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FLANEUSE (dates
unknown)
(pseudonym of ? Maud
Yardley? Elinor Glyn?)
1910s - 1930
Pseudonym used for twenty works of fiction. The author remains untraced, and OCEF speculates that more than one
author could have written under the name. Maud YARDLEY and/or Elinor GLYN,
whose works were often advertised alongside those of Flaneuse, are possible
candidates. Original dates of publication of many of the books are uncertain,
but titles include Scored!, The Triumphant Woman, Guilty Splendour, Peril's Pathway, The Yellow
Fairy, Blue Beauty, and Doubly Tied.
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Flaxman, Anna
see CAMPION, SARAH
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FLEMING,
ALISON (28 Jan 1895 – 2 Oct 1972)
(pseudonym of
Lucy Mary Cummings)
1930s – 1940s
Scottish author of four novels which, judging by a Sydney Morning Herald review of the first, Christina Strang (1936), are rather dark in theme. The other
titles are The Strawberry Field
(1937), Gooseberry Green (1946),
and Common Day (1947).
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FLEMING, HUGH (23 Aug 1882 – 21
Nov 1958)
(pseudonym of Frances Dorothy Hague)
1920s
Poet and author of two collections of stories, Candied Fruits (1923) and Octave
(1924), about which little information is available.
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FLEMING, JOAN [MARGARET] (27 Mar
1908 – 15 Nov 1980)
(née Gibson)
1940s – 1970s
Author of about 40 volumes of fiction, most mysteries, which are notable for
their variety of style and approach. Maiden's
Prayer (1957) deals with a middle-aged spinster in peril, and the Times Literary Supplement said of it:
"The atmosphere of the shabby Georgian house in London and the suspense
created by Miss Maiden's extreme vulnerability are well conveyed." The Man from Nowhere (1960) deals with
a newcomer in an English village, who becomes the prime suspect when a murder
occurs. Midnight Hag (1966) focuses
on the return of a former resident to the village in which his wife died many
years before. Two of her books—When I
Grow Rich (1962) and Nothing Is the
Number When You Die (1965)—feature Turkish philosopher Nuri Iskirlak, and
have been praised for their explorations of Eastern vs. Western attitudes.
Other mysteries include Two Lovers Too
Many (1949), The Gallows in My
Garden (1951), Polly Put the Kettle
On (1952), Malice Matrimonial
(1959), Death of a Sardine (1963), Dirty Butter for Servants (1972), and Too Late! Too Late! The Maiden Cried
(1975). Fleming began her career with several works for children, including
the "Cronian Quartet," comprised of Mulberry Hall (1945), The
Riddle in the River (1946), Button
Jugs (1947), and The Jackdaw's Nest
(1949).
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FLEMING, RUTH (dates unknown)
1930s - 1940s
Unidentified author of 10 romantic novels. A publisher's ad for The Hedge of Thorns (1941) describes
it as "[a] stormy love-story ending in the peace brought by courage; the
tale of a young Scots nurse and her patient." The other titles are The Second Mrs Elliot (1937), Ropes of Sand (1938), Rich Men's Houses (1938), Squire of Wynfield (1940), Enter Elisabeth (1940), Carol Lindsay (1941), The Grandisons of Greystones (1942), Penelope Seton (1942), and Clare Hamilton (1943).
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FLETCHER,
MEREDITH (29 Nov 1871 – 19 Mar 1942)
(pseudonym of
Mary Fletcher Kitchin)
1900s – 1910s
Author of five boys' school stories—Every
Inch a Briton (1900), Uncle Bob: A
Tale of Hazelton School (1901), Jefferson
Junior (1905), The Pretenders
(1908), and Iredale Minor (1912)
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FOLEY,
HELEN (23 Jul 1917 – 11 Mar 2007)
(pseudonym of
Helen Rosa Fowler, née Huxley, aka Helen Huxley)
1940s – 1970s
Author of nine novels. A Handful of
Time (1961) was a Book Society Choice and deals with two women before and
after WWII in and around Cambridge, where Foley herself lived at the time. The Traverse (1960) and Fort of Silence (1963) are about
troubled marriages, and Between the
Parties (1958) about an affair, while The
Grand-Daughter (1965) seems to be set in Scotland and deals with a young
girl's first love. Her debut, Summer
Drift (1946), appeared under her maiden name. The other novels are The Bright Designs (1969), The Pitcher Plant (1973), and Come to Grief (1976). Foley spent some
time, perhaps during World War II, working for the Ministry of Information.
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FORBES, ANGELA [SELINA BIANCA]
(11 Jun 1876 – 22 Oct 1950)
(née St. Clair-Erskine)
1910s – 1920s
Organizer of World War I catering services and author of
four risqué (for their time) novels, which she herself later described as
pot-boilers, including The Broken
Commandment (1910), The Other
Woman's Shadow (1912), and Should
She Have Spoken? (1923). Her memoirs—Memories
and Base Details (1921) and Fore
and Aft (1932)—are perhaps similarly scandalous. Interestingly for Da Vinci Code aficionados, her funeral
took place at Rosslyn Chapel.
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Forbes, Diana
see NICHOLSON, C[ELIA].
A[NNA].
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FORBES,
EVELYN [ERSKINE] (28 May 1899 – 1989)
(née Hill)
1950s
Vogue editor and author of beauty
and diet books, as well as one girls' career story, Brenda Buys a Beauty Salon (1954).
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FORBES,
HELEN [EMILY] (13 Dec 1874 – 13 Oct 1926)
(née Craven,
aka Helen Craven)
1890s – 1910s
Author of nine novels, of which OCEF
says her "characterization and plots are conventional, but her dialogue
is intelligent and humorous." The first three—Notes of a Music-Lover (1897), Katharine Cromer (1897), and The
Outcast Emperor (1900)—were published under her maiden name. The others
are His Eminence: A Story of Last
Century (1904), The Provincials
(1905), It's a Way They Have in the
Army (1905), Lady Marion and the
Plutocrat (1906), The Bounty of the
Gods (1910), and The Polar Star
(1911). Her final work was a volume of poetry, The Saga of the Seventh Division (1920).
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FORBES, [JOAN] ROSITA (16 Jan
1890 – 30 Jun 1967)
(née Torr, later married name McGrath)
1920s – 1930s
Adventurer, travel writer, biographer, and novelist. She was a trail-blazing
traveler at a time when few women were exploring lesser-known parts of Asia,
the tropics, and the Arab world. Travel titles include Unconducted Wanderers (1919), The
Secret of the Sahara (1921), From
Red Sea to Blue Nile (1925), Adventure, Being a Gipsy
Salad (1928), Forbidden Road—Kabal to
Sarmarkand (1937), and A Unicorn in
the Bahamas (1939). Her most controversial work was Women Called Wild (1935), which specifically focused on the
conditions of women in other parts of the world, including Arab slaves, Java
witches, and revolutionaries in Russia. She also published nearly a dozen
novels, which seem to have garnered lukewarm reactions as fiction but
contained vivid details drawn from her own travels. In The Extraordinary House (1934), her one foray into
the mystery genre, set in South America, an English widow tires of travel and
rents a house alleged to be haunted by a Spanish duke, with a very real
murder following. Other titles include The
Jewel in the Lotus (1922), Quest:
The Story of Anne, Three Men, and Some Arabs (1933), A Fool's Hell (1923), Sirocco
(1927, aka Pursuit), and The Cavaliers of Death (1930). She
published two volumes of memoir—Gypsy
in the Sun (1944) and Appointment
with Destiny (1946), later published in a single abridged volume as Appointment in the Sun (1949).
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FORBES, MRS. WALTER R. D. (1860
– 18 Apr 1924)
(pseudonym of Eveline Louisa Forbes, née Farwell)
1880s – 1910s
Author of ten novels about which little information is
available—Fingers and Fortune
(1886), Her Last Run (1889), Blight (1897), A Gentleman (1900), Dumb
(1901), Unofficial (1902), Vane Royal (1908), Leroux (1908), Nameless (1909), and His
Alien Enemy (1918).
