Happy Labor Day weekend to those in the U.S.
Andy and I will be in sunny San Diego (as opposed to foggy San Francisco) for the long weekend, but my next post, on the second Celia Buckmaster novel (I know you're all holding your breath!), should go up by next Wednesday. Or Tuesday if I'm really inspired. Ciao until then!
Meanwhile...
I've added 28 more writers to the main list. These are quite a mixed bag. Several are mainly known as mystery writers—I was trolling some mystery websites and came up with several new names. In particular, Margot Bennett, who received acclaim fromJulia n
Symons and then turned her attention to sci-fi; Katherine Farrer, whose Cretan Counterfeit reportedly makes
effective use of the British Library and Bloomsbury; and Joan Fleming, whose The Man From Nowhere was acclaimed for
its portrayal of suspicion in an English village, all seem to be of interest. I'm also yearning now for Nancy Spain's The Kat Strikes (1955), a well-received thriller set in the immediate postwar period in London, availability of which in the U.S. seems sadly limited. Another for the Hopeless Wish List? Perhaps, though I haven't given up yet!
Andy and I will be in sunny San Diego (as opposed to foggy San Francisco) for the long weekend, but my next post, on the second Celia Buckmaster novel (I know you're all holding your breath!), should go up by next Wednesday. Or Tuesday if I'm really inspired. Ciao until then!
Meanwhile...
I've added 28 more writers to the main list. These are quite a mixed bag. Several are mainly known as mystery writers—I was trolling some mystery websites and came up with several new names. In particular, Margot Bennett, who received acclaim from
In addition, I finally fleshed out my
information on some writers I had on my World War II reading list—memoirists
like Christabel Bielenberg and Anita Leslie and another important diarist,
Clara Milburn, who lived through the terrible bombing of Coventry .
I also added Antonia White's
daughter, Susan Chitty, who turns out to have written three novels herself, and a few
World War I period writers about whom information is sparse. And the work of Gertrude Bell and Ethel
Tweedie, though not technically fiction or memoir, both were trailblazing and
intriguing enough for their travel writing to be of interest here. Travel writing is sort of memoir, right? Right?
And Edna O'Brien? It's hard to believe at this late date that I'm
still finding oversights this significant.
My excuse is that I thought she didn't start writing until the mid-1960s. In fact, her first novel appeared
in 1960, qualifying her (just barely) for inclusion here.
The new total: 429
writers. With more to come!
MARJORIE ALAN
(1905-????)
(pseudonym of Doris
Marjorie Bumpus)
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More
research needed; mystery novelist about whom little information is available;
titles include Masked Murder
(1945), Murder in November (1946), Murder at Puck's Cottage (1951), and Murder in a Maze (1956).
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ALICE MAUD ALLEN (dates
unknown)
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More
research needed; author of at least four novels, including the World War I
themed Silhouette (1923) and The Trap (1931), the latter published
by the Woolves; other titles include Baxters
o' the Moor (1922), One Tree
(1926), and a biography of Sophy Sanger (1958).
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Novelist
who co-authored with her husband Claude an astonishing number of popular
novels, including Helen of the Moor
(1911) and Nurse (1916); in WWI,
they worked together in a British field hospital in
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PAMELA
(pseudonym of Muriel Vere
Mant Barling, aka Charles Barling)
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Author
of more than two dozen mystery novels, including White Pierrot (1936), Saga
of a Scoundrel (1947), The Rest Is
Silence (1951), Motive for Murder
(1963), and Cage Without Bars
(1966).
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GERTRUDE BELL
(1868-1926)
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Archaeologist,
travel writer, anti-suffragist, and a key political figure involved in establishing
the modern nation of
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MARGOT BENNETT
(1912-1980)
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Author
of mystery novels such as The Widow of
Bath (1952), praised by
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CHRISTABEL BIELENBERG
(1909-2003)
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Memoirist
known for The Past Is Myself
(1968), about her marriage to a German Nazi-resister and their harrowing life
in Nazi Germany, which inspired the TV drama Christabel (1988); after the TV version, demand from fans led
Bielenberg to write a sequel, The Road
Ahead (1992).
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VIOLET BONHAM-CARTER
(1887-1969)
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Daughter
of Prime Minister Herbert Asquith (and grandmother of actress Helena
Bonham-Carter), best known for her biography, Winston Churchill as I Knew Him (1965), but her diaries,
published in three volumes (1996-2000), are also important for her insider's
view of tumultuous times.
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GWENDOLINE
(aka Jennie Melville)
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Acclaimed
author of both contemporary and historical mysteries and, under her
pseudonym, of gothic romances and a mystery series featuring policewoman Charmian
Daniels; titles include Receipt for
Murder (1956), Murderers' Houses
(1966), and A Nameless Coffin
(1966).
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SUSAN CHITTY (1929- )
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Daughter
of Antonia White; biographer and author of three novels—The Diary of a
Fashion Model (1958), White Huntress (1963), and My Life & Horses (1966);
her biographies include The Woman Who
Wrote Black Beauty (1971) and a biography of Edward Lear (1989).
