Ruth M. Arthur (1905–1979)

Ruth M. Arthur was the pen name of Ruth Mabel Arthur Huggins, born in Glasgow, Scotland. She grew up in the countryside outside the city, and was educated at St. Columba's School in Kilmacolm. At age 18, she enrolled in the Froebel Educational Institute, an early education teacher training school (now Froebel College at the University of Roehampton), in a southwest suburb of London. While still a student, she published several short stories. In 1926, she graduated as a certified kindergarten teacher and moved back to Glasgow, where she taught at Laurel Bank School for three years. She then moved to Loughton, England, where she taught at a secondary school there. In 1932, she married Frederick Newey Huggins, a solicitor. The same year, her first collection of stories for children, Friendly Stories, etc., was published. This set of stories sold so well, it was reprinted in 1935, 1938, 1941, 1942 and 1949.

Over the next 20 years, Ruth published more books for young children, making each of them age-appropriate for the six children that she and her husband had in that same time span.

Starting with Dragon Summer in 1962, she switched to writing novels for young adults. These books, which told haunting stories in the intersection between fantasy and gothic romance, became her most popular works. They usually included carefully researched historical backdrops, as well as time slips, ghosts, and supernatural objects.
Among these titles were A Candle in Her Room (1966), Requiem for a Princess (1967), The Autumn People (1973) and The Saracen Lamp (1970).
In these books for adolescents, Ruth often used first-person narrative to draw the reader into the viewpoint of the protagonist, and set events in places she was familiar with. Many of these books were also published in the USA and translated into multiple languages.