The “lost” update

This list contains the 160 authors added to my British & Irish Women Writers list in an update in May of 2022. I’m posting the list separately here for anyone who wants to look over the new additions without going through the entire list. I'll be doing a couple of new posts to discuss some of these authors

ADENEY, [MARJORIE] NOËL (19 Dec 1890 – 24 Jan 1978) (née Gilford) 1950s Artist and author of a single novel, No Coward Soul (1956), based in part on her relationship with novelist and artist Denton Welch. She attended the Slade and was a member of the London Group of artists.

AGAR, WINIFRED [MABEL] (11 Nov 1901 – 25 Apr 1984) (married name Mackintosh) 1930s - 1940 Born in Buenos Aires to mixed Irish/American/British parents, married a Brit and lived most of her adult life in London. Her first novel, Living Aloud (1938), was a biting, critically acclaimed satire of Bright Young Things. Her second, Mermaids Sleep Alone (1940), appeared after she had evacuated to the U.S. with her children.

ALLDRIDGE, ELISABETH (dates unknown) 1940s Illustrator of Barbara Euphan Todd's Wurzel Gummidge books and author of a single children's title of her own, The Blue Feather Club (1940), about London children discovering the wonders of the countryside. Despite her well-known work in the Gummidge books, attempts to identify her have so far failed.

ANDERSON, RUTH [MARY CLEMENTI] (26 Mar 1908 – 18 Feb 1986) (married name Fasnacht) 1930s Author of a single novel, Commercial Hotel (1936), praised by the likes of Cyril Connolly and L. P. Hartley, about the comings and goings in a Midlands hotel over the course of one week. She also published The Roads of England (1932), subtitled "Being a Review of the Roads, of Travellers, and of Traffic in England, from the Days of the Ancient Trackways to the Modern Motoring Era."

ANDREW, PRUDENCE [HASTINGS] (23 May 1924 -                      ) (née Petch) 1960s – 1980s Novelist and author of children's titles, including works for reluctant readers. Her Ginger series, beginning with Ginger over the Wall (1962) focuses on a group of working class children, and was among the first British series to prominently feature black characters. Later books, though acclaimed for their compelling plots, also wrestle with social issues, disability, and neglect. She published several novels for adults, some historical in subject, including The Hooded Falcon (1960)—which qualifies her for this list, A Question of Choice (1962), A New Creature (1968), and A Man with Your Advantages (1970). Her last publication was in 1984, but from public records it seems possible she is still alive.

ASHE, ELIZABETH (3 Dec 1924 – 14 Feb 1987) (pseudonym of Lavender Beryl Hyde, née Lloyd) 1950s Author of a single novel, One Man's Island (1959), about a man running away from domestic difficulties to an island in the Indian Ocean, only to find greater problems there. Born to British parents in Peshawar, Pakistan.

ASPINALL, [HONOR] RUTH [ALASTAIR] (31 May 1922 – 13 Nov 2012) 1950s – 1970s Daughter of Clare SCARLETT. Author of more than a dozen novels, most romantic in nature. Her debut, Mine Own to Give (1955) is set in Cornwall and follows three friends from their idyllic childhood to a more troubled adulthood. In High Hunter (1957), a young woman takes a job as secretary to a successful author, while in A Song on the Wind (1967), a young woman gives up her job as a secretary and takes a job as a gardener for a mysterious singer who has a breakdown. Some of Aspinall's plots seem to border on melodrama, as with The Dark Side of Magic (1971), about the terrible consequences of a woman's decision to attend a pot party. Others include Hellweather (1959), Yesterday's Kingdom (1961), Cross Current (1964), Sin, and Nicholas Vernon (1966), Lee Shore (1975), and The Sand Clock (1979)

ATHEN, ASTOR (dates unknown) 1940s Unidentified author of a single thriller, The Ladies Leave the Castle (1948) set in a castle in the Austrian Tyrol and featuring a young woman in peril. Although the author is unidentified and the name is probably a pseudonym, I'm confident having read it that the author is a woman.

AVERY, ELIZABETH (15 Sept 1913 - 2005) (pseudonym of Nancy Edith Scott, née Avery) 1950s – 1960s Registered nurse and author of four novels which make use of her professional experiences, including The Margaret Days (1959), The Marigold Summer (1960), Nurse Has Four Cases (1961), and Sister Bollard (1963). She was the wife of novelist Paul Scott. Scott's Wikipedia page includes this sad tidbit: "Scott's wife Penny had supported him throughout the writing of The Raj Quartet, despite his heavy drinking and sometimes violent behaviour, but once it was complete she left him and filed for divorce."

BARCLAY, DAPHNE [DOROTHY CRISP] (14 Aug 1913 – 23 Sept 1985) (née Binny) 1950s – 1960s Author of two novels—Amedeo (1958), described in a review as "a moving story of the search by an illegitimate Italian boy, brought up in a convent, for the mother he never knew," and Pennypatch (1965), about which details are lacking. A review notes that Daphne was partly educated in Rome, as well as living there for a time with her husband, Lt. Col. Walter Patrick Barclay of the Scottish Black Watch. The couple had twins in 1940, but sadly her husband was killed in Tunisia in 1943.

BARLOW, [ANNA] ELIZABETH (20 Sept 1905 – 21 Apr 1976) (married name Davie, sometimes Davie-Thornhill) 1930s Author of a single novel, Green Pleasure (1931), about "the bright young people of the 'County'", which received positive reviews. [I found it too perky and snooty, and with a dash of virulent racism.]

BATCHELOR, MAUD [ALICE] (19 Sept 1874 - 1952) (née Batty) 1930s Author of a single novel, The Woman of the House (1934), a humorous diary of the life of a well-to-do London lady, which I reviewed here. Batchelor was herself a "Lady" as her husband was Stanley Lockhart Batchelor, a High Court judge in India.

BATCHELOR, PAULA [VIVIENNE] (1923 – 3 Jan 2013) (married names Gibbs and Lansberry) 1950s Author of two novels—Bed Majestical (1954, aka If This Be Virtue), about a young girl trying to preserve her virtue at the court of an 18th century German Grand Duke, and Angel with Bright Hair (1957), which seems to be about the wife of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. One review states that the first draft of her first novel was written at age 15, while another says that she wrote her novels because she found most historical fiction unsatisfactory. In 1956, she was reportedly married to a schoolmaster and had two small sons.

BAYNE, ISABELLA [FLORENCE] (27 May 1913 – 2001) (pseudonym of Isabelle Bayne-Powell) 1940s – 1950s Daughter of Rosamond BAYNE-POWELL. Nurse and author of three mystery novels—Death Enters the Ward (1947), Death and Benedict (1952), and Cruel as the Grave (1956). The first, at least, appears to make use of her nursing experience. Her parents' pre-marriage names were Bayne and Powell, but it seems they both hyphenated the names after they married, as records show both as "Bayne-Powell" thereafter.

BEATTY, KATHERINE (13 Feb 1882 – 7 Jan 1937) & HELEN [GILL EDE] (27 Jan 1880 – 1 Sept 1973) 1940s Authors of a single novel, Winter Wind (1946), described as "vivid pen pictures of life in rural Antrim." The authors were sisters, and a review of the book mentions that Katherine died before the books publication—perhaps Helen finished a book the two had begun, or possibly the publication was delayed due to World War II.

BELLAMY, KATHLEEN S[OMERS]. (21 Feb 1912 – 2002) (married names Tomkinson and White) 1940s Author of two novels, Jacaranda (1940) and The Cage (1942), the latter of which takes place at least partially during World War II—an Observer review summarizes it: "a futile young woman, a poet, who lives with her sister, knows a number of other drifters, and picks up a lover whom she marries. … She leaves him, knocks about in air raids, and at last can stand separation no longer. So she goes to Scotland, where his unit of the R.A.F. is stationed, and there is a half-hearted reconciliation." Bellamy was latterly married to Sir Dick Goldsmith White, senior British Intelligence officer. She may have been born in Argentina, where her father had business.

BLAKE, SNOWDON (4 Oct 1903 – 7 Jul 1945) (pseudonym of Freda Mansell, née Sneath) 1930s Author of three novels of nautical adventure—Nor Helm Nor Compass (1935), Something About a Sailor (1936), and Next Port Eldorado (1937). Of the second, the publisher said that it "tells us how Jack Friendship mastered peril on the sea, served King and Empire and loved a little lady half tomboy and half fairytale princess." One review mentions that the first novel, at least, might have been a collaboration, perhaps with her husband Arthur Mansell, but other references refer only to her.

BRANDON, GRANIA (21 May 1902 - ????) (full name Grania Lillian Mary Joyce Brandon) 1930s – 1950s Daughter of mystery writer John G. Brandon. Author of a highly-praised novel, Upon This Rock (1936), about a show business family in the early 20th century. She later turned her attentions to children's fiction with a series of tales about a family-run circus, beginning with Sengler's Circus. One final story for children was The Prews Go North (1956), "about a delightful family who go to live in a derelict farmhouse on the Yorkshire moors." Despite her father's prominence, official records of Grania are difficult to find, apart from the fact that she was living in London when her first book appeared and in Essex with her parents on the 1939 England & Wales Register.

BRIGGS, ELSPETH [MARGARET] (8 Jun 1902 – 20 Feb 1961) 1930s – 1960s Sister of novelist, children's author, and scholar Katharine Mary BRIGGS. Historical novelist and children's author with a particular interest in the 17th century. Her novels are Borrowed Names (1932), Restoration (1935), The Rhyme for Porringer (1939), Service Is None Heritage (1948), Another Unicorn (1954), and Seven Bold Sons (1962), the last of which was Briggs' favorite of her works. Her children's titles are The White King (1948) and Squire's Fairing (1960).