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HELEN
EDMISTON (1913-????)
(aka Helen
Robertson)
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Mystery
writer about whom little is known; author of four mystery novels—The Winged Witnesses (1955), Venice of the Black Sea (1956), The Crystal-Gazers (1957), and the
most acclaimed, The Chinese Goose
(1960, aka Swan Song), and one additional novel, The Shake-Up (1962).
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MARGARET ERSKINE
(1901-1984)
(pseudonym of Margaret
Wetherby Williams)
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Born
in
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KATHARINE FARRER
(1911-1972)
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Wife
of an Oxford don, Farrer wrote three mysteries—The Missing Link (1952), set at Oxford, Gownsman's Gallows (1954), and The Cretan Counterfeit (1957), set in and around the British
Museum—and one mainstream novel, At
Odds with Morning (1960).
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JOAN FLEMING (1908-1980)
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Mystery
writer and children's author, known for the variety of her approaches to
mystery writing; her best known works include Maiden's Prayer (1957),
The Man from Nowhere (1960), a
vivid portrayal of suspicion in an English village, and Midnight Hag (1966).
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KATHLEEN FREEMAN
(1879-1959)
(aka Mary Fitt, Stuart
Mary Wick, and Caroline Cory)
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Classical scholar,
children's author and novelist whose fiction includes the literary Inspector
Mallet mystery series beginning with Expected
Death (1938), fiction and nonfiction for children, and elegant mainstream
fiction including Quarrelling with Lois
(1928) and Gown and Shroud (1947).
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DULCIE GRAY (1915-2011)
(pseudonym & stage name of Dulcie Winifred
Catherine Savage
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Veteran actress of stage,
television, and film (including the movie version of Dorothy Whipple's They Were Sisters), Gray also wrote
mystery and adventure novels, including Murder
on the Stairs (1957), The Murder of
Love (1967), and (a fabulous title) Deadly
Lampshade (1971).
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ACEITUNA
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More research needed;
author of a dozen or more novels from the 1900s to the 1930s, including
several mysteries; titles include Mrs.
Vannock (1907), Amber and Jade
(1928), The Punt Murder (1936), and
Sweets and Sinners (1937).
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ELAINE HAMILTON (dates unknown)
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More research needed;
mystery writer of the 1930s whose titles include Some Unknown Hand (1930), Murder
in the Fog (1931), The Chelsea
Mystery (1932), and Murder Before
Tuesday (1937).
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VERE
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More research needed;
forgotten novelist of the 1920s, whose works include Sea Wrack (1922), The Naked
Man (1925), Great Waters
(1926), The Dark Freight (1928),
and a story collection, The Other Gate
and Other Stories (1928).
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(pseudonym of Annie Philippine
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More research needed; wife
of publisher
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ANITA LESLIE (1914-1985)
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Successful biographer best
known for Jennie: The Life of Lady
Randolph Churchill (1969), about Winston Churchill's mother, Leslie
earned the French Croix de Guerre twice as an ambulance driver in WWII,
described in her extraordinary memoir Train
to Nowhere (1948).
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VERA LAUGHTON MATHEWS (1888–1959)
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Director of the Women's
Royal Naval Service (WRNS) during World War II, for which she received the
DBE, Mathews published a significant memoir of her experiences, called Blue Tapestry (1948).
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CLARA MILBURN (1883–1961)
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Diarist whose World War II
diaries, published as Mrs. Milburn's
Diaries (1979), provide an important record of domestic life in Coventry
during the war—including her experience of the terrible air raids on Coventry
and the news that her son is missing in action after Dunkirk.
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PATRICIA MOYES (1923-2000)
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Popular mystery writer
whose novels usually feature Scotland Yard Chief Inspector Henry Tibbett and
his wife, whose close relationship add depth to the series; titles include Dead Men Don't Ski (1959), Murder a la Mode (1963), and The Curious Affair of the Third Dog
(1973).
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EDNA O'BRIEN (1930- )
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Acclaimed Irish novelist,
dramatist, screenwriter, and biographer, best known for her Country Girls trilogy—The Country Girls (1960), The Lonely Girl (1962), and Girls in Their Married Bliss (1964);
O'Brien published a memoir, Country
Girl, in 2012.
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DORIS POCOCK (dates unknown)
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More research needed;
children's author whose work includes girls' school stories such as The Head Girl's Secret (1927), mystery
stories like The Riddle of the Rectory
(1931), and World War II stories like Catriona
Carries On (1940) and Lorna on the
Land (1946), the latter about Land Girls.
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Pioneering journalist, TV
personality, biographer, children's author, and co-founder of the feminist She magazine,
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ETHEL BRILLIANA TWEEDIE (1862-1940)
(aka Mrs. Alec Tweedie)
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Biographer and author of
light travel books; best known for early works like A Girl's Ride in Iceland (1889) and A Winter Jaunt to Norway (1894), which pushed the boundaries of
acceptable women's behavior, she later explored women's roles in other
locales in Women the World Over
(1914).
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