Patricia Wentworth

Patricia Wentworth
Born Dora Amy Elles
(1877-11-10)10 November 1877[1]
Mussoorie, Uttarakhand, India
Died 28 January 1961(1961-01-28) (aged 82)
Pen name Patricia Wentworth
Occupation Novelist
Genre Crime
Detective
Notable awards Melrose
1910 A Marriage Under The Terror
Spouse George F. Dillon
George Oliver Turnbull (1920)

Patricia Wentworth (born Dora Amy Elles; 10 November 1877[2] – 28 January 1961[3]) was a British crime fiction writer.

Early life and education

She was born in Mussoorie, Uttarakhand, India (then the British Raj) and was educated first privately, then at Blackheath High School for Girls in London. [4]

Personal life

She and her first husband, George F. Dillon, had one daughter. She also became stepmother to Dillon's two sons, one of whom died in the Somme during World War I.[5] After Dillon's death, in 1906, she settled in Camberley, Surrey. In 1920, she married George Oliver Turnbull, and they had one daughter.

Career

Wentworth wrote a series of 32 crime novels in the classic whodunit style, featuring Miss Maud Silver, a retired governess and teacher who becomes a professional private detective, in London, England. Miss Silver works closely with Scotland Yard, especially Inspector Frank Abbott, and is fond of quoting the poet Tennyson. Miss Silver is sometimes compared to Jane Marple, the elderly detective created by Agatha Christie.

"Miss Silver is well known in the better circles of society, and she finds entree to the troubled households of the upper classes with little difficulty. In most of Miss Silver's cases there is a young couple whose romance seems ill fated because of the murder to be solved, but in Miss Silver's competent hands the case is solved, the young couple are exonerated, and all is right in this very traditional world."[6]

Wentworth also wrote 34 books outside of that series. She won the Melrose prize in 1910 for her first novel A Marriage Under The Terror, set in the French Revolution.[7] Her novels were the topic of Jariel D. O'Neil's 1988 doctoral dissertation.[8]

Works

Miss Silver series

Frank Garrett series

Ernest Lamb series

Benbow Smith

Standalone

References

  1. ↑ "Editorial Reviews: About the Author". Down Under (Paperback ed.). Dean Street Press. 22 April 2016. ISBN 978-1911095514. Retrieved 2 August 2016.
  2. ↑ "Editorial Reviews: About the Author". Down Under (Paperback ed.). Dean Street Press. 22 April 2016. ISBN 978-1911095514. Retrieved 2 August 2016.
  3. ↑ "Stories, Listed by Author: Patricia Wentworth". The Fiction Mags Index. Retrieved 2 August 2016.
  4. ↑ "Editorial Reviews: About the Author". Down Under (Paperback ed.). Dean Street Press. 22 April 2016. ISBN 978-1911095514. Retrieved 2 August 2016.
  5. ↑ "Editorial Reviews: About the Author". Down Under (Paperback ed.). Dean Street Press. 22 April 2016. ISBN 978-1911095514. Retrieved 2 August 2016.
  6. ↑ Swanson, Jean; James, Dean (1998). Killer Books: A Reader's Guide to Exploring the Popular World of Mystery and Suspense. New York: Berkley.
  7. ↑ Milne, James (9 April 1910). "Best Novel Competition Won by a Woman With Her First Book: Some Inferences Drawn". The New York Times.
  8. ↑ O'Neil, Jariel D. (1988). How providential!: a study of Patricia Wentworth's novels featuring Miss Maud Silver, spinster detective. Tennessee: East Tennessee State University,. (Dissertation.)
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