BRIGHT, PAMELA [MIA] (1914 – 13 Aug 2012) 1950s – 1970s Red Cross nurse and author of three novels—Breakfast at Night (1956), which "describes the first three years of a nurse's training at one of the most famous teaching hospitals in the world, Edinburgh Infirmary", The Day's End (1959), about life and death in a cancer ward, and Hospital at Night (1971). Life in Our Hands (1955) was her memoir of her time with the British Second Army during the last year of WWII. The Nurse and Her World (1961) was non-fiction for children, and A Poor Man's Riches (1966) dealt with her travels in the Middle East and with the UN relief efforts in Palestine.

BROWN, DELIA (dates unknown) 1950s Untraced author of a single novel, Gin and Lilies (1953), described in a snippet review as a "murder at the poker table mystery." This seems to have been the pseudonym of an established romance writer, but it's not known which one.

BROWNE, ANNA MARIA (27 Oct 1938 – 1 Jun 2002) 1950s Author of a single novel, Whom the Gods Love (1959), described by no lesser reviewer than Muriel Spark as "an effective and sometimes thrilling account of young life in Rome under Nero."

BULLARD, MARGARET [ELLEN] (23 Aug 1907 – 29 Jun 2009) (née Thomas) 1950s Author of three humorous novels—Wedlock's the Devil (1951), described by John Betjeman as "a sort of unscrupulous Cranford", A Perch in Paradise (1952), set in Cambridge before, during, and after WWII and which, according to Marghanita Laski, "varies from the exceptionally witty to the vulgar", and Love Goes West (1953), about an English civil servant and his wife sent from their cozy life in England to California in search of cheap sardines. She was the wife of Sir Edward Crisp Bullard, a Cambridge scientist knighted for "ending the menace of the German magnetic mine in the Second World War by inventing degaussing of ships", and really did spend time with him in California, where he worked in later years at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla. Despite her high-profile husband, records on Margaret herself are difficult to find, and the dates above are highly probable but not certain. She is, however, not to be confused with the Margaret Bullard who was the wife of diplomat Julian Bullard, who published non-fiction works.

BURT, JESSIE MAY (30 Nov 1897 – 12 Mar 1988) 1940s - 1950s Scottish author of 14 novels, beginning with the wartime Seavacuee (1942), about a Scottish boy sent to Canada to escape the Blitz. Other novels sound like light romances with some melodrama—titles include Ursula Takes Over (1944), The Gay Gordons (1945), The Swing of the Pendulem (1946), set in the late 18th century, The Glendenning Fortunes (1947), Treason in Fitzroy Place (1948), The Stepbrothers (1949), A Wife for Giles (1950), Mr Duffy Calls the Tune (1951), Chance Inheritance (1952), The Price of Distinction (1952), For Love of Annie (1953), Daughter of Paradise (1955), and Tragedy of Love (1956).

BUSSELL, EMILY (dates unknown) 1930s Unidentified author of one (or perhaps two) novels. Epitaph for Harriet (1936) is about a young woman who, jilted by one lover, spontaneously marries a poor scientist and must learn to live in a style to which she is unaccustomed. The publisher, Stanley Paul & Co., advertised a second novel, Duet for Two Ladies, about a struggling, widowed mother of four who takes in a lovely but insidious woman as a paying guest, but there is no evidence the book ever actually appeared, and it is not listed in any major card catalogue.

CAIRNES, MAUD (c1893 – 1965) (pseudonym of Lady Maud Kathleen Cairns Plantagenet Curzon-Herrick, née Hastings) 1930s Author of two novels. The first, Strange Journey (1935), about a young middle class wife who begins to find herself switching bodies with an elegant member of the landed gentry, was reviewed by Neglected Books here. Her second novel, The Disappearing Duchess (1939), was a more straightforward mystery. Lady Kathleen was the oldest daughter of the 14th Earl of Huntingdon and her husband's family had for centuries occupied the impressive Beaumanor Hall, which during WWII became a listening station in collaboration with Bletchley Park.

CATLOW, JOANNA (17 Jul 1911 – 1 Jul 2001) (pseudonym of Joan Lowry, née Catlow, possibly aka Joan Lea) 1950s – 1960s Author of four novels, apparently psychological dramas—Sisters to Simon (1955), The Sapphire Smoke (1957), The Night of the High Wind (1960), and The Enchanted Land (1963).

CECIL, RACHEL [MARY VERONICA] (26 Feb 1909 – 29 Jul 1982) (née MacCarthy) 1950s Author of a single novel, Theresa's Choice (1958), about a young woman juggling three men in her search for a husband. A review in the Indianapolis Star says: "As Theresa roams the coils and pitfalls of romantic entanglements, Lady Cecil takes her and us on a glorious tour of English social life of the early 30s." Cecil was the daughter of literary critic Desmond MacCarthy and the wife of Oxford professor and literary scholar Lord David Cecil.

CHAMBERS, PEGGY (13 Aug 1911 – 13 Mar 2004) (full name Margaret Ada Eastwood Chambers) 1960s Author of a single novel, The Governess (1960), described by one reviewer as a "quiet, lavender-scented romance of mid-Victorian upper-middle-class society." Chambers published several non-fiction works about women in the medical and social work professions, but apparently no other fiction.

CHOMUT, RUTH (19 Feb 1933 – Aug 2011) (née Mikardo) 1950s Journalist and author of a single novel, Road to Within (1958), about a British woman who settles in an Israeli kibbutz, where she meets her husband. The novel was presumably at least somewhat autobiographical, as Chomut did in fact emigrate from the U.K., where she was a graduate of RADA and worked in the theatre, to Israel, where she married and remained for the rest of her life. She also served on the Board of Governors at the University of Haifa.

CLARKE, MOMA (1869 – 20 Jun 1958) (pseudonym of Maria Elvins Clarke, née Pountney) 1940s Journalist, author of travel and other non-fiction titles about France, and author of a single novel, A Stranger Within the Gates (1942), about a young British woman who marries a Frenchman and must adapt herself to his family and to French culture. Clarke was the Paris fashion correspondent for the Times for many years. Of her non-fiction, French Cameos (1925) appears to be a collection of some of her articles about French culture, and Light and Shade in France (1939) reflects on her travels and adventures during three decades in France.

CLOUD, YVONNE (17 Apr 1903 – 30 Jun 1999) (pseudonym of Yvonne Helene Kapp, née Mayer) 1930s Journalist, activist, biographer, and author of four novels, which seem to have inspired some acclaim and considerable outrage. Of her first, Nobody Asked You (1932), Gerald Gould ranted at considerable length in the Observer, summing up the book as "a vaguely sad, wretched, drab, hopeless picture of nincompoops and ne'er-do-wells" and bemoans its "depravity" (though by the following year, Gould was ready to praise her third novel, Mediterranean Blues (1933), set in the south of France, as "deliciously and almost consistently funny"). Her other two novels were Short Lease (1932) and The Houses in Between (1938).

COATS, VICTORIA T[AYLOR]. (16 Apr 1885 – 4 Jan 1940) 1920s Scottish poet and author of three novels—A Maid in Armour (1923), Discovery (1926), and The Clock Tower (1926). A critical blurb about the first sums it up as: "The heroine and her mother, in turn, have to reconcile their public crusade with the claims of love." From a second blurb, it appears that their crusade is women's rights.

COOPER, BARBARA [TAMAR] (15 Sept 1905 – 19 May 1981) 1930s Sister of novelists Lettice COOPER and Leonard Cooper. Reviewer and author of three novels—Sweet Chariot (1931), subtitled "The Story of a Coward" and apparently set during the American Civil War, Two Walk Together (1935), about which details are lacking except that the publisher described it as about "the clash between sophistication and an open-air country life", and The Light of Other Days (1939), in which an elderly man reminisces about his youth during the Regency, including cameos from Lord Byron, Caroline Lamb, and John Keats. The latter seems to have been the most widely and positively reviewed. Barbara and her sister lived together in London for much of their adult lives.

COOPER, GWLADYS DOROTHY (27 Jun 1912 - 1981) (aka Shirley Saville, Jill Newland, Margaret Mason, Diana Carter, Carmen Castillo, Irene Dickens, Carol Grant, Linda Green) 1930s, 1960s – 1970s Author of romantic novels under a number of pseudonyms. Presumably Betty's Mistake (1937), as Margaret Mason, was her first, but she seems not to have published again (or perhaps published under unknown pseudonyms) until 1960, when no fewer than five novels appeared under various pseudonyms. Other titles include Moon Over Morocco (1960), Fabric Pictures (1961), Love's Horizon (1961), Malice in the Sun (1962), Quest for Love (1968), and Moroccan Magic (1972).

CORNER, ANNE [ELIZABETH] (1886 – 17 Nov 1930) (née Squire) 1920s Suffragist, politician, and author of at least one novel—Deeper Yet (1929), about a woman trying to help her husband fight drug addiction resulting from his WWI experiences. A children's title, Broomstick Nights (1930), expanded on the stories behind well-known nursery rhymes. Her obituary said she was the author of two novels in addition to the children's book, but I can find no trace of a second title. Corner died unexpectedly following a surgery. She was the sister of author J. C. Squire.

CROOME, HONOR (6 Jul 1908 – 29 Sept 1960) (full name Honoria Renée Minturn Croome, née Scott) 1940s – 1950s Journalist, economist, and author of five novels. Her first three novels were written while living in Canada during WWII. O Western Wind (1945), based on her family's own experiences of getting settled in the U.S. and then Canada, was highly praised by Elizabeth Bowen. You've Gone Astray (1945) is about two friends in the 1930s up to the beginning of the war, while The Faithless Mirror (1946), set in wartime Ottawa, deals with difficulties between a brother and sister. The Mountain and the Molehill (1955), set in a Swiss girls' school, was based in part on Croome's own experiences. And The Forgotten Place (1957) deals with a woman coming to terms with her childhood by visiting her mother's country house, now divided into flats. Croome also published several highly-regarded introductory texts on economics, and for a time in the 1930s, she was political secretary to first female MP Nancy Astor.