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FORBES-ROBERTSON, DIANA (26 Dec
1914 – 9 Dec 1987)
(married name Sheean)
1940s, 1960s
Wife of journalist Douglas Sheean and member of a
prominent acting dynasty, including father Johnston Forbes-Robertson, mother
Gertrude Forbes-Robertson, and aunt Maxine Elliott. Author of a single novel,
A Cat and a King (1949), which I
reviewed here, the clever,
well-written tale of a young woman who becomes enmeshed with a famous acting
family (not unlike the author's own) and a children's book, Footlights for Jean (1963). She also
edited War Letters from Britain
(1942) and published The Battle of
Waterloo Road (1941), in which her narrative of the Blitz and its effects
on the people of working-class Lambeth is accompanied by the photographs of
Robert Capa. She also published Maxine
(1964, aka My Aunt Maxine), about
her actress aunt. She's also the niece of novelist Frances FORBES-ROBERTSON
and sister of Jean FORBES-ROBERTSON, who played Peter Pan on the London stage
and published a children's book. She became a naturalized American citizen in
1959.
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FORBES-ROBERTSON,
FRANCES [MARIE DÉSIRÉE] (15 Dec 1866 – 23 May 1956)
(married name
Harrod, aka Frances Harrod)
1880s – 1930s
Sister of actor Johnston Forbes-Robertson and aunt of Diana FORBES-ROBERTSON
and Jean FORBES-ROBERTSON. Author of thirteen novels. The Hidden Model (1901) is about an artist sheltering a woman
murderer, with whom he becomes obsessed. The
Horrible Man (1913) was described by Saturday
Review as an "allegory of the rise of the militant female."
Other titles are In Herself Complete
(1888), Odd Stories (1897), The Potentate (1898), Mother Earth (1902), What We Dream (1903), The Taming of the Brute (1905), The Wanton (1909), The Triumphant Rider (1925), Trespass (1928), Stained Wings (1930), and Temperament
(1934).
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FORBES-ROBERTSON, JEAN (16 Mar
1905 – 24 Dec 1962)
(married names Hamilton and Van Gysegam, erroneously listed in British
Library catalogue as "Forres Robertson")
1950s
Daughter of actors Johnston Forbes-Robertson and Gertrude
Forbes-Robertson, niece of author Frances FORBES-ROBERTSON, and sister of
novelist and journalist Diana FORBES-ROBERTSON. She was herself an actress
and played Peter Pan on the London
stage. She also published one children’s book, Chowry, and Idle's Islands: Two Tales of Fantasy (1953).
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Ford, Elbur
see HIBBERT, ELEANOR
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Ford, Elizabeth
see BIDWELL, MARJORIE
[ELIZABETH SARAH]
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FORD, ROSEMARY (dates unknown)
1940s
Author of two girls' school stories—The
Joy School (1947) and Trio Fights
Back (1947). Of the former, Sims and Clare said it was "unsure
whether it wants to be The Madcap of
the School or Regiment of Women."
The latter is a spy thriller.
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FORDE, A[DRIENNE]. RUBY (1893 -
????)
(née Jackson [uncertain but probable identification])
1940s
Dublin-born author of a single girls' school story, Cherry Jam at Glencastle (1945) about a bestselling girls' author
masquerading as a schoolgirl at an Irish boarding school. Forde may also be
the author of St. Aidan & St.
Colman, about Ireland's contributions to British culture.
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FOREST,
ANTONIA (26 May 1915 – 29 Nov 2003)
(pseudonym of
Patricia Giulia Caulfield Kate Rubinstein)
1940s – 1980s
Originally setting out, unsuccessfully, to write for adults, Forest found
success with her series of more than a dozen children's titles about the
eight Marlow children, beginning with Autumn
Term (1948). Several of the books take place at school, and Forest is
widely considered one of the very best school story authors. The other titles
are The Marlows and the Traitor
(1953), Falconer's Lure (1957), End of Term (1959), Peter's Room (1961), The Thursday Kidnapping (1963), The Thuggery Affair (1965), The Ready-Made Family (1967), The Player's Boy (1970), The Players and the Rebels (1971), The Cricket Term (1974), The Attic Term (1976), and Run Away Home (1982).
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FORESTER, ELSPETH LASCELLES
(1872 – 29 Jul 1931)
(real name Elsie, née Mackenzie)
1920s
Author of a single novel, 'Ware Wolf
(1928), which, according to a contemporary review, "tries to reconcile
the old Were Wolf legend with modern science and constructs a romance on this
subject which has as a background the conspiracy for a world
revolution."
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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.
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FORREST, CAROL (dates unknown)
(pseudonym of Margaret Tennyson)
Once incorrectly identified as a pseudonym of Catherine CHRISTIAN and still untraced in public
records. Author of six volumes of children's fiction, some focused on
Guiding. The House of Simon (1942)
is a wartime tale of abandoned children making their own home during the
Blitz. Her other titles are Two Rebels
and a Pilgrim (1941), Patteran
Patrol (1944), Fortune's Coin
(1945), Caravan School (1946), and The Quest of the Curlews (1947). The
British Library catalogue shows a single children's book credited to a Margaret
Tennyson, The Silver Secret (1959),
but it's unclear if this is the same author writing under her real name or a
completely different person.
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FORREST,
NOEL
(pseudonym of
Gwendolen Hudson Lewis [18 Jan 1892 - 1985] and Florence Jacoba Watson [1880
- 8 May 1963])
1920s – 1940s
Little is known about these collaborators, who published seven novels in all.
Their debut, Ways of Escape (1926),
is described as a fictitious biography of an ogre-ish man. Their other titles
are Background (1929), Brother Fool (1931), The Ferryman (1934), The Man That Looked on Glass (1937), Riding Alone (1938), and There Comes Another Day (1941).
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FORRESTER, HELEN (6 Jun 1919 –
24 Nov 2011)
(married name Bhatia, aka J. Rana, aka June Bhatia, aka June Edwards)
1950s – 2000s
Novelist and memoirist best known for her four
volumes of memoirs about her childhood and youth in Liverpool—Twopence to Cross the Mersey (1974), Minerva's Stepchild (1979), By the Waters of Liverpool (1981), and
Lime Street at Two (1985). She also
published 10 novels, including several under her pseudonyms. Titles are Alien There Is None (1959, aka Thursday's Child), which deals with
English/Indian intermarriage, The
Latchkey Kid (1971), Most Precious
Employee (1976), Liverpool Daisy
(1979), Three Women of Liverpool
(1984), set in Liverpool in 1941, The
Moneylenders of Shahpur (1987), Yes,
Mama (1988), The Lemon Tree
(1990), The Liverpool Basque
(1993), and A Cuppa Tea and an Aspirin
(2003).
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FORRESTER, MARY (1872 – 17 Jun 1948)
(full name Matilda Amelia Henrietta Forrester, née Fielding)
1920s – 1930s
Author of five novels which seem to lean toward melodrama. The first, The
Priceless Heritage (1927), published when Forrester was in her mid-50s,
is about a self-sacrificing young widow with newborn twins who remarries out
of a sense of duty. In The Garden of Peace (1928), a formerly wealthy
young woman is left penniless, marries unhappily, then seeks happiness in the
arms of an old beau. The Gleam (1930) is a drama involving the
challenges facing well-to-do twins with very different personalities. The
Seer (1935), described as “romance in the Rider Haggard tradition,” is a
sort of lost civilization story, about a South American village where all
inhabitants are blind. And Wendersley (1936) is about a botanist
returning, with difficulties, to England after 30 years abroad. She was a
challenge to identify at first, but happily a review of one of her novels
mentioned that she was the sister of diplomat Sir Charles William Fielding
and the pieces fell into place. Her family reportedly traced its ancestry
directly back to novelist Henry Fielding.
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FORSEY, MAUDE S[ARAH]. (30 Aug
1885 – 7 Feb 1974)
(born "Maud", married name Lane)
1920s – 1930s
Author of two girls' school stories—Mollie
Hazledene's Schooldays (1924) and Norah
O'Flanigan, Prefect (1937)—which are praised by Sims and Clare. She also
wrote several books aimed at younger children. She was apparently a
schoolteacher herself. I wrote about the earlier book here.
