claire Serrat (1959).
|
|
WYLLARDE, DOLF (3 Apr 1871 – 10
May 1950)
(pseudonym of Dorothy Margarette Selby Lowndes)
1890s – 1930s
Sister of Armine GRACE. Author of more than 40 volumes of fiction which,
according to OCEF, span "both
exotic tales and more serious examinations of the predicament of single
women." Titles include A Lonely
Little Lady (1897), As Ye Have Sown
(1906), The Unofficial Honeymoon
(1911), Youth Will be Served
(1913), Exile: An Outpost of Empire
(1916), The Lavender Lad (1922), The Water Diviner (1923), The Career of Beauty Darling (1926), Miss Pretty in the Wood (1929), The Girl Groom (1936), and Claimed Under Heriot (1939). Among her
books were at least two for children—Things
(1915) and They Also Serve: A Story for
Girls (1924).
|
|
Wyndham, Esther
see LUTYENS, MARY
|
|
WYNNE, ALICE CLARA VERONICA (2
Dec 1889 – 4 Mar 1969) & EMILY ADELAIDE (11 Jun 1871 – 12 Jun 1958)
1920s
Sisters and authors of a single novel, Every
Dog (1929), a far-fetched-sounding farce about a businessman trying to escape his responsibilities. The Spectator called it “tedious,
though funny in places.” Although their substantial age difference made it
plausible for them to be mother and daughter, they are both clearly on the
1901 census with their parents.
|
|
WYNNE, MAY (1 Jan 1875 – 29 Nov 1949)
(pseudonym of Mabel Winifred Knowles, aka Lester Lurgan)
1900s – 1940s
Enormously
prolific author of more than 200 books, including adult romance and suspense,
historical fiction, children's adventure and holiday stories, girls' school
stories, and religious fiction. In the early 1910s, she published six novels
under her Lurgan pseudonym. Among her innumerable titles are Ronald Lindsay (1905), The Red Fleur-de-Lys (1912), The Hero of Urbino (1914), Roseleen at School (1920), The Spendthrift Duke (1921), Peggy's First Term (1922), Jean Plays Her Part (1926), Plotted in Darkness (1927), Belle and Her Dragons (1931), The Unseen Witness (1932), Two Maids of Rosemarkie (1937), Sadie Comes to School (1941), The Terror of the Moor (1943), and The Unsuspected Witness (1945).
According to one notice of her death, she had been a tireless worker in
support of needy dockworkers, including during the Blitz.
|
|
WYNNE,
PAMELA (15 Apr 1879 – 29 Jan 1959)
(pseudonym of
Winifred Mary Scott, née Watson)
1920s – 1950s
Author of more than 60 romance novels. Her first success was Ann's An Idiot (1923), which was
filmed as Dangerous Innocence.
Other titles include Penelope Finds Out
(1926), Love In A Mist (1932), Love Begins At Forty (1936), and Merry Widows (1943).
|
|
WYNNE-TYSON, ESMÉ (29 Jun 1898 –
17 Jan 1972)
(pseudonym of Dorothy Estelle Esmé Innes Ripper, married name Tyson,
aka Esnomel, aka Amanda, aka Diotima)
1920s
Child
actress, playwright, philosopher, and novelist. Security (1927) is, according to its jacket blurb, about the
"lengths a woman will go to to ensure security for herself and her
children when it is jeopardised by the sins of the father." Quicksand (1927) was an adaptation of
a play she co-wrote with Noël Coward. Three more novels—Momus (1928), Melody
(1929), and Incense and Sweet Cane
(1930)—followed, before she began to focus on journalism and philosophy. She
later wrote three more philosophical novels with John Davys Beresford—Men in the Same Boat (1943), The Riddle of the Tower (1944), and The Gift (1947)—though according to ODNB they collaborated on seven more
that were published under Beresford's name only. She used her Amanda
pseudonym for children's stories and her Diotima pseudonym for journalistic
work.
|
|
WYNNE-WILLSON,
D[OROTHY]. [MARY] (22 Feb 1909 – 25 Feb 1932)
1930s
Author of a single novel, Early
Closing (1931), an adult novel set in a boys' school which was a
selection of the Book Society. She died of influenza the following year
having just turned 23. Poignantly, she had a twin sister who lived until
1996. A memoir of Wynne-Willson was published by novelist and bibliophile
Michael Sadleir. I wrote in more detail about the novel and her tragic death here.
