Mary Stewart

Mary Stewart (1916-2014) was an English novelist known for romantic suspense novels of the 1950s and 1960s, who later retold the Arthurian legend from Merlin's point of view in The Crystal Cave and its sequels.

She was born Mary Florence Elinor Rainbow in Sunderland, County Durham, on 17 September 1916, studied at Durham University and died at Lochawe in Scotland in May 2014. Her first novel, Madam, Will You Talk?, was published by Hodder & Stoughton in 1955. It set the pattern for a run of suspense novels with a capable young heroine in a vividly drawn setting, including Nine Coaches Waiting (1958), My Brother Michael (1959), The Ivy Tree (1961), The Moon-Spinners (1962), This Rough Magic (1964) and Airs Above the Ground (1965), followed later by Touch Not the Cat (1976) and Thornyhold (1988). This Rough Magic and Airs Above the Ground were nominated for the Edgar Award and My Brother Michael for the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger.

Her Arthurian sequence opened with The Crystal Cave (1970) and continued with The Hollow Hills (1973), The Last Enchantment (1979) and The Wicked Day (1983), with The Prince and the Pilgrim following in 1995. The Crystal Cave won the Frederick Niven Literary Award and the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award. She also wrote for children, including The Little Broomstick (1971) and Ludo and the Star Horse (1974), and received an Agatha Award for lifetime achievement.

For collectors. Hodder & Stoughton published her in Britain from her first novel, Madam, Will You Talk? (1955), onward. The Crystal Cave appeared from Hodder & Stoughton in Britain and from William Morrow in the United States, both in 1970.