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FORSTER,
DAPHNE K[ATHLEEN]. (3 Sept 1905 - 2006)
(married names
Goodman and Clay)
1930s – 1950s, 1980s
Author of eight novels. Strangers All
(1937) is the story of a scandal and its effects on the guests at a house
party. Faulty Mosaic (1937) follows
the romance of a young woman artist, while Westward Comes the Light (1942), set partly in Switzerland, deals
with the secrets of a governess. The
Sandalwood Gate (1947) seems to be set in a fictional Arabian world, and Hidden Cities (1950) in a mixed
English and Indian community in Bengal. Twin
Giants (1952) deals with a group of discontented people who encounter
tragedy on a Himalayan expedition. The
Horse-Leech's Daughters (1955) is about passions set loose in the
Cotswolds. I’ve not found any details about her much later final novel, The Pool of Narcissus (1985).
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FORSYTH
GRANT, ANN [MCKERRELL] (26 Jan 1859 – 18 Sept 1929)
(née Brown)
1890s – 1920s
Author of several boys' school stories, including The Boys at Penrohn (1893), The
Hero of Crampton School (1895), Burke's
Chum (1896), Chums at Last
(1905), and The Beresford Boys
(1906), as well as two later adult novels, Rosemary: A Pre-War Story (1926) and The Road to Tarfe (1928). Her school stories were illustrated by
her son, and one wonders if this is the same son she memorialized in Ivor: A Recollection (1918)—perhaps a
war casualty?
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FORTUNE, DION (6 Dec 1890 – 8
Jan 1946)
(pseudonym of Violet Mary Firth, married name Evans, aka V. M. Steele)
1920s – 1930s, 1950s
Writer who focused on mysticism and the occult in
numerous works of non-fiction, as well as six volumes of fiction—The Secrets of Dr. Taverner (1926), The Demon Lover (1927), The Winged Bull (1935), The Goat-Foot God (1936), The Sea Priestess (1938), and Moon Magic (1956).
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FOSTER,
FRANCES G[EORGE]. KNOWLES (15 May 1884 – 21 Oct 1926)
1910s
Author of two early Mills & Boon titles, Jehanne of the Golden Lips (1910) and The Written Law (1912).
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FOSTER,
GRACE (dates unknown)
1920s – 1930s
Untraced author of nearly twenty romances, probably inexpensive paperbacks,
including She Would Be a Swell
(1920), The Whip Hand (1920), Whirlwind Pixie (1923), The Odd Girl (1923), Her Daring Refusal (1924), Jealous of Her Sister (1926), His People Against Her (1927), and Gipsy (1933).
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FOUNTAIN, SYBIL [MARY] (15 Apr
1890 – 27 Aug 1977)
1930s
Composer and author of three novels. The
Echoing Man (1933), “a genuinely witty, if occasionally slightly acid
piece of comedy” about a man whose self-esteem rests on the opinions of
others.
Open the Cage (1934) is about a
frustrated wife and mother who rediscovers her artistic abilities. Monks Charity (1937), “a story of
infinite charm and quiet humour,” about a family living in the English
village of Monks Charity.
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FOWELL, OLIVIA (16 Jun 1876 – 19
Jun 1953)
1900s – 1920s
A contemporary of Angela BRAZIL, Fowell published seven children's titles,
including five school stories which reflect the evolution of girls' schools—Her First Term (1906), Patricia's Promotion (1907), The Doings of Dorothea (1912), The Girls of Tredennings (1926), and The Latimer Scholarship (1929). Her
other two titles are Brave Girls All
(1912) and The Mystery of Barwood Hall
(1920).
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FOWKES, ELLEN M[AUDE]. (25 Dec
1890 - 1978)
(married name Wilson? [uncertain but probable identification])
1920s
Author of two novels—Second Love
(1920) and Looms of Destiny (1926).
The latter is a historical novel about the Manchester Radicals.
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FOWLER, EDITH HENRIETTA (16 Feb
1865 – 18 Nov 1944)
(married name Hamilton)
1890s – 1920s
Sister of Ellen FOWLER. Now best known for her children's book The Young Pretenders (1895), a
Persephone selection, Fowler published six other volumes of fiction,
including another children's title, The
Professor's Children (1897), and several novels for adults which,
according to ODNB, "deal with
the romantic problems of high-minded and politically active Christian members
of the upper class." Titles are A
Corner of the West (1899), The
World and Winstow (1901), For
Richer For Poorer (1905), Patricia
(1915), and Christabel (1921).
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FOWLER, ELLEN [THORNEYCROFT] (9
Apr 1860 – 22 Jun 1929)
(married name Felkin)
1890s – 1920s
Sister of Edith Henrietta FOWLER. Author of several
early volumes of poetry and nine novels known for lively dialogue and, in the
case of the final two—Miss
Fallowfield's Fortune (1908) and Her
Ladyship's Conscience (1913)—for lightly feminist themes. The other
novels are Concerning Isabel Carnaby
(1898), A Double Thread (1899), The Farringdons (1900), Fuel of Fire (1902), Place and Power (1903), Kate of Kate Hall (1904, co-written
with her husband Alfred Laurence Felkin), and Signs and Wonders (1926).
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FOX, CECILY (dates unknown)
1930s
Untraced author of two children's titles—That
New Girl Anna (1930), about a young queen in disguise at a boarding
school, and Eve Plays Her Part
(1934).
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FOX, MARION [INEZ DOUGLAS] (21
Aug 1885 – 15 Oct 1973)
(married name Ward)
1910s – 1920s
Author of seven novels. Her first three were
historical in subject—The Seven Nights
(1910) is set during the Peasants' Revolt of 1381, The Hand of the North (1911) is about Queen Elizabeth and the
Earl of Essex, and The Bountiful Hour
(1912) follows a young 18th century girl from childhood to marriage. Fox's
remaining novels turned to the supernatural, most famously in Ape’s Face (1914), which is about a
family haunted by a curse and which is the only one of Fox's novels to be
reprinted in recent years. The Mystery
Keepers (1919) and The Luck of the
Town (1922) deal similarly with curses and ghostly presences, the latter
at a university built on the site of Roman ruins. Her final novel was Aunt Isabel's Love (1928).
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FRANCIS,
CAROLINE (dates unknown)
(pseudonym of
?????)
1930s
Author of two mystery novels—Directors'
Corridor (1936) and It Couldn't Be
Suicide (1936). In the first, an unpopular secretary is found dead in the
company boardroom, and in the second murder, a castle, and a gang of
smugglers figure prominently. Of the latter, a contemporary critic said,
"True, the central feature of the book is to be found in the murders and
smuggling, but Caroline Francis has infused a happy atmosphere of humour and
some effective work into the book, apart from the mysterious happenings,
which dovetail naturally into the plan of things." John Herrington was
able to discover that Francis was the pseudonym of a secretary for Vacuum
Oil, a company that later became Mobil, but we couldn't identify her any
further.
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FRANCIS, JOY (1 Nov 1888 – 25
Apr 1978)
(pseudonym of Olive Sarah Folds, née Hill)
1920s – 1930s
Author of five girls' school stories, the first two of which—The Greystone Girls (1928) and Biddy at Greystone (1929)—are linked,
while the others—The Girls of the Rose
Dormitory (1930), Rosemary at St
Anne's (1932), and Patsy at St
Anne's (1936)—are stand-alone tales. Some of the titles were reprinted in
the 1940s and 1950s.
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Francis, Dora B.
see CHAPMAN, DORA [BARR]
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FRANCIS, M. E. (1859 – 9 Mar
1930)
(pseudonym of Mary Sweetman Blundell, aka Mary Blundell)
1880s – 1920s
Author of
more than 50 volumes of fiction for children and adults, both as sole author
and, in later years, in collaboration with her daughters Margaret BLUNDELL
and Agnes BLUNDELL. Her work often focuses on rural or village life. Titles
include Whither? (1892), A Daughter of the Soil (1895), Miss Erin (1898), The Manor Farm (1902), Wild
Wheat (1905), Hardy-on-the-Hill
(1908), Noblesse Oblige (1909), The Story of Mary Dunne (1913), Dark Rosaleen (1915), A Maid o' Dorset (1917), Renewal (1921), Napoleon of the Looms (1925), and Mossoo: A Comedy of a Lancashire Village (1927).
