Charity Blackstock (1912–1997)
Auteur van Dewey Death
Over de Auteur
Fotografie: Ursula Torday about 1965.
Werken van Charity Blackstock
Een Heks Met Blauwe Ogen 1 exemplaar
Liefde is een vurig paard 1 exemplaar
Witches Sabbath 1 exemplaar
Tagged
Algemene kennis
- Officiële naam
- Torday, Ursula Joyce
- Pseudoniemen en naamsvarianten
- Torday, Ursula
Allardyce, Paula (pseudonym)
Blackstock, Charity (pseudonym)
Blackstock, Lee (pseudonym)
Keppel, Charlotte (pseudonym) - Geboortedatum
- 1912-02-19
- Overlijdensdatum
- 1997-03-06
- Geslacht
- female
- Nationaliteit
- UK
- Geboorteplaats
- Kensington, London, England, UK
- Woonplaatsen
- London, England, UK
- Opleiding
- Oxford University (Lady Margaret Hall|BA|English)
London School of Economics - Beroepen
- office worker
typist
novelist
romance novelist
crime novelist - Relaties
- Torday, Emil (father)
- Korte biografie
- Ursula Joyce Torday (19 February 1912 - 6 March 1997) was born in London, England, UK, the daughter of a Scottish mother (Gaia Rose Macdonald) and a Hungarian father (anthropologist Emil Torday, 1875-1931). She received a BA in English from Lady Margaret Hall College (Oxford University) and a Social Science Certificate from the London School of Economics.
In 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. After the war she spent seven years working at the
Children’s Marrainage Scheme (a project of the Jewish Committee for Relief Abroad) assisting Jewish children refugees--inspiration for several novels published under the pseudonym Charity Blackstock: e.g. The Briar Patch (aka Young Lucifer, U.S. title) and The Children (aka Wednesday's Children, U.S.). Later she worked as a typist at the National Central Library in London, inspiration for her novel Dewey Death (also as Charity Blackstock). She also taught English to adult students.
When she returned to publishing in early 1950s she used the pseudonyms Paula Allardyce and Charity Blackstock (and in some cases reedited as Lee Blackstock in USA), to on her gothic romance and mystery novels; later she would also use the pseudonym Charlotte Keppel. Her novel Miss Fenny (aka The Woman in the Woods, U.S.) as Charity (or Lee) Blackstock, was nominated for the Edgar Award. In 1961, her novel Witches' Sabbath won the Romantic Novel of the Year Award by the Romantic Novelists' Association.
Leden
Discussies
Mid 20thC British novel: widow falls in love with a ghost in Name that Book (november 2011)
Besprekingen
Taken from Kirkus Reviews A floppy 18th-century romance of very little brain. Kate Lawson, impoverished orphan of genteel background, has managed to place herself as a governess in a household headed by a handsome unmarried man, Captain Max Oakland. The Captain is the uncle of ten-year-old Amy, an unholy terror who has sent a string of governesses packing and who is too much for adoring father Ernest and stepma Julie--a hot-potato of over-perfumed, sizzling beauty. (Julie is supposedly a French ÉmigrÉ, but Kate detects a Cockney tinge in her French-accented tirades.) The Oakland house is noisy. Amy screams; Julie shrieks down curses from her slovenly bedroom while deep in her cups; Max and Ernest bellow. While Kate wins over motherless Amy, much of the conversation consists of rapidly infatuated Max asking Kate if she's going to stay and Kate changing her mind with every new nasty turn of events. Getting rid of Julie is on everyone's mind, of course, but it's poor Ernest who gets the poisoned mushrooms (thoughtfully cooked by Julie). One more murder, a brothel excursion to rescue one of Julie's victims, and some trickery by clever Amy--and Julie is finally, literally, toppled. Simple-minded but harmless.… (meer)
While browsing at a used bookstore, I discovered this Gothic Georgian romance with its delicious cover and couldn’t resist grabbing it. The heights of my Gothic romance period passed a while ago, but given my current revival of interest in the Georgian period, and the back cover copy that promised me a unique heroine, I thought I’d give it a shot.
I’m glad I grabbed this one, because from the opening it grabbed me right back.
The heroine, Clary, isgenuinely plucky, not just advertised as so. A poor girl who found some measure of comfort as an actress in David Garrick’s company—and especially as the ‘darling’ or mistress of a much older nobleman—she’s worked her way to where she is, and yet in a moment of courage or madness (or frustration and despair) she throws it all away by telling her cold, domineering lover exactly what she thinks of him. She knows she deserves better.
For that, she gets put aside, but the old man doesn’t completely abandon her—instead he does what might be worse, returning her to the village where she grew up an outcast in poverty. And the village hasn’t improved since Clary left. Her few friends have died—caught in the poorhouse when it burned down, or passed away from sickness, or worst of all, gruesomely murdered by the strange forces that stalk the night. There are some genuinely frightening moments in this story. Even though I knew everything would turn out in the end, just the idea of doors rattling in the middle of the night as someone tries to enter for nefarious purposes, to mention one the slightest and least-spoilery of incidents, had me turning the lights up as I read.