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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

EDISFORD, ROSEMARY (dates unknown) (1950s) Unidentified author of a single novel (or possibly biography, depending which review you consult), A Picnic in the Shade (1958), about an eccentric family in a country home. A contemporary review says she was living at Kidmore End in South Oxfordshire, but I’ve not been able to locate any records for her, suggesting that the name is a pseudonym. If the family home she wrote about was in Kidmore End, it might well have been Kidmore House?

EDMONDSTON, MARY E[LIZABETH]. (24 Nov 1916 – 6 Aug 2013) 1940s – 1950s Author of three children’s titles—Adventure in the North (1944), Strangers in the Islands (1948), and Secret in the Sand (1953)—all or most set in Shetland. Although Mary was born and lived in England, her family had close connections to Shetland. Adventure in the North seems to be set just before WWII and feature children bringing down a gang of Nazi spies.

FANSHAW, CAROLINE (15 Jan 1919 – 12 Aug 2008) (pseudonym of Barbara Kate Cust) 1950s – 1960s Author of nearly two dozen romantic novels, including Restore My Dreams (1954), Turn Back to Me (1956), Fascinating Stranger (1958), Spring Will Return (1959), Melody of Summer (1961), River of Romance (1964), Encounter with Love (1966), and Marry Me Never (1969).

FAXON, FREDERICKA (dates unknown) (pseudonym of Mary F. Browne) 1940s Author of a single novel, Rehearsal (1941), described as dealing with “the trials of being born beautiful, and tells how small-town Amy Braide suffered through her looks till an accident robbed her of them.” A copyright entry provides us with the author’s real name, which is too common to trace. It is interesting that there was an American author named Frederick W. Faxon, though he does not appear to have had children.

FEVEREL, JOANNA (17 Jan 1908 – 1999) (pseudonym of Joan Ursula Darbyshire Pain, née Campbell) 1930s Author of a single novel, Nothing Lasts (1933), featuring young love in a boarding-house, which received largely positive reviews.

FIELD, CHRISTINE (dates unknown) (pseudonym of ???) 1910s Author of a single novel, Half a Gipsy (1916), apparently set among Russian peasants, but the real-life mystery behind it may be more interesting. According to news stories, the novel was submitted from Moscow as an entry in a contest sponsored by Andrew Melrose & Co. It didn’t win, but an editor later came across it and liked it, only to find that they were unable to trace the author. Their search, which garnered some publicity, resulted only in a visit from an anonymous woman who claimed the author was her adopted sister, who had gone to Russia as a governess. She reportedly refused to reveal more, and insisted that Field’s true identity should remain a mystery, with proceeds going to the Red Cross. Apparently the mystery has never been solved, though another newspaper report suggests the author may have died of pneumonia in Canada.

FIELDEN, OLGA (1903 - 1973) (married name Lamond) 1930s Irish author of two novels—Island Story (1933) and Stress (1936)—which were praised for their realism in dealing with ordinary Ulster life. She wrote at least one full length play, Three to Go (1950), as well as later one-act plays for the BBC. She reportedly wrote a third novel, Liam Donne, which remained unpublished due to WWII.

FITZGERALD, BARBARA (16 Dec 1911 – 21 May 1982) (full name Barbara Fitzgerald Somerville, née Gregg) 1940s, 1980s Irish author of two novels, We Are Besieged (1946) and Footprints Upon Water (1983), both dealing with "big house" life in Ireland during and after the unrest of the 1910s and 1920s. They were both reprinted by Somerville Press in the early 2010s, to considerable acclaim.

FORMAN, CHARLOTTE (dates unknown) 1940s Unidentified author of a single novel, A Good Heart to Life (1946), about which I've found no information. Forman seems to have contributed short fiction to Woman's Magazine when it was edited by Anne HEPPLE.

FRANKLAND, HELGA [MAUD TOYNBEE] (1921 – 7 Jan 2015) 1950s Author of two novels—Dalehead (1955) and His Father's Son (1958)—both realistic tales set among Westmorland farming communities.

FRIEDMAN, [EVE] ROSEMARY (5 Feb 1929 -                      ) (née Tibber, aka Robert Tibber, aka Rosemary Tibber) 1950s – 2000s Author of at least 20 novels, including family stories and many with medical themes or hospital settings. Titles include No White Coat (1958), We All Fall Down (1960), The Commonplace Day (1964), The Long Hot Summer (1980), Golden Boy (1994), and Intensive Care (2000). She also published two children's titles, Aristide (1966) and Aristide in Paris (1987), and wrote plays, screenplays, and a memoir, Life Is a Joke: A Writer's Memoir (2010).

GALLOWAY, ANNA (dates unknown) 1940s Unidentified author of three romantic novels—Crossing Paths (1943), Mine Be Thy Love (1945), and Riviera Interlude (1946).

GARNETT, [MARIE] EMMELINE (1924 - ????) 1950s Author of a single novel, The Voyage Home (1957), about which I've found no details, and several children's titles, including The Scarlet Snuffbox (1950), Dragon Farm (1952), and Hills of Sheep (1955), as well as other non-fiction for both adults and children. She is reportedly the daughter of Noel Trevor Garnett of Durham (1887-1961), and it's not impossible that she is still alive as of this writing.

GIBSON-JARVIE, CLODAGH [MICAELA] (23 Sept 1923 – 2018) (married name Fry, aka Clodagh Chapman, aka Amanda Gavin) 1940s – 1980s, 2000s Author of mystery fiction under her own name, as well as later fiction flirting with the supernatural as Clodagh Chapman (possibly a second married name?) and one children's title as Amanda Gavin. Early mystery fiction includes Variations on a Theme of Murder (1948), Vicious Circuit (1957), and He Would Provoke Death (1959). Her children's title is To Find a Golden Pony (1965). Later fiction includes The Web (1979, aka The Loom and the Web), Jack-in-the-Green (1983), The Night Before Dark (1988), The Echoes Answer (1989), and Red Mary in Time (2007). She also published an historical work, A Very Curious and Capricious Agent: A Tale of the Stowmarket Industrial Disaster of 1871 (2020).

GILL, SOMERS (dates unknown) 1940s Unidentified author of two historical novels—Anthony Tressel (1942), set in London and the Virginia Colony in the time of George I, and Don Rogerio (1943), set in Elizabethan times. Could be a male author, but no way to be certain for the time being.

GILLESPIE, SUSAN (27 Sept 1904 – 1968) (pseudonym of Edith Constance Holker Norris, married name Turton-Jones) 1930s – 1960s Author of more than two dozen novels, including family stories, romances, and a number of tales set in India or other international locales, which reflect her own frequent travels. Titles include The Story of Christine (1933), The Rajah's Guests (1935), They Went to Karathia (1940), North from Bombay (1944), Clash by Night (1952), Carillon in Bruges (1952), The Dutch House (1955), Diamonds in the Night (1962), and Women of Influence (1968).

GILLON, DIANA [PLEASANCE] (1 Sept 1915 – 20 Mar 2016) (née Case, married name changed from Goldstein to Gillon) 1950s – 1960s Co-author of two novels with her husband Meir Selig Gillon—Vanquish the Angel (1955) and The Unsleep (1961), the later a dystopian novel—as well as a historical work, The Sand and the Stars: The Story of the Jewish People (1975). Her Find-a-Grave entry (which, unusually, does not provide a death date) mentions an earlier book, A Guest in the House (1952), but I can't locate such a title in online catalogues. After her marriage, Gillon apparently lived for several years in Jerusalem.

GILRUTH, SUSAN[NA MARGARET] (20 Mar 1911 – 16 Feb 1992) (née Hornsby-Wright, later married name Godley) 1950s – 1960s Author of seven mystery novels—Sweet Revenge (1951), Death in Ambush (1952), Postscript to Penelope (1954), A Corpse for Charybdis (1956), To This Favour (1957), Drown Her Remembrance (1961), and The Snake Is Living Yet (1963).

GOODYEAR, SUSAN (2 Mar 1888 – 11 Oct 1963) (pseudonym of Margaret Alice Matthews, née Bryan) 1930s Author of three novels—Cathedral Close (1936), College Square (1937), and Such Harmony (1938). The second deals with the power dynamics in an English college following the death of a beloved principal.

GRANT, L. (c1882 – ?1 Nov 1938) (pseudonym of Alicia Eliza Grant, née Salmon) 1920s Author of one novel—Jenny Pilcher (1922), which traces the childhood and young womanhood of a working class London girl with an artistic sensibility—and co-author of several travel books with her husband, Cyril Fletcher Grant, including 'Twixt Sand and Sea: Sketches and Studies in North Africa (1911) and A Chronicle of Rye (1927). She was definitely née Salmon and married Cyril Fletcher Grant in 1909, when he was in his mid-sixties and she was 21. The death date above comes from a possible probate for her, but is not certain.

GRAVESON, CAROLINE C[ASSANDRA]. (16 Jun 1874 – 1958) 1940s – 1950s Pioneering vice principal of Goldsmiths' College and author, following her retirement, of three novels—Susan and the Witch, or, The Spark of God (1949), The Farthing Family (1950), set in London during the plague and the great fire, and London to Philadelphia (1954), subtitled "The Story of a Quaker Family, 1670-1689".

GRETTON, MARY [GERTRUDE] (1 May 1871 – 15 Aug 1961) (née Sturge, real name May, evolved into Mary) 1930s Historian and biographer of George Meredith and John Constable, and author of a single novel, Crumplin' (1932), apparently a mystery set in the time of Richard III.

GRIERSON, LINDEN (14 Sept 1914 – 1987) (pseudonym of Monica Linden Grierson, née Corps) 1950s – 1970s Author of more than 20 romantic novels, including The Bond Between (1950), Rising River (1954), The Whisper of the Night Winds (1955), Peppertree Lane (1956), The Senorita Penny (1959), The Adventuresome Spirit (1962), Wild Harvest (1966), and Down by the Riverside (1974). Some of these may have Australian settings, as Grierson lived there for much of her adult life. She was born and died in Yorkshire, but her family went to Australia when she was about 12.