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Frank, Theodore
see GARDINER, DOROTHEA FRANCES
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FRANKAU, JULIA (30 Jul 1859 – 17
Mar 1916)
(née Davis, aka Frank Danby)
1880s – 1910s
Grandmother
of Pamela FRANKAU and author of sometimes controversial novels. Her debut, Dr. Phillips: A Maida Vale Idyll
(1887), offended the Jewish community in London (of which Frankau was a
member) as well as being deemed immoral. Joseph
in Jeopardy (1912), about the attempted seduction of a married man, was
also a daring work for the time. Other titles include A Babe in Bohemia (1889), Pigs
in Clover (1903), Baccarat (1904),
An Incomplete Etonian (1909), Let the Roof Fall In (1910), Concert Pitch (1913), and Full Swing (1914).
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FRANKAU, PAMELA [SYDNEY] (8 Jan
1908 – 8 Jun 1967)
(married name Gill, aka Eliot Nayler)
1920s – 1960s
Author of more than 30 volumes of fiction,
including, according to ODNB, 20
novels by the age of 32, "only three of which she cared to remember: She and I (1930), I Was the Man (1932), and Tassell-Gentle
(1934)." Her most famous novels, reprinted by Virago in the 1980s and
more recently, are The Willow Cabin
(1949), about the actress second wife of a surgeon attempting to come to
terms with her predecessor, The Winged
Horse (1953), about a family tyrannically ruled by a successful newspaper
mogul, and A Wreath for the Enemy
(1954), about a young girl’s life-altering experiences one summer in the
bohemian Riviera hotel owned by her parents. Frankau’s own favorite of her
novels, The Bridge (1957), deals
with Catholicism and bisexuality. It is perhaps somewhat autobiographical and
an attempt to work through the conflicts between religion and sexuality,
since Frankau herself was a passionate Catholic whose most successful
romantic relationships, including the one that lasted for the final decade of
her life (with Margaret Webster, daughter of actress Dame May Whitty), were
with women. Frankau’s late trilogy, called Clothes of a King’s Son—comprised of Sing for Your Supper (1963), Slaves
for the Lamp (1965), and Over the
Mountains (1967)—is set in the 1930s and World War II and includes
several gay and lesbian characters. She published a single novel, 1952's The Offshore Light, under her
pseudonym. Her grandmother was Julia FRANKAU, her father was novelist Gilbert
Frankau, and her sister Ursula also published three novels as Mary NICHOLSON (1906-1980).
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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.
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FRASER, CICELY E. C. (?1914 -
?1950)
(uncertain but probable identification)
1930s
Author of a single girls' school story, Feuds
and Friendships (1935). Fraser also wrote a non-fiction work about
nurseries and nursery schools, called First—The
Infant (1943). John Herrington found that she was the sister of a
Professor Lindley Fraser of Aberdeen University, and the tentative dates
above, but definite identification has not been possible.
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Fraser, Jane
see PILCHER, ROSAMUNDE
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FRASER,
MARGARET (dates unknown)
1930s
Untraced author of a single short romance, The Love Link (1934).
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FRASER,
MARY (dates unknown)
1920s
Untraced author of a single short romance, The Bride He Tried to Hide (1928).
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FRASER,
MARY [EMILY] (8 Apr 1851 – 7 Jun 1922)
(née Crawford,
aka Mrs. Hugh Fraser)
1890s – 1910s
Wife of diplomat and author Hugh Fraser. Author of at least 18 novels,
including two with J. I. Stahlmann (actually the pseudonym of her son John
Crawford Fraser). Titles include The
Brown Ambassador (1895), Palladia
(1896), A Chapter of Accidents
(1898), The Splendid Porsenna
(1899), A Little Grey Sheep (1901),
The Stolen Emperor (1903), The Heart of a Geisha (1908), The Golden Rose (1910), The Queen's Peril (1912), The Bale-Fire (1914), and The Pagans (1915). She published two
memoirs, A Diplomatist's Wife in Japan
(1899) and Further Reminiscences of a
Diplomatist's Wife (1912), as well as several non-fiction works about
Italy.
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Fraser, Peter
see COLES, P[HOEBE]. CATHERINE
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FRASER-SIMSON, [ANNA] CICELY
[MABEL] (1896 – 21 Feb 1959)
(née Devenish)
1920s – 1960s
Author of five novels and four children's books. Her debut, Footsteps in the Night (1926), was
praised by Bookman for its likeable
characters and realistic and compelling plot—I reviewed it here. The Swinging Shutter (1927)
is an adventure set in London and the Scottish Highlands, “full of breathless
moments and surprises.” Danger Follows
(1929) tells of how its young heroine “played a lone hand, outwitted the
gang, righted some old wrongs, and dealt with the young man who got engaged
to someone else.” Count the Hours
(1940), perhaps more psychological in tone, features two sisters, one good
and one bad—and only one left alive at the end. Another Spring (1953), possibly romantic in nature, is about a
young woman trying to forget the death of her father, and getting mixed up in
other problems instead. Her children's titles are Canal Cats (1955), The
Adventures of Golly Smith (1957), The
Further Adventures of Golly Smith (1958), and Golly Smith and Bilbo (1962), the last completed by her
goddaughter, Daphne Lee, after her death.
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FRAYNE,
ELIZABETH (dates unknown)
1930s – 1940s
Unidentified author of 10 romantic novels. Her debut, Change of Hearts (1936), is set in a London movie studio, while Marvell's of Mayfair (1937) is set in
a beauty parlor and Champagne in Spring
(1938) deals with a woman whose artistic success threatens her marriage. A
short review in the Guardian
describes the wartime Life Goes On
(1941): "The four Brooke sisters in 'Life Goes On' are a bit 'awful and
girlish,' to quote one of them—or three of them are—but their loves, which
begin on a holiday in Cornwall from flower-shop keeping in Bayswater and 'go
on' in spite of the war, are brightly told." Her other titles are Too Good to Lose (1936), A Year With Juliet (1937), Now It Can Be Told (1939), This Blind Rose (1940), Still Do I Love (1942), and Now the Spring (1942).
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FREEMAN, GILLIAN (5 Dec 1929 –
23 Feb 2019)
(married name Thorpe, aka Eliot George, aka Elaine Jackson)
1950s – 2000s
Critic, biographer, screenwriter, and novelist. Perhaps best known for The Leather Boys (1961), written as "Eliot George," about a
working class gay relationship, which was filmed in 1964. Other fiction
includes The Liberty Man (1955), Fall of Innocence (1956), Jack Would Be a Gentleman (1959), The Campaign (1963), The Leader (1965), The Alabaster Egg (1970), The Marriage Machine (1975), Nazi Lady (1978, aka The Confessions of Elisabeth Von S.), An Easter Egg Hunt (1981), Love Child (1984, as Elaine Jackson), Termination Rock (1989), His Mistress's Voice (1999), and most
recently But Nobody Lives in Bloomsbury
(2006), a fictionalized account of the Bloomsbury Group. Several of her
novels have been reprinted by Valancourt Books—see here. She also published a study of pornography, The
Undergrowth of Literature (1967), and a critical study of the work of
Angela Brazil (1976).
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FREEMAN, KATHLEEN (22 Jun 1879 –
21 Feb 1959)
(aka Mary Fitt, Stuart Mary Wick, and Caroline Cory)
1920s - 1960
Classical scholar, children's author and novelist. Author of
almost thirty crime novels using her Mary Fitt pseudonym, many featuring
series character Inspector Mallet. Titles include Murder Mars the Tour (1936), Three
Sisters Flew Home (1936), Bulls
Like Death (1937), Expected Death
(1938), Death Starts a Rumour
(1940), Clues for Christabel
(1944), Death and the Pleasant Voices
(1946), A Fine and Private Place
(1947), The Banquet Ceases (1949), Pity for Pamela (1950), Death and the Shortest Day (1952), Sweet Poison (1956), Mizmaze (1958), and There Are More Ways of Killing....
