Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Patricia Wentworth
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Standard Name: Wentworth, Patricia
Birth Name: Dora Amy Elles
Pseudonym: Patricia Wentworth
Married Name: Dora Amy Dillon
Indexed Name: Mrs G. F. Dillon
Married Name: Dora Amy Turnbull
PW
began her writing career early in the twentieth century with half a dozen historical novels and romances and went on to achieve great popularity with between sixty and seventy thrillers, mysteries, and detective novels. She is a sharp observer of social comedy including relationships between the sexes, and her ability to evoke fear and suspense continued to develop throughout her career. She also wrote a book of verse for children and a couple of other poetry volumes. She is notable for inventing, before Agatha Christie
's Miss Marple, an elderly female detective whose success is linked to the invisibility and apparent cosiness conferred by her sex and age.
Miss Jane Marple had been created for serialization in an evening paper (in stories later collected in The Thirteen Problems in England, 1932, and The Tuesday Club Murders in the United States, 1933). She is...
Literary responses
Mary Stewart
This novel was welcomed by fellow novelists. In the TLS advertisement that heralded it, Daphne du Maurier
called it a brave start and Patricia Wentwortha delightful work; cultured and charming, besides being very exciting...
Publishing
Mary Stewart
This work was serialized in Woman's Journal before book publication. An American edition appeared in 1955.
MS
took her title from a folk-song which runs: Madam, will you walk? /...
Publishing
Marie Belloc Lowndes
From November 1908 MBL
landed the task of briefly reviewing some French books for the Times Literary Supplement, and from 1910 (with Patricia Wentworth
's A Marriage Under the Terror) she began covering...
Textual Features
Antonia Fraser
The Dictionary of Literary Biography calls Jemima Shore a new kind of woman detective.
“Dictionary of Literary Biography online”. Gale Databases: Literature Resource Center-LRC.
276
Her independence, intelligence, and literary sensibility are nothing new, but her rejection of marriage and her cheerful sexual promiscuity are...
Timeline
No timeline events available.
Texts
Wentworth, Patricia, and Grace H. Morgan. A Child’s Rhyme Book. Andrew Melrose, 1910.
Wentworth, Patricia. A Little More than Kin. Andrew Melrose, 1911.
Wentworth, Patricia. A Marriage Under the Terror. Andrew Melrose, 1910.
Wentworth, Patricia. Danger Calling. Hodder and Stoughton, 1931.
Wentworth, Patricia. Earl or Chieftain?. Catholic Truth Society of Ireland, 1919.
Wentworth, Patricia. Grey Mask. Hodder and Stoughton, 1928.