GUITON, HELEN [ELIZA] (10 May 1894 – 11 Oct 1978) 1940s Author of a single novel, A Country Lover (1948), set in a French-Canadian settlement and about "a dreamer who yet had to play out his role of farmer; of his widowed mother, and of his young bride from far away Quebec, beautiful indeed, but unfit for the type of life the wives of these Lauretian farmers had to live." Guiton might better fit a Canadian version of this list, but she was born on the Channel Island of Jersey and was still living there with her family in 1901. At some point thereafter, the entire family emigrated (or possibly returned, as her parents may have been French Canadian), and Guiton remained there the rest of her life.

GYNNE, G. M. (dates unknown) 1930s Unidentified author of a single novel, I Defend (1932), set in India and possibly combining romance and crime.

HAGAN, STELLA FITZTHOMAS (26 Jul 1908 – 23 Mar 1993) (pseudonym/adopted name of Stella Mary Jackson) 1950s Author of a single novel, The Green Cravat (1959), set in the late 1700s and featuring Lord Edward Fitzgerald, an aristocrat who supported independence for Ireland. English by birth but a passionate Hibernophile by adoption, Hagan was the daughter of T. A. (Thomas Alfred) Jackson, a founding member of the British Communist Party. There is no record of a marriage that would explain Stella's name change, but it seems to have been a bit more than a pseudonym, as official records from later in her life record it as her name.

HAMILTON, HENRIETTA (20 May 1920 – 19 Jun 1995) (pseudonym of Hester Denne Shepherd) 1950s - 1960s Mystery writer who published four novels in her lifetime—The Two Hundred Ghost (1956), Death at One Blow (1957), At Night to Die (1959), and Answer in the Negative (1959). Although she stopped publishing thereafter, according to her reprint publisher Agora Books, she wrote thirteen additional novels, the last written in about the mid-1960s. Agora (see here) plan to reprint many of these, and the first to appear was The Man Who Wasn't There (2021).

HAMILTON, MARGARET (dates unknown) 1950s Unidentified Scottish author of a single novel, Bull's Penny (1950), set in the Firth of Clyde. An enlightening review in the Aberdeen Press and Journal notes: "Some readers may consider much of it to be nauseous, others, less squeamish, may well be fasacinated by the grimness and vividness with which a broken old man is made to tell how, throughout life, he has either been denied everything that he most wanted, or has failed to measure up to his chances and thrown them away." The same review describes Hamilton as "a Local Government officer in Glasgow", but without more details it has been impossible to trace her.

HANSON, NELL (ELLEN) [HUSTON] (15 Nov 1890 – 27 Mar 1942) 1930s Author of a single novel, Winds of Pity (1935), about a troubled marriage between the son of an Irish minister and a woman from London. A review notes that Hanson was the daughter of the Rev. Dr. George Hanson, "who was so outstanding a figure in Northern Ireland Presbyterianism."

HARINGTON, BRENDA [STANLEY IVY] (1924 – 2008) (married name Zielinska) 1940s Author of a single novel, For Hope Remains (1949), set in Poland at the end of World War I, about a young student caught in a "maelstrom of personal and patriotic emotions" in "a dark and sinister house against the Carpathian Hills, a place of tattered and broken grandeur, peopled with strange characters." Harington had spent time in Poland herself and married a Pole in 1948.

HARRIS, ROSEMARY [JEANNE] (20 Feb 1923 – 14 Oct 2019) 1950s – 1990s Best known for her children's fiction, in particular her trilogy set in ancient Egypt—The Moon in the Cloud (1968), which won that year's Carnegie Medal, The Shadow on the Sun (1970), and The Bright and Morning Star (1972)—Harris also wrote eight novels for adults, including The Summer House (1956), Voyage to Cythera (1958), Venus with Sparrows (1961), All My Enemies (1967), The Nice Girl's Story (1968, aka Nor Evil Dreams), A Wicked Pack of Cards (1969), The Double Snare (1974), and Three Candles for the Dark (1976). She had a varied life, studying art and design, working with the Red Cross in World War II, and subsequently working as a picture restorer, book reviewer, and reader for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Her father was Sir Arthur "Bomber" Harris, who achieved considerable prominence leading the RAF in World War II.

HAVERS, ELINORE [MARY] (21 Sept 1905 – 2002) (née Miller) 1940s – 1970s Author of more than a dozen children's titles, most or all of them pony stories. Titles include Three Day Adventure (1948), Dream Pony (1962), Gay and the Ponies (1964), Pony Sleuths (1966), and The Merry-March Ponies (1974). See here for helpful information about her books.

HEADLAM-MORLEY, AGNES (10 Dec 1902 – 21 Feb 1986) 1960s Primarily known for her prominent work as a historian at Oxford, working largely in the area of Anglo-German relations (perhaps inspired by the fact that her father was English and her mother German), she qualified for this list due to a single novella, Last Days: June 1944 to January 1945 (1960), based on the tragedy of a friend in Berlin in the final days of World War II.

HEATH, IRENE [GWENDOLINE] (10 May 1905 – 16 Dec 1989) (née Crooks) 1930s – 1940s Author of one early children's title, The Browser Family and Their Great Day Out (1930), and two novels, Good Luck and Goodbye (1945) and Capricorn Colony (1946). She seems to have felt an affinity for boats, as the former is set on a voyage from a tropical island to England, via New York, in the last year of World War II, while the latter seems to deal with a group of holiday-makers who meet on a voyage to the South Pacific.

HEINEMANN, MARGOT [CLARE] (18 Nov 1913 – 10 Jun 1992) 1960s Teacher, scholar, historian, and prominent member of the Communist Party of Great Britain, and author of a single novel, The Adventurers (1960), described as a roman à clef about the British Left in the 1940s and 1950s. She subsequently co-authored, with Noreen Branson, Britain in the 1930s (1973), and published Puritanism and Theatre: Thomas Middleton and Opposition Drama (1980).

HELY, ELIZABETH (1 Dec 1913 – 9 Mar 1981) (pseudonym of Nancy Elizabeth Brassey Younger, née Leslie) 1950s – 1960s Author of four crime novels—Dominant Third (1959, aka I'll be Judge, I'll Be Jury), A Mark of Displeasure (1961), The Long Shot (1963), and Package Deal (1965). A Mark of Displeasure, at least, features a French detective in Edinburgh.

HENDERSON, JANE (11 May 1907 - ????) 1930s Author of four romantic novels—The Gay Forgetting (1936), Final Harvest (1937), Halo (1937), and After the Rain (1938). She can be found on the 1939 register living in Kent, source of her birth date, but there is too much confusion about her middle name to pursue her further unless more pieces fall into place.

HENRY, JOAN [CONSTANCE ANNE] (8 Apr 1914 – 15 Dec 2000) (married names Standage and Thompson) 1940s - 1950s Author, playwright, and screenwriter. Her earliest novels, This Many Summers (1947), Commit to Memory (1948), and Crimson Lake (1950), have been called romances, but the first at least sounds like it has a slight edge: "A love story in the Michael Arlen manner; scintillating and brittle, set against a background of bookies' odds and the chink of ice in a barman's mixer." After spending eight months in Holloway prison on forgery charges, she published the bestselling Who Lie in Gaol (1952) about her life in prison, followed by a novel, Yield to the Night (1954), about a woman awaiting execution. The former inspired the film The Weak and the Wicked (1953), and the latter was made into a film in 1956, for which Henry co-wrote the screenplay and received a BAFTA nomination. In addition to more screenwriting, she also penned the play Look on Tempests (1960), the first dealing with the topic of homosexuality after the Lord Chamberlain's ban on the subject was lifted the year before, the cast of which in its first production included Vanessa Redgrave and Gladys Cooper. Henry's second husband was film director John Lee Thompson, whose films included The Guns of Navarone and the original Cape Fear.

HILL, CECILIA [ALBERTHA] (1868 - ?1933) 1910s – 1920s Travel writer and author of five novels—The Citadel (1917), Wings Triumphant (1918), Stone Walls (1919), Can These Things Be? (1923), and Sweet Enemy (1924)—about which contemporary reviews were remarkably vague, citing "feminine charm" and "interesting and natural characters," but The Citadel appears to deal with "the domestic fortunes of a schoolmistress in England", though it ends with a vivid description of the fall of Dinant in Belgium in World War I. Some reviews mention that Hill was herself a schoolteacher at Wentworth Hall in London, which makes her the Cecilia Albertha Hill b. 1868, who is teaching there on the 1911 census. The 1933 death record is plausible but not certain.

HILL, PAMELA (26 Nov 1920 – 16 Oct 2016) (ake Sharon Fiske) 1950s – 2000s Prolific author of more than 60 romance novels (and at least one crime novel) over nearly five decades, most historical in setting and characterized by their tough, courageous heroines. Titles include Flaming Janet (1954), Marjorie of Scotland (1956), Here Lies Margot (1957), Forget Not Ariadne (1965), Whitton's Folly (1975), Daneclere (1978), Knock at a Star (1981) Still Blooms the Rose (1984), The Loves of Ginevra (1990), Aunt Lucy (1993), Murder in Store (1996), and Bailie's Wake (2000).

HODGKINSON, FLORENCE (20 Dec 1855 – 18 Aug 1934) (married name Ryland) 1870s – 1930s(?) Prolific and popular author of novels and periodical fiction described as "heart-warming moral tales". It's difficult to trace the full extent of her periodical work, but in regard to her book publications, Little Means and Large Hearts appeared in 1876 when she was just into her twenties, and Folly of Youth appeared in 1935. Other known titles include For Love Only (1908), The Convent Belle (1914), His Fair Lady (1915), and Clear Shining After Rain (1927). She married Richard Henry Ryland, who was rector of Ayot St. Peter 1912-1939.