(1960). She also published seven mainstream novels—Martin Hanner: A Comedy (1926), Quarrelling with Lois (1928), This
Love (1929), The Huge Shipwreck
(1934), Adventure from the Grave
(1936), Gown and Shroud (1947),
and, under her Caroline Cory pseudonym, Doctor
Underground (1956). Critics have compared Freeman's adult fiction to the
likes of Elizabeth BOWEN and Dorothy SAYERS. Also using her Fitt pseudonym,
she published a dozen volumes of children's fiction and non-fiction,
including The Island Castle (1953),
Annabella at the Lighthouse (1955),
Annabella Takes a Plunge (1955), Annabella to the Rescue (1955), Pomeroy's Postscript (1955), The Turnip Watch (1956), Annabella and the Smugglers (1957), Man of Justice: The Story of Solon
(1957), Vendetta (1957), Alfred the Great (1958), The Shifting Sands (1958), and The Great River (1959).
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FREMLIN, CELIA [MARGARET] (20
Jun 1914 – 16 Jun 2009)
(married names Goller and Minchin)
1940s – 1990s
Author of sixteen novels, specializing in suspenseful stories focused on the
fears and vulnerabilities of ordinary women. Her debut, The Hours Before Dawn (1958), is about a new mother who becomes
convinced that her lodger is a threat to her and her infant. Others include Uncle Paul (1959), The Trouble-Makers (1963), Don't Go to Sleep in the Dark (1970), The Long Shadow (1975), With No Crying (1980), Listening in the Dusk (1990), and King of the World (1994). Though best
known for her crime novels, Fremlin began her career with two significant
works of non-fiction—The Seven Chars of
Chelsea (1940), which details her experiences in domestic service, and War Factory (1943), a vivid view of
wartime factory life written for Mass Observation. She later published a war
memoir, Living Through the Blitz
(1976). She was an advocate of assisted suicide, and claimed in an interview
to have aided in four suicides.
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French, Ashley
see ROBINS, DENISE NAOMI
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FRIEDLAENDER,
V[IOLET]. H[ELEN]. (16 Jul 1878 – 23 Jun 1950)
1920s
Suffragette (who served four months in prison for smashing windows), poet and
author of two novels. Mainspring
(1922), which deals with suffragism, is noted in Nicola Beauman's A Very Great Profession. The Colour of Youth (1924) is a
psychological look at two children raised in very different ways.
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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).
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FROME, A. D. (29 Mar 1887 – 1932)
(pseudonym of Agnes Dora Rimmer, née Steidelmann, aka Agnes Frome)
1920s – 1930s
Children’s writer and author of two novels. As Agnes Frome, she published a
number of children’s books, including several in the Herbert Strangs series
of readers, published by Oxford University Press. Titles include The Enchanted Oranges (1926), The Horse with the Green Nose
(1927), Whiskers (1929), Bingo: The Story of a Monkey (1931),
and The Disappearing Trick (1933). As A. D. Frome, she published two
novels—In Sonia's Room (1928), set among a group of London artists,
and Shining Sword (1931), about a young couple raised in an orphanage,
who run away to London and marry, only to discover they are half-siblings.
She may have led a rather bohemian life herself, working as an artist’s model
and as a freelance writer. She married a painter, John Aloysius Rimmer, but
also seems to have had a child with another artist, John Collard. Her
identification was complicated by a theory that her pseudonym indicated
origins near the town of Frome or near the Frome river; in fact, she was born
in Liverpool and her pseudonym is an Anglicized version of her mother’s
maiden name, Fromme. The cause of her premature death remains unclear.
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Frome, Agnes
see FROME, A. D.
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FROW, M[ARION]. (dates unknown)
1940s – 1950s
Untraced author of eight children's books, including one school story, The Invisible Schoolgirl (1950), the
plot of which Sims and Clare call "one of the silliest even in a genre
renowned for silly plots." The others appear to be adventure tales—The Intelligence Corps and Anna
(1944), The Intelligence Corps Saves
the Island (1946), The Submerged
Cave (1947), Four Stowaways and
Anna (1947), Castle Adventure
(1949), Five Robinson Crusoes
(1950), and A Ghost for Christmas
(1951). We know that she attended Manchester University, lived in France for
a time, and married an army officer, but other details are lacking.
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FRY, LEONORA (10 Jul 1913 -
1999)
(married name Osmin)
1930s – 1940s
Daughter of Bertha LEONARD and author of one girls' school story, For the School's Sake (1934), two
other children's books—Through Peril
for Prince Charlie (1937) and Cyril
the Squirrel (1946)—and several entries in the non-fiction "Get to
Know" series.
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FRY,
[ADELE] PAMELA (15 Oct 1916 - ????)
1950s
Author who straddles this list and its (so-far-nonexistent) Canadian
equivalent—she was born in England and emigrated at age 12. She published two
mystery novels, Harsh Evidence
(1953) and The Watching Cat (1960),
as well as—rather oddly, since she had lived in England and Canada, not the
U.S.—a cookbook called Cooking the
American Way (1963).
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FULLER MAITLAND, ELLA [SOPHIA
MAY] (8 Jan 1857 – 15 Nov 1939)
(née Chester)
1890s – 1900s, 1920s
Poet and author of at least three novels—Priors
Roothing (1903), Blanche Esmead
(1906), and The Clere Family, 1927 to
1928 (1929). She also published three volumes of philosophical musings
and observations in the character of Bethia Hardcore (1895-1907), which might
count as fiction. It's not clear how we should classify her other titles, The Saltonstall Gazette (1896), From My Window in Chelsea (1903), and By Land and By Water (1911).
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FURLONG, AGNES (4 Sept 1907 – 25
Nov 1988)
(née Holroyd)
1940s – 1950s
Author of five children's titles, including a part-school story, The School Library Mystery (1951), as
well as The Potato Riddle (1949), Stratford Adventure (1951), Sword of State: An Adventure in Coventry
(1952), and Elizabeth Leaves School
(1956). Furlong's husband was a lecturer and librarian at Coventry Training
College, which may have influenced her library-related story. [Thank you to
Pamela McKirdy of Wellington, New Zealand for sharing her research about Furlong.]
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FURSDON,
F[LORENCE]. R[OSE]. M[ARY]. (16 Sept 1870 – 25 Sept 1941)
(née Trelawny)
1910s
Author of one novel, The Story of
Amanda (1914), which deals with women's suffrage. Her other work includes
French language guides and several pamphlets against Roman Catholicism.
Fursdon and her daughter Grace were killed in the sinking of the Avoceta by enemy submarine
"between the Azores and the British Isles".
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FURSE, [MARGARET] CELIA
[NEWBOLT] (27 May 1890 – 13 Jan 1975)
(née Newbolt)
1950s
Author of a single novel, The Visiting Moon (1956), which relates a young girl's visit to a
large English country house over the Christmas holidays early in the 19th
century. Barb at Leaves & Pages reviewed it here, and Ali at Heavenali reviewed it here.
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FYFE, MURIEL (dates unknown)
(née ?????)
1930s – 1960s
Untraced author of about a dozen works for children, including the school
story Sally Travels to School
(1937), as well as The Adventures of
Peter (1933), Greystones Farm
(1934), Mary Lee's Cottage (1936), The Stowaways (1937), and Curious Kate (1946). We know that Fyfe
was her married name, but other details are lacking.
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GADD, K[ATHLEEN]. M[ARY]. (dates
unknown)
1930s, 1950s
Unidentified author of seven children's titles, some or all of them designed
as readers for schools. Her first work, apparently non-fiction, was From Ur to Rome (1936). The others—La Bonté the Trapper (1939), X Bar Y Ranch (1939), White Hawk (1939), Wang Shu-Min: A Chinese Boy (1950), Sally Ann: A Tall Ship (1953), Summer-Tenting: A Circus Story
(1956)—seem to be fiction.
