Overview
Marguerite Steen (12 May 1894 – 4 August 1975) was a British writer, most popular in the 1930s and 1940s. In 1951, she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Life
The daughter of Capt. George Connolly Benson, of the King's Shropshire Light Infantry and who was killed in action in Ashanti in 1900, and Margaret Jones, who married shortly before Benson's death, Marguerite was adopted by Joseph and Margaret Steen. In the 1930s she wrote several plays, Steen's literary agent was A.M. Heath of Holborn, London. The present-day agency recalls her as follows: "Marguerite Steen, whose 1934 novel Matador was one of the agency’s biggest successes to date, would publish more than thirty novels in her career – but, after her death, would have to wait until the emergence of e-books and new markets in the 21st century to be rediscovered." Her home at the time of her death was the cottage she had shared with Nicholson during the last years of his life, in the village of Blewbury, Berkshire, bought after their London home was destroyed by a Second World War bomb.
Published works
The published works of Marguerite Steen include:
Novels
* The Gilt Cage, London: Geoffrey Bles (1926) * Duel in the Dark, London: Geoffrey Bles (1928) * The Reluctant Madonna, London: Cassell & Co. (1929) * They that Go Down, London: Cassell & Co. (1930) * When the Wind Blows, London: Cassell & Co. (1931) * Unicorn, London: Victor Gollancz (1931) * The Wise and the Foolish Virgins, London: Victor Gollancz (1932) * Stallion, London: Victor Gollancz (1933) * Spider, London: Victor Gollancz (1933) * Matador, London: Victor Gollancz (1934) * Return of a Heroine, London: Victor Gollancz (1936) * Who Would Have Daughters?, London: Collins (1937) * The Marriage Will Not Take Place, London: Collins (1938) * Family Ties, London: Collins (1939) * "A Kind of Insolence" and other stories, London: Collins (1940) * The Sun is My Undoing, London: Collins (1941) * Shelter (as Jane Nicholson), London: G. G. Harrap & Co.
(1941) * Rose Timson, London: Collins (1946) - published in the U.S. as Bell Timson * The One-Eyed Moon, London: Falcon Press (1949) * Twilight on the Floods, London: Collins (1949) * The Swan, with illustrations by Walter Goetz, London: Rupert Hart-Davis (1951) * Phoenix Rising (1952). (Perhaps Bath: Chivers) * Stallion, London: Falcon Press (1953) * Anna Fitzalan, London: Collins (1953) * Bulls of Parral, London: Collins (1954) * The Unquiet Spirit, London: Collins (1955) * The Woman in the Back Seat, London: Collins (1959) * The Tower, London: Collins (1959) * A Candle in the Sun, London: Longmans (1964) * The Tavern, London: Nicholas Vane (1964)
Biography
* Hugh Walpole: A Study, S.l. : Ivor Nicholson and Watson (1933) * The Lost One: A Biography of Mary Perdita Robinson, S.l. : Methuen and Co Ltd (1937) * William Nicholson, London: Collins (1943) * A Pride of Terrys, London: Longmans (1962) * Looking Glass: An Autobiography, London: Longmans (1966) * Pier Glass: More Autobiography, London: Longmans (1968)
Plays
* Oakfield Plays: Including the Inglemere Christmas play, London: Ivor Nicholson and Watson (1932) * Peepshow, London: I. Nicholson & Watson (1933) * French for Love: a comedy in three acts, with Derek Patmore. London: Collins (1940)
Belles lettres
* Granada Window, S.l. : s.n. (1949). * Little White King (on cats), London: Michael Joseph (1956).
Contributor
* Paintings and drawings of the gypsies of Granada. Jo Jones, with text by Augustus John, Laurie Lee, Sir Sacheverell Sitwell, Walter Starkie, Marguerite Steen. London: Athelnay Books (1969).
Short stories
* "Strange Guest", The Strand Magazine (March 1933), pp. 270–281.
Illustration
* Oakfield Plays: Including the Inglemere Christmas play, London: Ivor Nicholson and Watson (1932) * Racing without Tears. Caroline Ramsden. London: Rupert Hart-Davis (1952). (This ran to many editions, with later ones illustrated by Norman Thelwell rather than Steen)