HOOD, ARTHUR (1863 - 10 Nov 1938) (pseudonym of Amy Constance Woodhouse, married names Hood and Mends-Gibson) 1900s, 1920s – 1930s Playwright and author of at least three novels—The Mind of the Duchess (1908), Dragon's Teeth (1925), and Jacob (1932). The second of these is set during the French Revolution. Woodhouse also wrote (and at least occasionally appeared in) plays and was involved with the Bankside Theatre in Middlesex.

HOOKE, NINA WARNER (14 Aug 1907 – 14 Dec 1994) (née Malagoni, adopted stepfather's name Hooke, married name Thomas) 1930s, 1950s – 1980s Playwright, biographer, children's writer, and author of six novels. Her trilogy of humorous novels about young people in the 1930s—Striplings (1933), Close of Play (1936), and Own Wilderness (1938)—garnered comparisons to Wodehouse and was later turned into a successful play. Home Is Where You Make It (1952) is a memoir about two Londoners creating the home of their dreams from a row of derelict hovels, while Darkness I Leave You (1956) was described as "a rip-roaring melodrama set appropriately in Victorian England", and Deadly Record (1958) appears to be a crime novel and was also adapted for the stage. In later years, she published several children's books—The Starveling (1958, aka White Christmas and The Snow Kitten), about "how a homeless kitten melts the sad cold heart of a spinster", Pepito (1978, aka Little Dog Lost), A Donkey Called Paloma (1981), and The Moon on the Water (1982). The Seal Summer (1964) appears to be a memoir about her interactions with a friendly wild seal during one summer holiday.

HORLEY, [BEATRICE] GEORGINA (24 Sept 1918 – 17 Aug 2006) (née Essex, married name Smith) 1950s Journalist and author of a single humorous novel, Bus Stop (1955), about a London civil servant who, fed up with poor bus service, leads a protest in the form of everyone walking to work. She later published a cookbook, Good Food on a Budget (1969), published by Penguin. A 1955 article says that she was living in Worthing and married to Eric Earnshaw Smith, a retired Civil Servant. Their 1947 marriage record shows her as "Georgina Horley or Essex", indicating either a previous marriage or that Horley was a pseudonym.

HORNER, JOYCE [MARY] (13 Jul 1903 – 24 Mar 1980) 1940s Novelist, pioneering scholar, and professor at Mount Holyoke College for a quarter of a century. Her first novel, The Wind and the Rain (1943), deals with the childhood and young womanhood of Marian Townsend, hopelessly in love with a school friend who turns into a successful actor. The Greyhound in the Leash (1949) flirts with fantasy in telling of a woman who lives her life four times, making varied decisions each time. Prior to her fiction, Horner had published The English Women Novelists and Their Connection with the Feminist Movement (1688-1797) (1930), a pioneering work of feminist criticism before such a thing really existed. In later years, she suffered from debilitating arthritic, keeping a diary of her experiences in a nursing home, published posthumously as That Time of Year (1982).

HOWARD, JOYCE [BEAUMONT] (28 Feb 1922 – 23 Nov 2010) 1960s, 2000s Stage and film actress and author of three novels. Two Persons Singular (1960) is a love story set in a low-rent boarding house in East London, and A Private View (1961) is about a man reflecting on his life from a state-run home for the elderly. Four decades later, Howard appears to have self-published a final novel, Going On (2000), about an alcoholic in Los Angeles. Howard's film roles included The Night Has Eyes and Miss Fitzherbert. She retired from acting in 1950 to care for her three children.

HOWARTH, SHEILA (29 May 1921 – 23 Nov 1982) (married name Majdalany) 1960s Author of two works of fiction—With My Body (1960), comprised of a short story and a novella, and Bogeyman's Plaything (1962). She is presumably the same author who wrote gardening and cooking books in the 1970s. Her first book is partly set in Hollywood, which may mean she's the Sheila Howorth, from Leeds, born c1921, who got publicity for being attacked by a taxi driver in Los Angeles in 1947.

HULL, VERONICA (dates unknown) 1950s Author of a single novel, The Monkey Puzzle (1958), tracing the difficulties of an unhappy young woman in bohemian London. According to an interview with thriller writer Robin Cook, who apparently dated Hull for a time, the novel was a roman à clef about philosopher A. J. Ayer's scandalous behavior with female students. Hull was also a translator of works from French to English.

INNES-BROWNE, JESSIE ELIZABETH (1853 – 6 Apr 1914) (née Stickney, aka Mrs. Innes-Brown) 1890s – 1910s Author of at least three novels—Three Daughters of the United Kingdom (1897), Honour Without Renown (1900), and A Garland of Everlasting Flowers (1906)—and one posthumous children's title that qualifies her for this list, Little Donald (1916).

INSKIP, BETTY (6 Nov 1905 – 4 Aug 1945) (full name Constance Elizabeth Hamilton Inskip, married name Fellner) 1920s – 1930s Author of three novels—The Ravelled Sleeve (1929), which sounds like a cheerful romance, Step to a Drum (1931), described as "a picture of life through the eyes of an essentially modern girl", and Pink Faces (1939), set in Austria before the rise of the Nazis. Inskip died of complications from childbirth at the age of 39.

JANES, KATHLEEN F[LORENCE]. (15 Sept 1903 – 11 May 1992) (married name Jamieson) 1950s – 1970s Author of around a dozen romantic novels, including Rustle of Spring (1957), Dance Caprice (1958), A Dream in Venice (1962), Witch's Gold (1963), A Time of Lilies (1967), and The Sycamore Girl (1971). Janes was a pianist and music teacher in Oxford, and music forms the backdrop of some of her novels.

JOCELYN, FANNY (dates unknown) (pseudonym of ????) 1930s Unidentified author of a single novel, And the Stars Laughed (1937), about a pacifist in World War I. She also co-wrote a play, Come Out to Play (1938), with John Sand. There are some general clues to her identity—she worked as a journalist in London, lived for a time in Russia as a little girl just before and in the early days of WWI, was eighteen years old when she started writing her novel, and was living in Willesden when it appeared about ten years later. A review which provides many of these details notes that her name is a pseudonym, but sadly doesn't provide a hint of her real name.

KEECH, GERTRUDE CLARA (14 Jun 1896 – 28 Aug 1972) (née Catchpole, aka Gertrude C. Tennant) 1920s, 1960s Author of at least two novels (40 years apart). Adrift (1923) appeared under her pseudonym, then she appears not to have published another book until the 1960s, when she published several works of local history as well as a mystery, The Charter Lane Mystery (1967), under her married name. Another work, The Record of Jeffrye Cranfield (1962), could concievably be a novel as well, but information is scarce.

KAZARINE, VIOLET [CONSTANCE] (1891 – 6 Jun 1947) (née White, later married name Butler) 1920s Author of two novels, Poor Fish (1927) and Five Sisters (1930). Violet married a Russian in 1920 and became a Russian citizen, but her British citizenship was reinstated in 1929, presumably following a breakdown of the marriage. These facts might be relevant to a review of Poor Fish, which notes that it's about just such a marriage and sums up, "The man is a thoroughly lazy, immoral, and incompetent creature, and how a girl could be such a fool as to marry him and stick to him through everything, knowing what he was, seems incomprehensible."

KEMP, DIANA (2 Jan 1919 – 21 Oct 2010) (née Moyle, later married names Simpson and Howell) 1950s – 1960s Author of nearly a dozen novels, usually with a romantic element. The Fencers (1957) is set in London and Mallorca with characters working in the newspaper business, while in Touch Wood (1964) a young woman travels to the Scottish Highlands to escape her past. Other titles are Reel of Three (1955), My Mother's Keeper (1956), The Day of the Rowan (1956), A Reed from the River (1959), Firebird (1960), Wings of the Wind (1961), No More Peacocks (1962), The Same Boat (1966), and The Small Hours (1968). In an exchange of messages on Ancestry, her family told me that Kemp wrote her books in a Scottish "hideaway" near Oban. Thank you to them for confirming her information for this entry.

KENT, NORA (20 Feb 1899 – 7 Oct 1977) 1920s – 1970s Author of nearly 50 novels over more than five decades, often focused on rural life in Sussex, where she spent much of her life. A few of her later works seem to include an element of crime. Titles include The Greater Dawn (1920), The Vintage (1925), Starveacres (1930), Rainbow at Night (1932), Fire Among Thorns (1935), Unto Us a Child (1943), Landscape Under Snow (1948), Candles for a Journey (1954), The Hour Before Sunset (1960), A Charm of Nieces (1962), A Hint of Murder (1967), The Albatross Aunt (1971), and Uncertain Anchorage (1975).

LAMONT, MARY (3 Feb 1897 – 12 Jan 1970) (pseudonym of Emily Mary Buxton, née Hollins) 1950s Author of a single novel, Roberta (1950), and a story collection, To Live at Random (1953). According to reviews, Roberta, which received a Book Society recommendation, is based on the author's own troubled childhood in a large country house around 1900. The above identification is highly likely but not certain.

LEIGHTON, WING (dates unknown) (pseudonym of an unknown "Mrs. Gammie") 1940s Author of a single novel, Whistle Me Over the Water (1944), described by the Observer as "a romantic story of a love-crossed land-girl with a spy chase to finish. Dreamily readable—like a cathedral close tea-shop." Her publisher's archive says the name is the pseudonym of a Mrs. Gammie, but she has not been further identified.

LOCKE, D[OROTHY]. M[ARY]. (16 Mar 1896 – 1971) (née Crawforth Smith) 1940s Author of a single novel, Two Ways Meet (1942), described by a reviewer as a thriller set in Borneo.

