Ursula Torday

Ursula Joyce Torday
Born Ursula Joyce Torday
(1912-02-19)19 February 1912
London, England, United Kingdom
Died March 6, 1997(1997-03-06) (aged 85)
Pen name Ursula Torday,
Paula Allardyce,
Charity Blackstock,
Lee Blackstock,
Charlotte Keppel
Occupation Novelist
Language English
Nationality British
Period 1935–1982
Genre Gothic, romance, mystery
Notable works Witches' Sabbath
Notable awards RoNA Award
Relatives Emil Torday (father)

Ursula Torday /ˈtɔːrˌdeɪ/ (19 February 1912 in London, England – 6 March 1997), was a British writer of some 60 gothic, romance and mystery novels from 1935 to 1982. She also used the pseudonyms of Paula Allardyce /ˈælərˌdaɪs/, Charity Blackstock, Lee Blackstock, and Charlotte Keppel. In 1961, her novel Witches' Sabbath won the Romantic Novel of the Year Award by the Romantic Novelists' Association[1]

Biography

Early years

Ursula Joyce Torday was born on 19 February 1912[2] (in some sources wrongly 1888) in London, England, United Kingdom,[3] daughter of mixed parentage,[4] her mother Gaia Rose Macdonald, was Scottish, and her father Emil Torday (1875–1931) was a Hungarian anthropologist, they married on 17 March 1910.

She studied at Kensington High School in London, before she went to the Oxford University, where she obtained a BA in English at Lady Margaret Hall College, and later a Social Science Certificate at London School of Economics.[5]

First jobs

In the 1930s, she published her first three novels under her real name: Ursula Torday.

During World War II, she worked as a probation officer for the Citizen's Advice Bureau. During the next seven years she also ran a refugee scheme for Jewish children, an inspiration for several of her future novels such as The Briar Patch (a.k.a. Young Lucifer); The Children (a.k.a. Wednesday's Children) is her memoir about her work with children of the Holocaust. She worked as a typist at the National Central Library in London,[5] inspiration for her future novel Dewey Death as Charity Blackstock.[4] She also taught English to adult students.

Writing career

She returned to publishing in the early 1950s using the pen names of Paula Allardyce or Charity Blackstock (in some cases reedited as Lee Blackstock in the USA) to sign her gothic romance and mystery novels. Later, she also used the pen name Charlotte Keppel. She published her last novel in 1982.

Her novel Miss Fenny (a.k.a. The Woman in the Woods) as Charity (or Lee) Blackstock was nominated for an Edgar Award. In 1961, her novel Witches' Sabbath won the Romantic Novel of the Year Award by the Romantic Novelists' Association[1]

Ursula Torday died on 6 March 1997, at 85.[6][7]

Bibliography

As Ursula Torday

[2]

As Paula Allardyce

[8]

As Charity Blackstock

[9]

As Charlotte Keppel

[10]

References and sources

  1. 1 2 Awards by the Romantic Novelists' Association, 27 July 2012
  2. 1 2 International Biographical Centre (1990), The World Who's Who of Women, Melrose Press.
  3. ↑ Who Was Who Among English and European Authors, 1931–1949, Gale Research Company, 1978, p. 1564
  4. 1 2 Kenneth Ridley Richardson; Robert Clive Willis (1969), Twentieth century writing, Newnes, p. 751
  5. 1 2 James Vinson; D. L. Kirkpatrick (1982), Twentieth-century romance and gothic writers, Gale Research, p. 898
  6. ↑ New General Catalog of Old Books and Authors
  7. ↑ Ursula Torday at Library of Congress, 27 July 2012
  8. ↑ Paula Allardyce at FantasticFiction, 27 July 2012
  9. ↑ Charity Blackstock at FantasticFiction, 27 July 2012
  10. ↑ Charlotte Keppel at FantasticFiction, 27 July 2012
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