As you might infer from the summary above, this is a historical romance where the heroine is not a virgin, which I found refreshing! She’s also a woman of color, her father being Romany (to paraphrase the words of Lt. Uhura: Fair maiden? Sorry, neither). Unfortunately, the g***sy slur for the Romany does appear in this book—I’m pretty certain Keppel didn’t realize it was a slur, as that’s something it took me years to find out in the 2010s, much less the 1970s when this was written. Her handling of Clary and her father is sympathetic, although there is some stereotyping with a fortuneteller in the opening scene. On the whole, though, I went into this Gothic Romance expecting much more tired tropes than I got.
The romance itself came rather last minute—to the point that I began to doubt there would even be one—but turned out very sweetly, and I love the implications for the future dynamics of their family (yes, family—no spoilers, though). Also, after Victoria Holt’s endless depictions of sexual violence or the threat of it, I found this story more toned down and more believable—Clary had a traumatic, threatening encounter in her childhood and the effects carry through to adulthood; no rape apologism here, but only one of the male characters in the story was ever interested in assaulting her virtue (the old nobleman is a cold lover, but their relationship was on some level consensual and he breaks it off when Clary rejects him; the romantic hero is a pure gentleman; the key villain of the story wants to do horrible things to Clary but rape is not one of them). I would have loved this story is Clary proved to be single forever, but I admit it is much more satisfying to see her in a relationship that promises companionship and support, as well as a light touch of sexual desire that shows she is overcoming the pain of her past.
If you find this one around and like Gothic romances and/or historical thrillers or mysteries, I’d encourage you to check My Name is Clary Brown out!… (meer)
I’m glad I grabbed this one, because from the opening it grabbed me right back.
The heroine, Clary, isgenuinely plucky, not just advertised as so. A poor girl who found some measure of comfort as an actress in David Garrick’s company—and especially as the ‘darling’ or mistress of a much older nobleman—she’s worked her way to where she is, and yet in a moment of courage or madness (or frustration and despair) she throws it all away by telling her cold, domineering lover exactly what she thinks of him. She knows she deserves better.
For that, she gets put aside, but the old man doesn’t completely abandon her—instead he does what might be worse, returning her to the village where she grew up an outcast in poverty. And the village hasn’t improved since Clary left. Her few friends have died—caught in the poorhouse when it burned down, or passed away from sickness, or worst of all, gruesomely murdered by the strange forces that stalk the night. There are some genuinely frightening moments in this story. Even though I knew everything would turn out in the end, just the idea of doors rattling in the middle of the night as someone tries to enter for nefarious purposes, to mention one the slightest and least-spoilery of incidents, had me turning the lights up as I read.
As you might infer from the summary above, this is a historical romance where the heroine is not a virgin, which I found refreshing! She’s also a woman of color, her father being Romany (to paraphrase the words of Lt. Uhura: Fair maiden? Sorry, neither). Unfortunately, the g***sy slur for the Romany does appear in this book—I’m pretty certain Keppel didn’t realize it was a slur, as that’s something it took me years to find out in the 2010s, much less the 1970s when this was written. Her handling of Clary and her father is sympathetic, although there is some stereotyping with a fortuneteller in the opening scene. On the whole, though, I went into this Gothic Romance expecting much more tired tropes than I got.
The romance itself came rather last minute—to the point that I began to doubt there would even be one—but turned out very sweetly, and I love the implications for the future dynamics of their family (yes, family—no spoilers, though). Also, after Victoria Holt’s endless depictions of sexual violence or the threat of it, I found this story more toned down and more believable—Clary had a traumatic, threatening encounter in her childhood and the effects carry through to adulthood; no rape apologism here, but only one of the male characters in the story was ever interested in assaulting her virtue (the old nobleman is a cold lover, but their relationship was on some level consensual and he breaks it off when Clary rejects him; the romantic hero is a pure gentleman; the key villain of the story wants to do horrible things to Clary but rape is not one of them). I would have loved this story is Clary proved to be single forever, but I admit it is much more satisfying to see her in a relationship that promises companionship and support, as well as a light touch of sexual desire that shows she is overcoming the pain of her past.
If you find this one around and like Gothic romances and/or historical thrillers or mysteries, I’d encourage you to check My Name is Clary Brown out!… (meer)
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This is what I would like to think of as Paula Allardyces personal views on the feminist movement in the 1960s/70s.
Its not a very romantic book either as the hero has a mistress ,Sophy whom he breaks up with in the beginning but then gets back together with after the first meeting between Mary Ann and Edward.
..and when I say get back together.I mean they have offpage sex.
Its admittedly not the best of her books but it does has some good moments, like the one near the end when the heroine and the heros aunt drinks wine inside a burning house.
/"Why my dear think we should sit down and have another glass of wine.You need not be afraid. I am certain my nephew will be along any moment now:if not,the neighbours will come to our rescue.The fire must be visible for miles.
There is also a bad guy named Cabbage Powers.… (meer)