LOMER, E[THEL]. H[ADDEN]. (11 Apr 1898 – 26 Mar 1981) (née Rowe, aka Caroline Rowe) 1930s, 1950s Irish author (born and raised in County Wicklow and educated at Queen's University, Belfast) of six novels. Her first three—Barney's Bend (1934), Look on the Fields (1935), and The Grey Geese (1936)—were published under her pseudonym and focus on rural life in Ireland. After the war, she married an Englishman and moved to Hastings, publishing three more novels under her own name—Glory Down (1952), the "tragic story of five friends and the great cliff, Glory Down, which eventually claimed two of them as its victims", Roxalla (1953), a psychological study focused on two young boys and set in an Irish "big house", and For Flute and Piccolo (1955), focused on the troubles of a family.

LONGMAN, V. I. (dates unknown) (pseudonym of a "Mrs. Vernon Deane") 1910s – 1930s Author of two novels. Harvest (1913) deals with a young woman, half English, half Indian, who is sent to England following her father's death, and includes a section describing her life at Oxford. Longman apparently didn't publish again for nearly two decades, when That Little Candle (1931) appeared, the story of a young man inspired by religious belief to establish a "Friendship Club" "in the slums of Westminster", which comes to a tragic end. This was apparently the pseudonym of a Mrs. Vernon Deane, and The Tatler refers to her as a member of a Le Toquet group of writers, but she has not yet been traced beyond that.

LOVE, MARGARET (dates unknown) 1950s – 1960s Unidentified author of at least four children's books—All in an Afternoon! (1953), Clare the Younger Sister (1954), An Explorer for an Aunt (1960), and Four Tickets to Adventure (1966). She had earlier written a one-act play for women called Girdle Round the Earth (1952), and appears to be the same author who published educational and non-fiction works in later years.

MARC, ELIZABETH (13 Nov 1882 – 17 Sept 1964) (born Elsie Algar, married name Princess Musrat, legally changed to Mostyn, aka Princess Nusrat) 1920s – 1930s Author of around ten children's books and at least one novel for adults. Two Men's Tale (1929) is about two men with opposing personalities who are thrown together at school, then in the Arctic, and finally in Australia. She married Prince Nusrat Ali Mirza of Murshidabad, India, and her first four children's books were published under the name Princess Musrat. In 1927, they emigrated to Australia, where they changed their name and she published several more books as Elizabeth Marc, some with Australian settings.

MARGETSON, STELLA (6 Mar 1912 – 13 Apr 1992) 1940s Journalist, playwright, historian, and author of two novels. Her first publications were two story collections, Miss Swinford Remembers (1941) and Flood Tide and Other Stories (1943), followed by the novels Peter's Wife (1948), about the havoc a widowed daughter-in-law causes in a well-to-do English family, and The Prisoners (1949), about an art dealer's fall from grace. Thereafter she focused on writing radio plays and turned to writing popular history, including Journey by Stages (1967), about stagecoaches in the 17th-19th centuries, The Long Party: High Society in the Twenties & Thirties (1974), and Victorian High Society (1980). Margetson was the daughter of actress Florence Collingbourne.

MARSHALL, [EVELYN] MAY (17 Jan 1898 – 4 Apr 1971) (née Martin) 1930s - 1950s Journalist, editor, playwright, and author of children's fiction and seven novels. She wrote at least one published play, The Enchanted Isle (1934), from which she moved to children's fiction with titles like Jan Solves the Riddle (1935), Nothing Ever Happens! (1936), and The Song Triumphant (1936). In 1937, her first adult novel, Impetuous Friend, was published, about a schoolmistress in a high school. This was followed by Island Home (1938), about an 18-year-old going to stay with family friends, Second Life (1940), about a woman who seeks new adventures now that her children are grown, United Family (1952), about a doctor's family adjusting to postwar life, Mulberry Leaf (1954), about the lives of nurses in a modern hospital, This Power of Love (1956), and Youth Storms In (1956), about a young war widow whose arrival in the lives of her older sisters-in-law wreaks havoc on their staid lives. She was also editor of a prominent women's magazine. The British Library shows the author as "May Kathleen Marshall", but comparing information from her book reviews with public records it seems clear she is Evelyn May, whose son, Thomas Cedric, was prominent in the RAF (see here), a fact mentioned in at least one review of the novels. Thank you to Hilary Clare for her help in untangling May's records.

MATHESON, JEAN [CHISHOLM] (1909 - 2001) (married name Marshall) 1950s – 1960s Scottish author of eight novels. The Cistern and the Fountain (1951) is about a woman in financial difficulty who opens her home to guests, while The Island (1952) deals with two MacArdles, one an American of Scotch descent, the other living in Scotland but wanting to get away to the bigger world, who decide to trade places. The Visit (1954) is described as "a grim psychological novel—a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in modern dress", while The Day of the Fair (1955) appears to be a more humorous tale of the goings-on at a neighborhood fair. Thereafter, Matheson turned to crime fiction, noting in one article that it was the only type of novel which sold—these works include So Difficult to Die (1957), The Dire Departed (1958), and The Goldfish Pool (1961), the last about a woman looking back on her childhood in an orphanage run by a "super-horrific female fortune hunter". Her final novel was The Little Green Bird (1963), set in Edinburgh and dealing with the effects of a man's alcoholism on his wife and child.

MAUGHAN, A[NNE]. M[ARGERY]. (4 Nov 1921 – 7 Jan 2018) 1950s, 1970s Author of three historical novels—Monmouth Harry (1956), Young Pitt (1974), and The King's Malady (1978). She was born and grew up in Durham.

MCKAY, ANN (dates unknown) 1940s Unidentified author of a single children's title, Riddleton Roundabout (1942), described in a publisher's blurb as the "story of a country family, by an author who is only 14."

MENZIES, EMMA L[OUISA]. (1884 - 1972) (née Millen) 1930s Author of a single humorous epistolary novel, Achachlacher (1936), about life in a Scottish manse. The novel is in three parts and appears to have first been published in three short segments. The 1936 edition collecting all three segments contains the message: "Copies of the book may be had from Mrs. Menzies, High Manse, Tobermory, Isle of Mull."

MITCHELL, YVONNE (7 Jul 1915 – 24 Mar 1979) (born Yvonne Frances Joseph) 1960s – 1970s Actress, playwright, children's writer, biographer, and author of seven novels. The Bed-Sitter (1959) is about a refugee from Hitler's Germany and his affair with a struggling actress, while Frame for Julian (1960) focuses on a painter and his family living in the South of France. A Year in Time (1964) traces the difficult beginnings of a young actress, The Family (1967) is about the troubled relations between a widower and his three daughters, and in Martha on Sunday (1970) an actress engages in soul-searching during her Sunday off. I could find no details about God Is Inexperienced (1974), but her final novel, But Answer Came There None (1977), is about a dying woman's views of her past, Heaven, and Hell. Mitchell wrote two children's books, Cathy at Home (1965) and Cathy Away (1967), as well as at least one play, The Same Sky (1953), a memoir, Actress (1957), and an acclaimed biography, Colette: A Taste for Life (1975). Her film roles included The Divided Heart (1954) and Woman in a Dressing Gown (1957), and she earned acclaim on television as Cathy in a 1953 production of Wuthering Heights and in a 1973 BBC production of Colette's Cheri.

MOORE, E[UNICE]. HAMILTON (1877 – 30 Dec 1964) (married name Gordon) 1910s – 1930s Poet, playwright, and author of at least six novels. Her debut, The Rut (1913), subtitled "A Novel of Revolt against Domesticities", sounds like a rather bleak tale of a wife and mother who attempts to escape social norms and fails. The Garden of Love (1914) was described as "the story of a great and tragic love", while her later The Virgin Crowned (1928) deals with an unmarried mother. Other titles are The Dreamer Wakes (1927), The House of Refuge (1927), and Pharoah's Lady (1931). Moore published several volumes of poetry and wrote a number of one-act and other plays.

MOYNIHAN, C. C. (20 Oct 1907 – 1975) (full name Claire Chadwick Moynihan, née Clara Klein, name change to Chadwick, earlier married name Lustgarten) 1940s Author of three novels—A Song for Your Sorrows (1945), about the problems of a young married couple, described by one critic as "on the sob side but full of humanity", Foreigner's Child (1947), and Before the Fruit Comes (1948). She emigrated to the US in the 1950s and died in Brooklyn.

MUNDAY, MADELEINE C[ONSTANCE]. (7 or 17 Nov 1895 – 6 Mar 1981) 1930s Author of three romantic novels—The Coast Road (1932), Gypsy Heart (1933), and The Ravelled Sleeve (1933). She also wrote a travel book about The Far East (1935) and a volume of journalism, Rice Bowl Broken (1946), about Japanese activities in China 1936-1941. Different records give her birthdate as 7 Nov or 17 Nov.

MYERS, MARY (dates unknown) 1950s Unidentified author of six novels—The Thin Gold Ring (1950), The Immortal Echo (1951), The Key Called Promise (1952), Gold in the Dust (1953), A Candle to Saint Anthony (1954), and The Far-Off Fountain (1954)—the first of which, at least, deals with Catholic themes.

NEVIN, MAY (dates unknown) (pseudonym of an unknown "Mrs. Canice Whyte") 1930s Unidentified author of two novels—The Girls of Sunnyside (1933), about an Englishwoman inheriting an Irish homestead, and Over the Hills (1935). An article about her daughter's winning of a music exhibition provides the author's real name and that she and her husband were living in Dublin at the time, but it has so far not been possible to get further.

NICHOLSON, [UNA] PHYLLIS (24 Nov 1897 – 27 Apr 1965) (née Higgs) 1940s Author of four books about country life—Norney Rough (1941), about life in Godalming, Surrey, Cornish Cream (1942), about a wartime holiday in Cornwall, Family Album (1943), and Country Bouquet (1947). These appear to be primarily memoirs, but allowing for a certain amount of fictionalization that usually creeps into such works, I'm including her here.

