Women Writing on the Devon Land: A County's Women Who Wrote - circa 1965

      Women Writing on the Devon Land A-Z of Devon Women Writers and Places   Z is Zeal Monachorum A passage taken from The Splendid Folly , Pedler's first novel, published in 1917. It is not just Devon's 'Queen of Crime' Agatha Christie whose prestigious textual contribution to the genre of crime left its distinctive mark on the literary achievements provided by women writers from the author's home county. Less well-known nowadays - and admittedly, some might judge, a less 'worthy' Devon writer than Christie - was 'Queen of Romance', Margaret Pedler, whose first novel The Splendid Folly, was published just over one hundred years ago, in 1917. The novel received fair reviews from newspapers at the time, including The Western Times, which reported that 'Mrs Pedler would herself make no high literary claims for The Splendid Folly. She set herself simply to write a readable, entertaining, love story with a touch of Devonshire setting...

Women Writing on the Devon Land A-Z of Devon Places & Women Writers V and W for Venton and Widecombe in the Moor At Venton, along the lanes from Widecombe-in-the-Moor, once home of Beatrice Chase.             Just in case you have been following this A-Z of Devon Places & Women Writers , from Writing Women on the Devon Land, I have not missed out 'V'; but instead combined ‘V’ with 'W'. V for Venton and W for Widecombe-in-the-Moor . Venton is a small hamlet rather than parish, but fitted nicely for my purposes here. The two place-names are a perfect duality for one once famously iconic woman writer linked with Devon, namely Olive Katherine Parr, alias Beatrice Chase.          Unlike many of the writers who I've researched in connection with Devon, Chase is an author who is amply covered on the internet, especially when it comes to women writers associated with Dartmoor.  Typifying the notion of...

Writing Women on the Devon Land A – Z of Devon Women Writers & Places Over the A377 at Umberleigh Track near Umberleigh House 'A private track leading away from the A377 across the Taw floodplain, giving access to several fields'. © Copyright  Derek Harper and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence . .      What often intrigues me when I'm out and about exploring Devon's lost literary links connected with women of the past are the occasional teasing facts which pop up unexpectedly out of the historical blue, and yet either report conflicting facts or omit tantalising details, leaving you wondering what might have been. Although through the centuries Devon has frequently played a vital role in many major historical happenings, perhaps because of its outlying position toward the western margins of our country, it is more often than not ignored - and especially in my line of research focusing on its women's past ...