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GAINHAM,
SARAH (1 Oct 1915 – 24 Nov 1999)
(pseudonym of
Rachel Stainer, married names Terry and Ames, aka Rachel Ames)
1950s – 1980s
Journalist and author of a dozen volumes of fiction, most famously Night Falls on the City (1967), a
bestseller set in wartime Vienna. The book is the first volume of a trilogy,
followed by A Place in the Country
(1968) and Private Worlds (1971).
The less acclaimed sequels are set, respectively, soon after the war has
ended and in the early 1950s. Gainham had already published several spy novels
(some reviewed here) and continued
publishing until 1983. Other novels are Time
Right Deadly (1956), The Cold Dark
Night (1957), The Mythmaker
(1957, aka Appointment in Vienna), The Stone Roses (1959), The Silent Hostage (1960), Maculan's Daughter (1973), To the Opera Ball (1975), and The Tiger, Life (1983). She also
published a story collection, The
Habsburg Twilight: Tales from Vienna (1979).
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Gaite, Francis
see MANNING, ADELAIDE FRANCES
OKE
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GALLATI,
MARY [ERNESTINE] (7 Mar 1920 – 21 Sept 1978)
1950s – 1960s
Poet, broadcaster, journalist, and author of books on entertaining, Gallati
also published numerous stories in The
Star 1946-1953 (see here), as well as
two novels, The Acorn (1950) and The Silver Bow (1962), the latter a
saga about an Italian family. She was the daughter of restaurateur Mario
Gallati.
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GALLIE,
MENNA [PATRICIA] (17 Mar 1920 – 17 Jun 1990)
(née Humphreys)
1950s – 1980s
Welsh translator and author of six novels, beginning with Strike for a Kingdom (1959), described
as a detective novel set in a Welsh village during the 1926 General Strike. The Small Mine (1962) deals with a
mining accident in the same fictional village. Her other novels are Man's Desiring (1960) set at a
Midlands university, Travels with a
Duchess (1968), You're Welcome to
Ulster! (1970), and In These
Promiscuous Parts (1986).
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GALLOWAY, ANNA (dates unknown)
1940s
Unidentified author of three romantic novels—Crossing Paths (1943), Mine Be Thy Love (1945), and Riviera Interlude (1946).
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GANDY,
IDA [CAROLINE] (9 Sept 1885 – 28 Sept 1977)
(née Hony)
1920s – 1930s, 1960
Children's author and memoirist, best known for her memoirs A Wiltshire Childhood (1929) and Staying with the Aunts (1963). I wrote
about the latter here. Round About the Little Steeple (1960)
seems to be a fact-based novel about Bishop's Cannings in the 17th century.
She also wrote numerous short plays and three works of children's fiction—Three Bold Explorers (1927), Sunset Island (1929), and Under the Chestnut Tree (1938).
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GARDINER, DOROTHEA FRANCES (20
May 1880 – 7 Feb 1954)
(née Walters, aka D. F. Gardiner, aka Theodore Frank)
1920s – 1930s
Author of five novels, some of which seem to be mysteries. Titles are The Lifted Latch (1929, as Theodore
Frank), The Prison House (1929), Another Night, Another Day (1930), The Beguiling Shore (1930), and Murder at a Dog Show (1935).
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GARDNER, DIANA [JEANNE STANLEY]
(26 Jun 1913 – 17 Nov 1997)
1940s – 1950s
Painter, illustrator, and author of one story collection, Halfway Down the Cliff (1946) and one
novel, The Indian Woman (1954). In
2006, Persephone published a new collection of her stories called A Woman Novelist. In 2008, her heirs
published The Rodmell Papers:
Reminiscences of Virginia and Leonard Woolf by a Sussex Neighbor, a short
booklet drawn from attempts late in life to record her memories of living
just down the road from the famous couple.
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Garland, Lisette
see BRADLEY, NORAH MARY
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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.
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GARNETT, EVE [CYNTHIA RUTH] (9
Jan 1900 – 5 Apr 1991)
1930s – 1970s
Illustrator and author of children's fiction, best known for the classic The Family from One End
Street (1937), written to highlight issues of
poverty and class division, and its sequel, Further Adventures of the
Family from One End Street (1956). Is It Well with the Child?
(1938) was a non-fiction work illustrating some of the same difficulties
facing children. Her other children's titles are In and Out and Roundabout
(1948), Holiday at the Dew Drop Inn (1962), To Greenland's Icy
Mountains: The Story of Hans Egede, Explorer, Coloniser, Missionary
(1968), and Lost and Found (1974). Her memoir is First Affections:
Some Autobiographical Chapters of Early Childhood (1982).
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GARNETT, OLIVE (OLIVIA) [RAINE]
(21 Aug 1871 – 17 Mar 1958)
1900s – 1910s
Sister of publisher Edward Garnett, sister-in-law of Russian language
translator Constance Garnett and author Mrs. R. S. GARNETT, and aunt of
novelist David Garnett. She published a story collection, Petersburg
Tales (1900), and a novel, In
Russia's Night (1918), which reflect her interest in revolutionary
Russia. She had been in love with Sergey Stepnyak-Kravchinsky, a Ukrainian
revolutionary living in London (who also inspired Ethel VOYNICH), and was
devastated by his death in 1894. Two volumes of her 1890s diaries have been
published as Tea and Anarchy!
(1989) and Olive and Stepniak
(1993).
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GARNETT, MRS. R. S. (3 Dec 1869
– 8 Aug 1946)
(pseudonym of Martha Garnett, née Roscoe)
1900s – 1910s, 1930s
Sister-in-law of translater Constance Garnett and
author Olive GARNETT and aunt of novelist David Garnett. Author of three
novels—The Infamous John Friend
(1909), a spy story set during the Napoleonic period, Amor Vincit: A Romance of the Staffordshire Moorlands (1912), and
Unrecorded: A Tale of the Days of
Chivalry (1931). She also published a biography, Samuel Butler and His Family Relations (1926).
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GARNETT,
RAY (RACHEL) [ALICE] (22 May 1891 – 24 Mar 1940)
(née Marshall)
1910s
Sister of diarist Frances Partridge, first wife of novelist and publisher
David Garnett, and illustrator of Garnett's Lady Into Fox. She also published a single children's book, A Ride on a Rocking-Horse (1917),
which was lavishly praised by Saturday
Review when it was reprinted in 1926. She died tragically young of breast
cancer, after which Garnett married Angelica Bell.
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GARRARD,
DOROTHY M[????]. (dates unknown)
1920s
Untraced author of two romantic novels, Before
the Dawn (1922) and A Woman's Will
(1923).
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GARRATT, EVELYN R[OSALIE]. (27
Mar 1854 – 4 Feb 1938)
1870s – 1930s
Author of around 20 volumes of fiction for children and adults. Irene's Lame Dogs (1916) is partly a
school story. Others include Lottie's
Silver Burden (1879), Tied and
Bound, or, The Story of Nan (1887), The
Old Square Pew (1904), The Radiant
City (1911), Betty of Rushmore
(1916), Meg of the Heather (1920), Luke's Wife (1926), If Thou Wert Blind (1927), and Ask Rachel (1937).
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GARRY,
GEORGINA (26 Mar 1872 – 2 Sept 1947)
(pseudonym of Ethel Druce, née
Brickell/Buckell/Buckle [records show multiple spellings], stage name Frances
Dillon)
1920s – 1930s
Actress and author of three novels—Pigsties
with Spires (1928), Lanes Lead to
Cities (1929), and The Gilt
Sugar-Bowl (1932)—which received cautious acclaim at the time but sound a
bit on the melodramatic side. She appears to have been Val Gielgud's
mother-in-law.
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GARTH, LESLEY (dates unknown)
1920s
Untraced author of a single book, Sixteen
or So (1923), comprised of several school-related stories which Sim and
Clare describe as "semi-adult in tone and outlook."
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GARVIN, MRS J. L. (23 Oct 1882 –
1959)
(pseudonym of Viola Lucy Garvin, née Taylor, earlier married name
Woods, aka Viola Taylor)
1920s - 1930s
Sister of Una Troubridge, the longtime partner of Radclyffe HALL. Author of a
single novel, Child of Light
(1937), about the spiritual development of a young woman and her best friend.