NOAKES, KATHLEEN [MARY EMLYN] (21 Jan 1907 – 1999) (married name Churcher) 1940s – 1950s Author of six romantic novels—The Flame of Youth (1942), Lamps at Morning (1944), Adventure for April (1947), Uncertain Glory (1950), Winter Is Past (1950), and Brave Laughter (1954).

NOLAN, WINIFRIDE (12 Nov 1913 – 2 Jan 2011) (née Bell) 1950s – 1960s Author of several volumes of historical children's fiction and one novel for adults set in the present, The Flowing Tide (1957), about the farming life. Her children's fiction includes Rich Inheritance (1952), about a Catholic family in Elizabethan England, Exiles Come Home (1955), David and Jonathan: A Chronicle 1606-1623 (1958), about two Catholic boys growing up in the aftermath of the Gunpowder Plot, and The Night of the Wolf (1969), set in 1680s Wicklow. The New Invasion (1953) and Seven Fat Kine (1966) are described as autobiographical works.

NUGENT, MARGERY [CONSTANCE OTTLEY] (20 Dec 1884 – 10 Dec 1956) 1940s Author of a single novel, Fenella (1942), about one day in a little girl's life on a well-to-do country estate before the wars. If it's based on Nugent's own childhood, it may well be set in Sowerby, Yorkshire, where her father was managing director of a woollen mill.

O'DONOVAN, JOAN [MARY] (31 Dec 1914 – 9 Feb 2014) (née Knape) 1950s – 1960s, 1980s Author of four novels and three story collections, which often received enthusiastic acclaim. The Visited (1959, aka A Singular Passion) deals with an unmarried woman in her 50s who becomes obsessed with marrying a shady fellow traveler on a tour of Ireland. The Middle Tree (1961), about a young teacher at an impoverished school and her flirtation with a Communist colleague and his ideas, presumably draws from O'Donovan's own experiences as a teacher before WWII (her son notes that she reported her profession as "writer" instead of "teacher" when she joined the WAAFs as teaching was a reserved profession and she wanted to escape it). She, Alas! (1965) focuses on a woman in her 50s who is publicly a widow though she never actually married the man she still mourns. And in Argument with an East Wind (1986), a woman of 60 reaches a turning point upon losing her job and her lover. Her story collections are Dangerous Worlds (1958), Shadows on the Wall (1960), and The Niceties of Life (1964). During and for a time after WWII, O'Donovan was in a relationship with Michael Francis O'Donovan, better known as author Frank O'Connor, and adopted his name. Later, she settled in Dordogne, France, and for some time provided a home and care for author David Garnett in his declining years. According to the author's son, among her unpublished work are an additional collection of stories assembled in the 1980s, a travel book focused on the Dordogne, and drafts and notes for an additional novel, The Prism, never completed. Many thanks to Oliver O'Donovan for his kind assistance and information about his mother.

ORME, EVE (4 Apr 1894 – 22 Oct 1983) (pseudonym of Leila Isobel Williamson, née Lodwick, earlier married name Webster) 1940s – 1950s Author of nine novels, including There's Something About a Soldier (1942) and First Light (1943), set during WWII, The Fruit of Action (1944), about an Englishwoman who marries a German just before World War I, Blind Mice (1946), Dual Reflection (1948), Shadows Path (1950), The Flowering Tree (1954), Closed Heart (1955), and The Unforgiving Past (1955). She co-wrote at least one play, and published Magic Mountain (1945), an account of a trip through the Himalayas with her husband, an officer in India. She suffered from arthritis and wrote two books about her experiences, My Fight Against Osteo-Arthritis (1955) and Reflections of an Arthritic (1956).

PAGE, CATHERINE (24 Jul 1905/6 – 4 Jan 1967) (pseudonym of Catherine/Cathleen Lilias Callender, née Armstrong) 1950s – 1960s Author of around a dozen romantic novels, including Love the Winner (1955), Sweet Sorrow (1957), Honeymoon Mews (1958), Home Sweet Home (1959), The Irish Nurse (1960), and For Love or Money (1962).

PARSONS, G[RACE]. M[URIEL]. T[EMPÉ]. (4 Dec 1896 – 13 Jul 1986) 1930s, 1970s Schoolteacher in Surrey and author of two novels. The Dove Pursues (1933) is about the young daughter of a Norfolk rector who falls hopelessly in love with a tutor, while Laura (1978), which only appeared more than 40 years later but may have been written earlier, is again set in Norfolk around the turn of the century and follows a young girl's attempted rebellion against conventions. A Guardian review noted that "under the quiet surface it is saying as much as The Nightflower or The Women's Room, or for that matter the effusions of Erica Jong, about the plight of women in a society that thinks that freedom is first of all the right of men, and that the other sex can only have the left-overs from that right."

PHILLIPS, MARJORIE (23 Apr 1910 – 25 Jul 1998) (née Fell) 1950s – 1960s, 2000s Author of at least 10 children's titles, including historical and fantasy stories. Susanna Campaigns (1951) is set in England in the early 1700s, Simona's Jewel (1954) and Two of Red and Two of Blue (1955) in medieval Italy, and The Midshipman and the Rajah (1963) in 18th century India. Felicity and the Secret Papers (1952) is a contemporary adventure involving industrial spies, while Annabel and Bryony (1953) takes place in a fantasy world. Phillips wrote Annabel and Tawny not long after, but it was rejected by her publisher and not published until 2001. She wrote three more sequels without attempting to publish them, which were posthumously published—Annabel and Curlie (2003), Annabel and the Blue Hills (2005), and Claude at Harfleur (2007). There's an informative article about Phillips here.

RATHBONE, LETTICE (14 Aug 1895 – 16 Aug 1984) 1930s – 1940 Author of two novels—Occupation: Spinster (1935), about a young woman's search for happiness in the English countryside, London, and Europe, and Autumn Adventure (1940), about the unusual friendship between a spoiled boy and his mother's middle-aged house guest. Rathbone spent much of her life in Smarden, Kent, and I give warm thanks to the Smarden Heritage Center for their help in confirming her identity. Among other films that organization has available online is one focused on Rathbone's own recollections of World War II in the village—see here.

RAYMOND, MARY (30 Sept 1914 – 22 Jul 1994) (pseudonym of Mary Constance Keegan, née Heathcott) 1930s – 1990s Children's writer and author of more than two dozen romantic novels, including Forgotten Sweetheart (1934), With All My Love (1936), Paradise Is Here (1953), Love Be Wary (1958), Hide My Heart (1961), Shadow of a Star (1963), The Divided House (1966), That Summer (1970), The Pimpernel Project (1972), April Promise (1980), and Grandma Tyson's Legacy (1992). Her children's titles were The Adventures of the Pinkle Ponkle (1935) and Stories about the Floppo Woppo (1937).

ROLFE, DIANA (7 May 1902 – 31 Dec 1986) (pseudonym of Joyce Gertrude Mann) 1930s - 1940s Author of five humorous novels about the high society hunting crowd—Good Huntin' (1939), Plain Sailin' (1940), Maiden Stakes (1947), Ministering Angels (1948), and Period Portrait (1949)—at least some of which are set in Leicestershire.

ROSENBERG, ELIZABETH (dates unknown) 1950s – 1960 Unidentified co-author, with husband John, of two mystery novels, Out Brief Candle (1959) and Fanfare for a Murderer (1960). She may be the Elizabeth Ann King 1925-2014 who married Rupert John Rosenberg in 1953, but we have not yet found confirmation.

SAUNDERS, EDITH [ALICE] (dates unknown) 1930s – 1950s Unidentified historian, biographer, and author of at least two novels—The Passing Hours (1935), about the residents of a London suburb, including a girls' school, and The Gods in Conflict (1949), about a young girl's stay with a German family in 1939. The Mystery of Mary Lafarge (1951), a retelling of a famous 1840 murder case, is sometimes referred to as a novel and sometimes as non-fiction. Among her historical works are A Distant Summer (1946), about Queen Victoria's state visit to Paris in 1855, The Prodigal Father (1951), about Alexandre Dumas both father and son, The Age of Worth (1954), about the couturier to the Empress Eugénie, Napoleon and Mademoiselle George (1958), and The Hundred Days (1964), about Napoleon's 1815 campaign. Her first publication was a children's title, Fanny Penquite (1932), described as an "exquisite", "vivid", "delightful" tale of a little girl's death and ascent to heaven.

SCARLETT, CLARE (13 Nov 1889 – 1 Jun 1940) (pseudonym of Clara Thursby, married name Aspinall) 1920s – 1930s Mother of Ruth ASPINALL. Author of two novels—Fairyhood (1927) and Iron Blue (1932), which are described in ads as "fresh" and "charming" but with no details of plot. The Very Young Life of Clara Thursby (1976) was published by her daughter, based on a memoir of childreen written by the author.

SETH-SMITH, JANE (1909 - ???????) 1950s – 1960s Author of four light-hearted romantic novels—Three Suitors for Cassandra (1955), Suite in Four Flats (1957), about the entanglements of three generations of a family in one house, Love Thy Neighbours (1959), and The Laird and the Loch (1960). The birth year above is from the Library of Congress—I haven't yet been able to trace her in public records. I reviewed her second novel here.

SHAYNE, ELENA (8 Sept 1909 – 1984) (pseudonym of Louise Crawshay Parker, married names Kerkin and Barel) 1930s Author of a single novel, Everyday (1935), a sort of poetic Provincial Lady diary about a young woman's life in rural England and, later, abroad with her aunt. I reviewed the book here and speculated about the author's life, but scholar Elizabeth Crawford went further and thoroughly (and fascinatingly) researched her—see here—even speaking with her daughter and identifying the village in Devon in which the novel is set and many of the real-life figures on which Shayne may have based her characters. My thanks to Elizabeth for identifying her.

