Josephine Tey

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Josephine Tey was the pseudonym that Scottish writer Elizabeth Mackintosh used for her detective fiction, the genre for which she is now best known. Her other pseudonym, Gordon Daviot, was usually reserved for what she considered to be her more serious work: her drama, three non-mystery novels, and a biography. Tey's reputation as a detective novelist grew following her death in 1952, thanks especially to her revisionist history of Richard III , The Daughter of Time, which has been credited for extending the boundaries of detective fiction. Her keen interest in history, and particularly in vindicating maligned or misrepresented figures, is evident throughout her writings.
  • BirthName: Elizabeth MacKintosh
  • Nicknames: Bessie; Beth
  • Pseudonyms: Gordon Daviot
    Daviot is the name of a village near which JT and her sisters spent early childhood holidays.
    Mann, Jessica. Deadlier Than The Male: An Investigation into Feminine Crime Writing. David and Charles, 1981.
    211-12
    ; Josephine Tey
    Not only was Josephine the name of JT 's mother; Josephine Tey was the name of her great-great-grandmother from Suffolk.
    Roy, Sandra. Josephine Tey. Twayne, 1980.
    15
    ; F. Craigie Howe
    This was her least-used pseudonym.

Milestones

25 June 1896

Elizabeth MacKintosh (later known as JT ) was born at her parents' new home, 2 Crown Terrace in Inverness, Scotland, a place of cramped and narrow streets, but close to more prosperous districts.
Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford, 1990.
Henderson, Jennifer Morag. Josephine Tey, a life. Sandstone Press, 2015.
27-9
Mann, Jessica. Deadlier Than The Male: An Investigation into Feminine Crime Writing. David and Charles, 1981.
210
Bargainnier, Earl F., editor. 10 Women of Mystery. Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1981.
43

29 August 1925

The first publication by Gordon Daviot (wrongly spelled as Davitt) was a poem in the Weekly Westminster (latest title of the Westminster Gazette), in an issue which also included work by Graham Greene .
Henderson, Jennifer Morag. Josephine Tey, a life. Sandstone Press, 2015.
100-1

June 1951

Shortly before her death, JT published her best-known detective novel, The Daughter of Time, which successfully popularised revisionist theories about Richard III . The title alludes to Francis Bacon, who wrote that truth is the daughter of time.
Such theories were, however, nothing new. Horace Walpole had published his own exoneration, Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third, in 1768.
Henderson, Jennifer Morag. Josephine Tey, a life. Sandstone Press, 2015.
307, 312
Tey, Josephine. The Daughter of Time. Peter Davies, 1951.
prelims
British Book News. British Council.
(1951): 690

13 February 1952

Beth MacKintosh (the detective writer JT ) died of cancer of the liver at the age of fifty-five, at her sister Moire's house in Streatham, South London. Moire's notice in The Times announced the death of Gordon Daviot.
Mann, Jessica. Deadlier Than The Male: An Investigation into Feminine Crime Writing. David and Charles, 1981.
217
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

By December 1952

The mystery novel which JT had been working on before she died appeared posthumously as The Singing Sands. Her sister Moire found the manuscript when she first entered Tey's Inverness cottage after Tey's death.
Henderson, Jennifer Morag. Josephine Tey, a life. Sandstone Press, 2015.
326
Roy, Sandra. Josephine Tey. Twayne, 1980.
15

Biography

Birth and Family

25 June 1896

Elizabeth MacKintosh (later known as JT ) was born at her parents' new home, 2 Crown Terrace in Inverness, Scotland, a place of cramped and narrow streets, but close to more prosperous districts.
Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford, 1990.
Henderson, Jennifer Morag. Josephine Tey, a life. Sandstone Press, 2015.
27-9
Mann, Jessica. Deadlier Than The Male: An Investigation into Feminine Crime Writing. David and Charles, 1981.
210
Bargainnier, Earl F., editor. 10 Women of Mystery. Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1981.
43

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