L. P. Hartley called it "a singularly sincere, moving, and beautiful
novel. It is also an extremely amusing one." Garvin's other publications
were The Story of Amaryllis and Other
Verses (1908, as Viola Taylor), As
You See It (1922), a collection of essays and poems, and Corn in Egypt (1926), a collection of
tales and poems. She appears on the 1891 census as Nora Taylor, which
suggests Nora may have been her nickname.
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Gascoigne, Marguerite
see GILBERT, ANNA
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GASKELL, JANE (7 Jul 1941 - )
1950s – 1970s
Fantasy writer best known for Strange
Evil (1957), written when she was only 14, which deals with a war between fairies. China
Miéville listed it as one of her top 10 examples of "weird
fiction." Her later Atlan series, beginning with The Serpent (1963), deals with residents of Atlantis fleeing to
Egypt. Other titles include King's
Daughter (1958), All Neat in Black
Stockings (1968), and Summer Coming
(1972).
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Gavin, Amanda
see GIBSON-JARVIE, CLODAGH
[MICAELA]
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GAVIN, CATHERINE [IRVINE] (13
May 1907 – 27 Dec 1999)
(married name Ashcraft)
1930s – 1990s
Author of 20 historical novels as well as several historical and biographical
works. Gavin is best known for her trilogy set in World War II—Traitors' Gate (1976), None Dare Call It Treason (1978), and How Sleep the Brave (1980). Others
include Clyde Valley (1938), The Hostile Shore (1940), her
"Second Empire Quartet"—comprised of Madeleine (1957), The
Cactus and the Crown (1962), The
Fortress (1964), and The Moon into
Blood (1966)—The House of War
(1970), The Sunset Dream (1983),
and The French Fortune (1991).
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Gaye, Carol
see SHANN, RENÉE
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GAYE, PHOEBE FENWICK (1 Nov 1905
– 3 Jul 2001)
(married name Pickard)
1920s – 1950s
Poet, garden writer, biographer of John Gay (1938), and author of seven
novels, mostly historical in setting, including Vivandiere! (1929), set during Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow, Good Sir John (1930), a novel about
Falstaff, and The French Prisoner
(1944), set in England during the Napoleonic Wars. Others are New Heaven New Earth (1932), Louisa Vandervoord (1946), On a Darkling Plain (1950), and Treen and Wild Horses (1958).
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GAYTON,
CATHERINE (?17 Sept 1908 - ????)
(?pseudonym of
Betty Abenheim? [tentative identification])
1940s – 1950s
Author of five works of fiction. Gayton seems to have specialized in romantic
comedies set in the Victorian period, such as Those Sinning Girls: Four Victorian Adventures (1940), That Merry Affair (1945), Young Person (1947) and Poor Papa (1953), though Adeliza (1952) is set earlier, in the
1830s. John Herrington found that the address given by her in the 1948 Authors and Writers Who's Who belonged
to a Richard Abenheim and his daughter Betty, born London 1908. She could
conceivably have been a guest of the Abenheims, but it seems unlikely she
would have used a friend's address for such a purpose. Thus, she is probably
but not certainly Betty Abenheim (who disappears from public records after
traveling to the U.S. in 1956). I wrote about Those Sinning Girls here.
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GEIKIE,
MARY [DOROTHEA] (1893 – 1981)
1930s – 1940s
Author of five novels—Sleeve o' Silk
(1935), Reeds in the River (1937), Phantassie (1943), The Reluctant Mother (1947), and The Scarlett Way (1948)—about which
few details are available.
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George, Eliot
see FREEMAN, GILLIAN
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GEORGE, KATHLEEN (1892 – 31 Jul
1960)
(née Geipel)
1920s
Author of two novels—Purity (1926)
and Put Asunder (1928)—about which
no details are available.
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GERARD, D[OROTHEA]. [MARY
STANISLAUS] (9 Aug 1855 – 29 Sept 1915)
(married name Longard de Longgarde, aka E. D. Gerard)
1880s – 1910s
Sister of novelist
Emily Gerard (1849–1905), with whom she collaborated on several early novels,
including Beggar My Neighbour
(1882), The Waters of Hercules
(1885), and A Sensitive Plant
(1891). She also published more than 30 books on her own, mostly romantic in
theme but occasionally flirting with controversy. Titles include A Queen of Curds and Cream (1892), The Rich Miss Riddell (1894), One Year (1899), Holy Matrimony (1902), The
Inevitable Marriage (1911), Exotic
Martha (1912), and The Waters of
Lethe (1914).
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GERARD,
[AMELIA] LOUISE (22 Mar 1878 – 5 Nov 1970)
1910s – 1930s
Author of nearly two dozen exotic "bodice-rippers" for Mills &
Boon, which apparently regularly heroines falling in love with their
abductors and/or rapists. Several of her works are set in a lurid version of
West Africa. Titles include The Golden
Centipede (1910), A Tropical Tangle
(1911), Flower-of-the-Moon (1914), The Virgin’s Treasure (1915), The Mystery of ‘Golden Lotus’ (1919), Necklace of Tears (1922), The Harbour of Desire (1927), The Fruit of Eden (1927), The Dancing Boy (1928), Strange Paths (1934), and Following Footsteps (1936).
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GERSTEIN, ANNA (3 Apr 1888 – 2
Feb 1955)
(pseudonym of Nellie Margaret Ogilvy Romilly, née Hozier)
1930s
Sister of Clementine Churchill and author of a single novel, Misdeal (1932). Her son Esmond married
Jessica Mitford, and another son, Giles, was a critic and novelist. Mitford
reportedly read a portion of Misdeal
and called it "ghastly."
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Gervaise, Mary
see BROWN, JOAN MARY WAYNE
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GIBBERD,
KATHLEEN (5 May 1897 – 25 Apr 1992)
1920s
Journalist, travel writer, and author of education-related non-fiction. She
began her career with a single novel, Vain
Adventure (1927), largely set at Oxford, which was reviewed here.
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GIBBON, M[URIEL]. MORGAN (14 Jan
1887 – 14 Jan 1975)
1920s – 1930s
Author of 10 novels about which little information is available. Titles are Jan (1920), Helen Marsden (1921), The
Pharisees (1921), The Way of the
World (1922), John Peregrine's Wife
(1924), And Others Came (1928), Justin Keyes (1929), The Albatross (1930), No. 7 Paradise (1934), and Curious Fool (1939).
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Gibbons,
Margaret
see MACGILL, MARGARET
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GIBBONS, STELLA [DOROTHEA] (5 Jan 1902 – 19 Dec 1989)
(married name Webb)
1930s – 1970s
Author of more than two dozen novels, as well as
several volumes of stories, poetry and a single children's book. Best known for her classic debut, Cold Comfort
Farm (1932), which mocked the rural melodramas of authors such as Mary
Webb and Sheila Kaye-Smith and made Gibbons a household name. She returned to
this setting in “Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm” (1940), a short story, and Conference at Cold Comfort Farm (1949).
Gibbons enjoyed the ongoing profits from her first novel, but regretted that
it overshadowed her later work. Her WWII-related novels have received
increased attention in recent years. The
Rich House (1941), set on the cusp of the war, follows several young,
mismatched couples and a distinctly odd anonymous letter-writer. Westwood (1946) makes powerful use of
the bombed out buildings and the general air of fatigue in London circa
1943-1944. And in The Matchmaker
(1949), set just after the war's end, the heroine, evacuated with her
children to a country cottage, awaits the return of her husband who is
serving in Germany. In 2021, Dean Street Press reprinted five of her novels—The Swiss Summer (1951), A Pink Front Door (1959), The Weather at Tregulla (1962), The Snow-Woman (1969), and The Woods in Winter (1970)—as Furrowed
Middlebrow books. Vintage Classics have also reprinted a number of her
novels, including two written after she stopped publishing—The Yellow Houses (completed around
1973) and Pure Juliet (originally
titled An Alpha and completed
around 1980). About the weekly "at homes" Gibbons hosted in later
years, ODNB notes: "She was
known to expel guests from these tea parties if they were shrill, dramatic,
or wrote tragic novels." I've written about Gibbons several times—see here.