SIME, [JESSIE] GEORGINA (12 Feb 1868 – 13 Sept 1958) (aka J. G. Sime) 1910s – 1950s Scottish by birth but emigrating to Canada in 1907, Sime was a journalist, scholar, and author or co-author of seven works of fiction, often focusing on the place of women in society, in particular working women. Early titles, published as "J. G. Sime", include The Mistress of All Work (1916), Canada Chaps (1917), Sister Woman (1919), Our Little Life (1921), and In a Canadian Shack (1937). Her final two novels, as "Georgina Sime" and co-written with Frank Nicholson, were A Tale of Two Worlds (1953), which follows an Austrian family beginning just before WWII, one branch remaining in Austria and one emigrating to Canada, and Inez and Her Angel (1954), about the mystical experiences of an unhappy woman. Her non-fiction includes Thomas Hardy of the Wessex Novels (1928), The Land of Dreams (1940), an analysis of her dreams over the course of seven years, Orpheus in Quebec (1942), about the potential for art in Canada, and Brave Spirits (1952, with Nicholson), comprised of "studies of famous men."

SIMPSON, VIOLET A[DELAIDE]. (22 Jun 1871 – 3 Aug 1954) 1900s – 1910s Author of at least eight novels, some historical in themes. The Bonnet Conspirators: A Story of 1815 (1903) deals with smugglers in Sussex in the year of Waterloo, and The Sovereign Power (1904) also takes place in Napoleonic times, while Occasion's Forelock (1906) is at least partly set in a women's college at Oxford. Other titles are The Parson's Wood (1905), In Fancy's Mirror (1911), Flower of the Golden Heart (1913), The Beacon-Watchers (1913), and The Keys of My Heart (1915). The 1939 English and Wales register has her born 1873, but she was shaving a couple of years off as her birth is clearly registered in 1871.

SMILES, AILEEN (15 Oct 1879 – 9 Jun 1967) 1930s Irish author of a single novel, Indian Tea (1936), about the governess of a tea-planter's children who has a troubled relationship with his assistant and apparently finds considerable adventure along the way. The author was the granddaughter of author and reformer Samuel Smiles, and her only other publication was a biography, Samuel Smiles and His Surroundings (1956).

SMITH, CYNTHIA M[AY]. (dates unknown) 1960 Unidentified author of a single romantic novel, Allyson's Daughter (1960). The middle name comes from the British Library and may be either incorrect or a nickname. Robert Hale's information said she was living in Grindon, Sunderland when the book appeared, and there was a Cynthia Margaret Smith (c1938-2018) living in Sunderland. However, there's just too few details about her to be certain.

SOFTLEY, [ISABEL MARJORIE] ANNA (29 Jun 1909 – 1 Feb 1993) (née Wills) 1950s Author of a single novel, The White Garland (1958), summed up in a blurb as a "dramatic, romantic novel of passionate love, blazing excitement and tragedy … set against a vivid background of Singapore, South Africa and London during the years 1940 to 1950." According to articles, she was living in Singapore at the time the book was published, and an earlier record says she was a "private secretary" there.

SPENCER, CLAIRE (20 Apr 1895 – 21 May 1987) (married names Smith and Evans) 1930s Scottish author of three novels—Gallows’ Orchard (1930), about an unconventional young woman in rural Scotland, which garnered comparisons to Thomas Hardy and Emily Brontë, The Quick and the Dead (1932), set in New York City, and The Island (1935), set in a Scottish fishing village. Spencer was raised in Scotland, but emigrated to the U.S. in 1915. There's a thorough article about Spencer and her work here.

STAPLETON, DOROTHY C[LARE]. (27 Jan 1908 – 14 Mar 1986) (married name Newman) 1950s Liverpudlian author of three novels—The Village on the Sands (1950), about a secretary whose dreams of a South American village seen in a photograph affect her life in unexpected ways, Song from the West (1952), and Married Young (1954), which seems to deal with the strains that war puts on marriage.

STEVENSON, GEORGE (?1875 - ????) (pseudonym of unidentified woman writer from Yorkshire) 1910s Author of a single novel, Topham's Folly (1913), compared in a publisher's blurb to Trollope. We know that this was the pseudonym of a Yorkshire woman, apparently born 1875, but no further identification has yet been made.

STEWART, FLORA (dates unknown) 1950s – 1960s Unidentified author of three humorous books about a London couple who set up a flower farm in the Natal in South Africa. These were Flowering in the Sun (1956), I Wore My Rabbit (1959), and Bees in Our Bonnet (1961), and although they were purportedly non-fiction, I'm allowing for the usual gentle fictionalization that happens in such books to qualify Stewart for this list. She later published two crime novels, Deadly Nightcap (1966) and Blood Relations (1967).

STILES, IRENE [CATHERINE] (24 Feb 1902 – 25 May 1964) (married name Sheridan, aka Irene Sheridan) 1920s - 1930s, 1960s Journalist and author of five novels. The High Risk (1926) centers around a secondhand bookshop in London and the romantic difficulties of the owner's granddaughter. The Kopper Kettle (1928, aka Saplings) deals with the art school romance of two idealistic young people, while Seventeen Summers (1931) is about the tragic fate of a troubled young girl. The Willing Prisoner (1932), about the unrequited affections of a young girl, was described by one critic as "a human document of ready interest and real significance. One has to seek far and often to find a novel so rich in the stuff of life." And Manana: A Summer Chronicle (1933) is about five characters whose paths cross on holiday in Republican Spain. Late in life, the author published two children's titles under her married name, We Go to Germany (1960) and We Go to Norway and Sweden (1965).

THORNICROFT, JANE (dates unknown) 1930s - 1940s Unidentified author of six children's titles—Striper the Badger (1935), Play Tennis! (1937), Kiki the Squirrel (1938), Dawn the Fawn (1948), Mink Was No Ordinary Cat (1948), and Nic the Rabbit (1949). A 1938 review says she's a teacher, and there's a teacher named Alice Thornicroft on the 1939 Register, but the name could also be a pseudonym, no way of being certain.

TINDALL, DAVIS (dates unknown) (pseudonym of Daisy Tindall) 1940s Unidentified author of a single volume of short stories, The Girls on the Bridge (1947). A review notes that it was the pen name of a Scottish author named Daisy Tindall, but although there are possible matches for that name in public records, there's so far no way to determine which she is.

TREMLETT, MRS. HORACE (1895 – 25 Jan 1948) (pseudonym of Jane Robinson Tremlett, née Brunton) 1910s – 1930 Author of more than a dozen novels, most apparently humorous in tone and some set in British-occupied Africa. Looking for Grace (1915) deals with a woman who receives news of her husband's death from his colleague, who assures her that his final words were about "Grace" (not, alas, his wife's name), and sets out to locate said woman. Other titles are Curing Christopher (1914), Giddy Mrs. Goodyer (1916), Emily Does Her Best (1917), Birds of a Feather (1919), Platonic Peter (1919), Fanny the Fibber (1921), A Knight in Paris (1922), Anybody's Husband (1922), The Heart Knoweth (1923), Destiny's Darling (1926), Come What May (1928), and Lover's Luck (1930). She also published a travel book, With the Tin Gods (1915), about Nigeria.

TRUE, JENNIFER (31 Jan 1883 – 24 Apr 1960) (pseudonym of Barbara Madelaine Honor Carbonell, née Rouse) 1930s Author of three novels which sound a bit like melodrama—House of Consolation (1933), Wire Blinds (1934), and The Ivory Chair (1935). She also published short fiction in The Windsor Magazine. She was born in Cornwall and later in life lived in County Cork in Ireland.

ULLMAN, MONICA [MARY] DISNEY (12 Jul 1911 - ????) (née Disney, possible later married name Nöhren) 1950s Prominent stage actress and dancer as a child and author of a single children's title, Film Star Gilly (1950). National Portrait Gallery's website mentions her second husband's name, but I haven't been able to find any trace of her after the publication of her book.

VINTER, MARY [MARGARET KELL] (25 May 1902 – 8 Feb 1987) (née Hardy) 1930s - 1940s Author of nearly a dozen novels. Her debut, Rain on the Just (1931), sounds like soap opera—young heiress falls for scoundrel who commits bigamy to marry her, later dies, and she is left impoverished. Return to Earth (1933) is about the discovery of a drug to bring the dead back to life—what could go wrong with that? Her other titles are Which Would You Rather? (1931), Where Are the Nine? (1934), Lament for Simon (1935), Son of Simon (1936), Easy to Know (1947), Fun While It Lasts (1948), Agents in Arms (1950), The Unsettled Year (1951), and Akin to Love (1952).

VIVIAN, ALISON [LENNOX] (27 Jan 1888 – Oct 1968) (née Irwin) 1920s - 1930s Author of six novels, some possible set in Rhodesia. Titles are Out of Your Tears (1925), Reluctant Shores (1926), Beneath the Moon (1927), Dreams to Sell (1928), The Dark Secret (1930), and High Life (1935). She had herself farmed in Rhodesia before her marriage in 1922. Her sister was poet and gardening writer Muriel Stuart.

WARREN, REBECCA (15 Jun 1894 – 12 Feb 1984) (pseudonym of Bertha [Bee] Dulcie Baker, née Callander, possible earlier married name Hayman) 1950s – 1960s Author of three humorous memoirs/novels about life in a country cottage—Where No Mains Flow (1959), A Lamb in the Lounge (1959), and Vino Tinto (1961). Both Callander and Hayman are linked to her as possible earlier names, but it seems her father's name was the former.

WILLETT, HILDA [MARY] (11 Nov 1878 – 13 Apr 1960) 1920s – 1940s Author of eleven novels, many or all with crime themes. Titles are Tragedy in Pewsey Chart (1929), Diamonds of Death (1930), So It Goes On (1930), April, May and June (1931), Murder at the Party (1931), Bucket in Well (1932), Mystery on the Centre Court (1933), Found Shot (1934), Accident in Piccadilly (1935), Peril in Darkness (1935), and It's Quiet in the Country (1946).

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.

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.