Ursula Torday

Ursula Joyce Torday
Born	Ursula Joyce Torday (1912-02-19)19 February 1912 London, England, UK
Died
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

Biography

Early years

Ursula Joyce Torday was born on 19 February 1912 (in some sources wrongly 1888) in London, England, UK, daughter of mixed parents, her mother Gaia Rose Macdonald, was Scottish, and her father Emil Torday (1875-1931) was an 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 obteined a BA in English at Lady Margaret Hall College, and later a Social Science Certificate at London School of Economics.

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, inspiration for several of her future novels like, The Briar Patch (aka Young Lucifer) and The Children (aka Wednesday's Children) as Charity Blackstock. She worked as a typist at the National Central Library in London, inspiration for her future novel Dewey Death as Charity Blackstock. 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 (aka 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

Ursula Torday died on 6 March 1997, at 85.

Bibliography

As Ursula Torday

• The Ballad-Maker of Paris (1935)
• No Peace for the Wicked (1937)
• The Mirror of the Sun (1938)

As Paula Allardyce

• After the Lady (1954)
• A Game of Hazard (1955)
• The Doctor's Daughter (1955)
• Adam and Evelina (1956)
• The Man of Wrath (1958)
• Southarn Folly(1957)
• The Lady and the Pirate (1957) aka The Vixen's Revenge (US title)
• Beloved Enemy (1958)
• My Dear Miss Emma (1958)
• A Marriage Has Been Arranged (1959)
• Death My Lover (1959)
• Johnny Danger (1960) aka The Rebel Lover (US title)
• Witches' Sabbath (1961)
• The Gentle Highwayman (1961) aka The Rogue's Lady (US title)
• Adam's Rib (1963) aka Legacy of Pride (US title)
• The Respectable Miss Parkington-Smith (1964) aka Paradise Row (US title)
• Octavia: Or the Trials of a Romantic Novelist (1965)
• The Moonlighters (1966) Gentleman Rogue (US title)
• Six Passengers for the Sweet Bird (1967)
• Waiting at the Church (1968) aka Emily (US title)
• The Ghost of Archie Gilroy (1970) aka Shadowed Love (US title)
• Miss Jonas's Boy (1972) aka Eliza (US title)
• The Gentle Sex (1974)
• The Carradine Affair (1976)
• Miss Philadelphia Smith (1977)
• Haunting Me (1978)

As Charity Blackstock

• Dewey Death (1956)
• Miss Fenny (1957) aka The Woman in the Woods (US title)
• The Foggy, Foggy Dew (1958)
• The Shadow of Murder (1958) aka All Men Are Murderers as Lee Blackstock (US title)
• The Bitter Conquest (1959)
• The Briar Patch (1960) aka Young Lucifer as Ursula Torday (US title)
• The Exorcism (1961) aka A House Possessed (US title)
• The Gallant (1962)
• Mr. Christopoulos (1963)
• The Factor's Wife (1964) aka The English Wife (US title)
• When the Sun Goes Down (1965) aka Monkey on a Chain (US title)
• The Knock at Midnight (1966)
• The Children (1966) aka Wednesday's Children (US title)
• Party in Dolly Creek (1967) aka The Widow (US title)
• The Melon in the Cornfield (1969) aka The Lemmings (US title)
• The Daughter (1970)
• The Encounter (1971)
• The Jungle (1972)
• The Lonely Strangers (1972)
• People in Glass Houses (1975)
• Ghost Town (1976)
• I Met Murder on the Way (1977) aka The Shirt Front (US title)
• Miss Charley (1979)
• Dream Towers (1980)
• With Fondest Thoughts (1980)

As Charlotte Keppel

• Madam, You Must Die (1974) aka Loving Sands, Deadly Sands (US title)
• When I Say Goodbye, I'm Clary Brown (1976) My name is Clary Brown (US title)
• I Could Be Good to You (1980)
• The Villains (1980)
• The Ghosts of Fontenoy (1981)
• The Flag Captain (1982)