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Gibbs, Mary Ann
see BIDWELL, MARJORIE
[ELIZABETH SARAH]
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GIBERNE,
AGNES (19 Nov 1845 – 20 Aug 1939)
1860s – 1920s
Author of scientific textbooks and evangelistic fiction spanning six decades.
Titles include Mabel and Cora
(1865), Beechenhurst (1867), Coulyng Castle (1875), Decima's Promise (1882), Miss Con (1887), Miles Murchison (1894), Profit
and Loss (1909), Val and His
Friends (1911), and The Doings of
Doris (1914).
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GIBSON, L[ETTICE]. S[USAN].
(1859 - ????)
1900s – 1910s
Author of four novels, The Freemasons
(1905), Burnt Spices (1906), Ships of Desire (1908), and The Oakum Pickers (1912). According to
OCEF, Burnt Spices deals with a vengeful ghost.
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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).
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GIFFARD, FLAVIA [JOAN LUCY] (20 Sept 1910 – 4 Apr
1998)
(married name Anderson, aka Flavia Anderson, aka
Petronella Portobello)
1930s – 1950s
Biographer and author of three novels. As Flavia Giffard, she published Keep Thy Wife (1931), the tragic tale
of a romance between an Englishwoman and a half-Indian, half-Irish man. As
Flavia Anderson, she published Jezebel
and the Dayspring (1949), a retelling of the story of the Phoenician
princess. And under the amusing pseudonym Petronella Portobello, she published
How to Be a Deb's Mum (1957,
published in the U.S. as Mother of the
Deb), an epistolary novel in the form of letters from the harried said
mother to her friend, describing the mishaps of launching her daughter into
high society. Its epilogue was contributed by Compton Mackenzie. She also
published two volumes of non-fiction—The
Ancient Secret: In Search of the Holy Grail (1953) and The Rebel Emperor (1958), about the
Taiping rebellion of the mid 19th century. She was also the great-niece of
Elinor GLYN. [Thank you to Simon Thomas for alerting me to this author.]
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GIFFARD, INGARET [STELLA] (5 Feb 1902 – 5 May 1997)
(married names Young and van der Post)
1930s
Author of a single novel, Sigh No More Ladies
(1931), about a successful actress deciding which (if any) of three offers of
marriage to accept. Her play, Because We Must (1937), became Vivien
Leigh’s first West End role. Giffard’s second husband was South African
author Laurens van der Post. She later became a Jungian psychoanalyst, and
wrote her memoir, The Way Things Happen (1989).
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GILBERT,
ANNA (1 May 1916 – 24 Sept 2004)
(pseudonym of
Marguerite Jackson Lazarus, née Jackson, aka Marguerite Gascoigne, aka
Marguerite Lazarus)
1950s, 1970s – 2000s
Grammar schoool English teacher and author (as Marguerite Gascoigne) of the
children's title The Song of the Gipsy
(1953). She appears not to have published anything else until Images of Rose (1974), published as
Marguerite Lazarus. The following year, she published the first of a dozen
romance novels under the Gilbert pseudonym, beginning with The Look of Innocence (1975) and
continuing to A Morning in Eden
(2001).
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Gilbert, Anthony
see MALLESON, LUCY BEATRICE
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GILBERT, JANE (dates unknown)
1940s
Untraced author of two adult novels—Man Is For Woman Made (1940) and Take My Youth (1941)—and one
children's title, Imps and Angels
(1946). The last was apparently published in the U.S. and not published in
the U.K. until 1958.
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GILBERT, ROSA (1841 – 21 Apr
1921)
(née Mulholland, aka Ruth Murray)
1860s – 1910s
Sister of Clara MULHOLLAND. Prolific and apparently popular (judging from the
multiple editions and reprints of many of her books) novelist whose work
centered on rural Irish Catholic life and features strong female characters. Cynthia's Bonnet Shop (1900) is about
two sisters who open a shop in London, while A Girl's Ideal (1905) has a wealthy American trying to benefit
Ireland with her fortune. Among her other titles are Dunmara (1864, as Ruth Murray), Hetty Gray, or, Nobody's Bairn (1883), The Late Miss Hollingford (1886), Terry, or, She Ought to Have Been a Boy (1900), The Tragedy of Chris (1903), The Squire's Granddaughters (1903), Our Sister Maisie (1906), The Return of Mary O'Murrough (1910), The O'Shaughnessy Girls (1911), Fair Noreen (1912), and O'Loghlin of Clare (1916).
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GILL, ELIZABETH [JOYCE] (2 Nov
1901 – 18 Jun 1934)
(née Copping, earlier married name Codrington)
1920s – 1930s
Author of three well-received mystery novels before
her tragic death at the age of 32. Titles are Strange Holiday (1929, aka The
Crime Coast), What Dread Hand?
(1932), and Crime de Luxe (1933).
All three have now been reprinted by Dean Street Press.
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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.
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GILLESPIE, JANE (1923- )
(pseudonym of Jane Shaw)
1950s – 1990s
Not to be confused with girls' author Jane SHAW. Author of forty volumes of
fiction, some at least apparently romantic in nature. Titles include The Weir (1953), Nightingales Awake (1954), Miss
Fraser (1957), The Long Meadow
(1959), Mischief in August (1960), A Fresh Start (1965), Regard for Truth (1967), A Breathing Space (1969), The Death of a Secret (1970), A Tiresome Woman (1972), Latter-Day Dora (1976), Teverton Hall (1984), Brightsea (1987), and Aunt Celia (1991).
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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).
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GILLMAN,
OLGA [MARJORIE] (11 Feb 1894 – 4 Apr 1987)
1940s – 1960s
Author of more than two dozen Mills & Boon romances, including Moonshine in Your Heart (1947), The Hills Are Silent (1952), Following the Sun (1954), Leaf Cottage (1956), The Spell of Dunkyre (1957), The Golden Harbour (1958), Whispering Woods (1960), The Island Doctor (1964), and A Time for Silence (1967).
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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.
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GILMOUR, AMY [MAGDALENE] (1872 –
29 Oct 1956)
(née Carr)
1930s
Author of one novel, The Lure of Islam (1933), a romance in which an English earl's
son seems, from its description, to be lured by drugs and a beautiful
Moroccan woman more than by Islam. In one source she is described as a
"successful author," which makes one wonder if she published under
other names as well or if this was merely hype.
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Gilmour, Patience
see CHRISTIAN, CATHERINE MARY
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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).
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GILSON, BARBARA (dates unknown)
1930s
Unidentified author of two girls' adventure stories—Beyond the Dragon Door (1934) and Queen of the Andes (1935).
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GIROUARD,
BLANCHE [MAUD] (13 Oct 1898 – 29 Sept 1940)
(née de la
Poer)
1920s – 1930s
Irish author of one novel, The Story of
Keth (1928), about "mythical Ireland," and one story
collection, The World Is for the Young
and Other Stories (1935), about which Saturday
Review noted admirable variety but also said, "Still, with all this
variety, something is wanting in the book. It is like listening for an Irish
jig and hearing 'Pomp and Circumstance.'"
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GIRVIN,
[GERTRUDE ANNETTE] BRENDA (28 Jul 1884 – 7 Jun 1970)
1900s – 1930s
Playwright and author of nearly three dozen children's titles, including
eight school-related tales—The Lower
Fourth (1910), The Mysterious Twins
(1910), The Little Heroine
(1912), The Schoolgirl Author
(1920), Kathleen's Adventure
(1922), Joan, a High-School Girl
(1924), Schoolgirls (1926), and Schooldays (1930). Munition Mary (1918) is about the
adventures of a teenage girl in a wartime munitions factory. Other titles
include Cackling Geese (1909), Mister Piccolo: The Story of a Gipsy Boy
(1911), Queer Cousin Claude (1912),
The Tapestry Adventure (1925), and Five Cousins (1930).
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