Rosamond Marshall

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Rosamond Marshall (alternate spelling: Rosamund) Van der Zee American/British/European novelist and screenwiter, was born in New York City 17 October 1900 ( or 1902 depending on the source) to Charles and Florence (Hudson)(Topping) Botsford, both writers : her father, a newspaperman before taking up a business career; her mother, the author of several volumes of folk songs, and of a volume called Folk Tales.

After attending Miss Eaton's School in Pasadena, California until the age of twelve, Rosamond Botsford was taken to England and afterward entered the Lycee des Jeunes Filles in Dijon, France where private tutors continued her English-language education at home.. She studied also at the Real-Gymnasium in Vienna; then attended the University of Munich, where she studied languages, history, philology and literature. She was an avid mountineer and, in 1942, held an unbroken record for women of twenty-two new routes with amateur guides in the Swiss, French, and Italian Alps. She also climbed in the Polish Tatra.

Rosamond went to Sienna (Tuscany), Italy, to study the Italian language. While in Italy she met and married an Italian etcher and portrait painter of note, and lived for a while in Rome. For several years she traveled extensively in Europe and England. She wrote tor the newspapers in French, Italian, and German, and also wrote "thrillers" and adventure novels in French under pen names. On returning to the United States she freelanced in Hollywood. After her divorce from her first husband, she married Albert Earl Marshall of New York City.

Mrs. Marshall, was described as tall, slender, and blonde. She said that mountain climbing was her favorite recreation. Further enthusiasms were ranch life and riding. She was also fond of the ocean, swimming, sailing, and other sea sports. Her only daughter , Mrs. Alexandra Florence Ballard, and son-in-law, Brooks Ballard Jr.., of Elsah, Ill.. inherited her $75,000 (in 1957) estate. The author of sixteen novels had left a provision in her will that no notices of her death should be released-and that wish was observed. She died at her home. The document also provided that her secretary Ellen Sheridan receive 10 per cent of the royalties from the publication of a work titled “The Baby Girls.”. (This seems to be a misprint of The Bixby Girls)

Rosamond began to "write," she said, at the age of three when her first poem appeared in the New York World. Stories, playlets, poems were followed by her first historical novel in a setting of the French Revolution, written at the age of fourteen. She later wrote many popular novels in French that were published in Belgium, under a nom de plume. Her first published novel in the English language, None But the Brave (1942), for young people, won her the New York Herald Tribune Spring Book Award. It is the story of the Netherlands' revolt against the tyranny of Spain in the sixteenth century. Of Dutch-English ancestry, Mrs. Marshall no doubt was drawn sympathetically to the setting and period of her story about the loyal Dutchmen who, in 1574, freed themselves from the hold of a dictator, Philip of Spain. Adding interest to this exciting historical romance is the parallelism between the situation in Holland then and today. ' The story of None but the Brave centers about young Nele van Doon, of Leyden, who falls in love with John of Texel, one of the leaders of revolt against the Spanish rule. She becomes one of that company of patriots known as the Beggars, and endures with her people the Siege of Leyden, when starvation and plague took their toll. Nele herself plays a part in the breaking of that siege, when Prince William cannot come to the aid of the city, by skating many miles to reach the Zee-land Fleet, where John of Texel is in service, . to bring help to Leyden. The Dutch are victorious in the battle that follows; the town of the brave who are once again free holds a feast of triumph. And John of Texel, recalling the old prophecy: "When the North shall kiss the South, war will cease and the Seven be free," asks the hand of Nele in marriage. The book is well illustrated with several pen and ink drawings by Gregor Duncan.

Miss Marshall divided her time between Southern California and her Vancouver Island farm, where she raised French miniature silver poodles and enjoyed the sport of salmon fishing. A hard worker, she rose early, wrote for four or five hours conscientiously and then devoted the rest of the day to her friends and her hobbies. Rosamond Marshall's fame as a writer for young people was quite overshadowed by the phenomenal success of her historical romances for adults. The first of these, Kitty (made into a motion picture), set the pattern for a continuing series of lively, lusty novels, robust picaresque entertainment, which had had sales (in paper-back reprints) ranging from a million and a half to three million when written about in 1942.


[edit] Written works

f= fiction Fr=French

  • L'Enfant Du Cirque [f|Fr-1930]
  • La Main D'Acier [f|Fr-1931]
  • Plaisirs D'Amour [f|Fr-1932]
  • Le Vaisseau Fantome [f|Fr-1933]
  • Vengeance Du Sheik [f|Fr-1934]
  • Mysteres De Chinatown [f|Fr-1934]
  • Mysteres De Londres [f|Fr-1935]
  • Kitty [f|1943]
  • Duchess Hotspur [f|1946]
  • None But The Brave [f|1946]
  • The Treasure Of Shafto [f|1946]
  • Celeste [f|1949]
  • Laird's Choice [f|1951]
  • Jane Hadden [f|1952]
  • The Temptress [f|1952]
  • The General's Wench [f|1953]
  • The Dollmaster [f|1954]
  • The Loving Meddler [f|1954]
  • Rogue Cavalier [f|1955]
  • The Rib Of The Hawk [f|1956]
  • Captain Ironhand [f|1957]
  • The Bixby Girls [f|1957]

[edit] References

  • NY Times p30 N 26’57 (Obituary)
  • Current Biography 1942 page 575 which lists the following (N Y Herald Tribune Books p8 My 10'42 pors Pub W 141:1768-9 My 9 '42 por)
  • Current Biography 1957 page 273
  • http://www.authorandbookinfo.com/ngcoba/ma3.htm
  • Twentieth Century Authors, First supplement, Edited by Stanley J. Kunitz, Assostant editor Vineta Colby 1955 pages 645-646