|
|
YARDLEY, MAUD H[OGARTH]. (6 Mar
1867 – 1 May 1954)
(née Crofts)
1900s – 1910s
Novelist whose first book, Sinless (1906), is described by OCEF: "in which a man returns from India after ten years to
meet his wife, with another man identically circumstanced, meets the wrong
one in the fog at Charing Cross station, and spends the night with her by
mistake. By the end they have contrived to shake off their other halves and
are living happily ever after." Others are Nor All Your Tears (1908), To-day
and Love (1910), Love's Debt
(1913), For You (1913), Because (1913), At the Door of the Heart (1913), A Man's Life Is Different, or, The Sleeping Flame (1914), Soulmates (1917), and Mrs. John (1919). Her birth record
clearly shows her name as Maud Hogarth Croft, but her marriage record shows
her name as Maude Mannering, and Ancestry trees show her parents as Montagu
Mannering and Esther Croft, suggesting that her parents may not have been
married at the time of ther birth.
|
|
YEO,
MARGARET [DOROTHY] (1 Apr 1877 – 12 May 1941)
(née Routledge)
1910s - 1940
Author of Christian-themed biographies and fiction. Novels include The Comrade in White (1916), The Abiding City (1916), Salt (1927), A King of Shadows (1928), Wild
Parsley (1929), and Uncertain Glory
(1930).
|
|
YOLLAND, E. (dates unknown)
1890s – 1910s
Unidentified author of seven novels, about which little information is
available. Her debut, In Days of Strife
(1896), is subtitled "Fragments of fact and fiction from a Refugee's
history in France, 1666 to 1685." A bookseller describes Sarolta's Verdict (1899) as a
"Gothic novel set among Hungarian gypsies." And her final novel, The Struggle for the Crown: A Romance of
the Seventeenth Century (1912), is apparently aimed at young women and is
narrated by a lady-in-waiting to Elizabeth of Bohemia, the "Winter Queen."
The others are Mistress Bridget
(1898), Vanity's Price (1900), The Monk's Shadow (1902), and Under the Stars (1907).
|
|
YORKE, CURTIS (1854 – 3 May
1930)
(pseudonym of Susan Rowley Long, married name Richmond Lee)
1880s – 1920s
Popular
author of dozens of "cheerful, lightweight romances" (OCEF), including Hush! (1888), The Mystery
of Belgrave Square (1889), Bungay
of Bandiloo (1903), Queer Little
Jane (1912), Dangerous Dorothy (1912),
The Level Track (1919), Miss Daffodil (1920), The Woman Ruth (1921), and Maidens Three (1928).
|
|
Yorke, Jacqueline
see MATTHEWMAN, PHYLLIS
|
|
YORKE,
MARGARET (30 Jan 1924 – 17 Nov 2012)
(pseudonym of
Margaret Beda Larminie, married name Nicholson)
1950s – 2000s
Author of more than 40 novels, most of them crime fiction, often set in
English villages, featuring ordinary people driven by circumstance to crime.
She began her career with several works of general fiction, including Summer Flight (1957), Deceiving Mirror (1960), and The Limbo Ladies (1969). I wrote about
the last of these here. Five of her
novels from the 1970s feature Oxford don Patrick Grant, but in most of her
work—according to Contemporary Authors—“Yorke
was best known as an author of the ‘whydunit,’ rather than the ‘whodunit.’
Few of her plots revolve around discovering the criminal. Instead the reader
watches as the criminal wreaks havoc—or tries to—on the other characters in
the story.” Crime titles include No
Fury (1967), The Small Hours of the
Morning (1975), Death on Account
(1979), Find Me a Villain (1983), Speak for the Dead (1988), and Cause for Concern (2001). The five novels featuring Patrick Grant are
Dead in the Morning (1970), Silent Witness (1973), Grave Matters (1973), Mortal Remains (1974), and Cast for Death (1976).
|
|
YORKE, VICTORIA (dates unknown)
1920s – 1930s
Unidentified author of three novels. Five
of Hearts (1927) tells of two sisters, alone and penniless, and how they
prevail—"Love and business mix well in this novel, which has much to
commend it, for it is well and smartly written and is off the beaten track of
fiction." Her other two have crime elements—Sealed Lips (1928),
in which an actress kills her blackmailer and goes on the run, and Suppressed
Evidence (1931) about a man who commits perjury to save his wife from
suspicion, and the repercussions of his lies. She could well be the Victoria
Margaret Yorke (née Gerald) 1900-1976, but there’s too little to go on to be
sure.
|
|
Young, Diana
see RAYMOND, DIANA
|
|
YOUNG, DIANA FRANCES (18 Aug
1894 – 24 Feb 1965)
(married name Martienssen)
1930s
Author of four novels about which I have little information. Titles are Storm Before Sunrise (1935), The Unfinished Symphony (1937), Stray Cat (1938), and Son of the Dark (1939).
|
|
YOUNG, D[OROTHY]. V[ALERIE]. (dates unknown)
1950s – 1970s
Unidentified author of at least seven books, all or
most historical fiction. The Passionate
Years (1959) is set during the English Civil War, The Queen's Galleons (1962) in Elizabethan Cornwall, and The White Boar (1963) deals with
Richard III. King's Tragedy: The Life
and Times of Richard III (1971) certainly sounds like biography, but is
classed as fiction on Worldcat, and The
Little Madam: Henriette Marie de Bourbon, Queen of Great Britain, Daughter of
France (1974) may be for younger readers. Other titles are The Tudor Cub (1967) and The Bride from Modena (1978). Her
publisher, Robert Hale, said she lived in Sileby, Leicestershire, but so far
no definite identification has been made.
|
|
YOUNG, ELLA (26 Dec 1867 – 23
Jul 1956)
1900s, 1920s – 1930s
Poet, Celtic mythologist, and children's author, born in Ireland but
immigrated to the U.S. in the 1920s, where she taught at Berkeley for several
years. Her four acclaimed children's books were The Coming of Lugh (1909), which was illustrated by none other
than Maud Gonne, The Wonder-Smith and
His Son (1927), The Tangle-Coated
Horse and Other Tales: Episodes from the Fionn Saga (1929), and The Unicorn with Silver Shoes (1932).
Her memoirs were published as Flowering
Dusk (1945).
|
|
YOUNG, E[MILY]. H[ILDA]. (21 Mar
1880 – 8 Aug 1949)
(married name Daniell)
1910s – 1940s
Author of eleven novels and two children's books, known for her blending of humor with
serious themes of female freedom and growth. Miss Mole (1930), often considered her best work, deals with a
damaged, outspoken, spinster housekeeper/companion and won the James Tait
Black Memorial Prize. Her other novels are A Corn of Wheat (1910), Yonder
(1912), Moor Fires (1916), A Bridge
Dividing (1922, aka The Misses Mallett), William (1925), The
Vicar's Daughter (1927), Jenny Wren
(1932), The Curate's Wife (1934), Celia (1937), and Chatterton Square (1947). Her two children's titles are Caravan Island (1940) and River Holiday (1942). In 2020, Dean
Street Press reprinted Miss Mole as
a Furrowed Middlebrow book. Chatterton
Square has also been reprinted in the British Library Women's Classics
series. I've written about Young here.
|
|
YOUNG, F[LORENCE]. E[THEL].
MILLS (28 Aug 1875 – 6 Nov 1945)
1900s – 1940s
Author of more than 50 novels, often set in South Africa and generally
romantic in tone, though she published at least one early sci-fi/fantasy
novel called The War of the Sexes
(1905). Other titles include A
Dangerous Quest (1904), Atonement
(1910), The Purple Mists (1914), Beatrice Ashleigh (1918), Foreshadowed (1921), The Wine Farm (1924), The Inheritance (1928), The Rich Cargo (1932), Dreamlight (1938), and Two Streams (1945).
|
|
YOUNG,
PATRICIA (1921 - ????)
1940s – 1960s
Author of 20 novels, including Narrow
Streets (1942), Far Flung Seed
(1943), The Devil and His Apple
(1945), Dockside Symphony (1947), The Gallant Opportunist (1949), East of Bow Bells (1950), London's Child (1954), Half Past Yesterday (1959), Taffy (1961), and Sweet the Dream (1961).
|
|
YOUNG,
[ALICE] RUTH (26 Jan 1884 – 2 Dec 1983)
(née Wilson)
1920s
Primarily known as a poet, she also published one novel, The Serpent's Head (1922), and one children's book, The Sea-Gull and the Sphinx: A Fairy Story
(1924). She later published two biographies, Mrs. Chapman's Portrait: A Beauty of Bath of the 18th Century
(1926) and The Life of an Educational
Worker, Henrietta Busk (1934).
|
|
ZANGWILL, EDITH AYRTON (1875 – 5 May
1945)
1900s – 1920s
From a family of pioneering women (her mother was a
doctor, her stepmother a scientist), Zangwill was a suffragist and activist
as well as author of six novels. Her early novels deal humorously with
women's issues—The First Mrs Mollivar
(1905), for example, is about a woman who marries a widower and finds herself
haunted by his first wife. Later works are more serious, particularly The Call (1924), which deals with the
suffrage movement, and The House
(1928), which deals with her own nervous breakdown. The others are The Barbarous Babes: Being the Memoirs of
Molly (1904), Teresa (1909),
and The Rise of a Star (1918).
|
No comments:
Post a Comment