Anne Melville
Personal Information
Description
Margaret Edith Newman was born on 21 June 1926 in Harrow, Middlesex, London, England, UK, the eldest daughter of Marjory Edith (Donald), a former teacher, and Bernard Newman, author of fiction and non-fiction books and considered an authority on spies. She had two sisters, Hilary (Mrs. Richard Hipkin) and Lauriston (Mrs. Malcolm Norris). She was educated at Harrow County School for Girls, from 1937 to 1944; and studied her Major scholar at St Hugh's College, Oxford form 1944 to 1947, she aslo earned her B.A. in 1947 and her M.A. in 1952. On 11 February 1950, she married (Ronald) Jeremy Potter, a publisher and later also published writer of mystery novels. They had a daughter, Jocelyn, and a son, Jonathan. Before writing, she worked in various jobs, as teacher in Egypt and England, from 1947 to 1950; as editor at King's Messenger children's magazine in London, from 1950 to 1955; and as adviser at Citizen's Advice Bureau in Twickenham, Middlesex, from 1962 to 1970. On 1959, she published her first mystery novel, Murder to Music as Margaret Newman. Her next novels were published under the pseudonym of Anne Betteridge, a tribute to her father's pseudonym Don Betteridge. Under her married name, Margaret Potter, she published Children's fiction. Under the pseudonym Anne Melville, she signed her historical novels since 1977. As Margaret Evans, she published two historical novels. She continued publishing until her death. Widow since 15 November 1997, she died less than a year later on 26 August 1998 in Oxford, Oxfordshire.
Books
Just What I Wanted
A beautiful model, recovering from illness, offers her lover the gift of truth. A television actress, imprisoned in the character she plays, is handed back her personal identity. A career woman, wondering whether she has made the right choices, is given reassurance. A single parent learns that sometimes it is kinder to receive than to give. And before a surgeon changes into his Santa Claus costume on Christmas Day, he gives two small boys the greatest gift of all: their mother's life. Not everyone receives exactly what was hoped for, and many of the stories in Anne Melville's new collection contain a hint of tragedy. But sometimes the most unexpected offering can bring a smile -- or even change a life, as the recipient discovers with surprise that it was after all 'just what I wanted'.
Role Play
Kit Quilter maintains her large and leaky inherited house in Oxford by teaching English to small groups of foreign students. When asked to enrol a wealthy Japanese girl who is being groomed for marriage, the decision leaves her in a tangled web of deceit, disappearances, and deaths.
The longest silence
"The quarry - from trout and salmon to striped bass, massive tarpon, and chimerical permit - inhabit these thirty-three essays as surely as the characters of a novel, luring the author back to childhood haunts in Michigan and Rhode Island, and on through the stages of his life in San Francisco, Key West, and Montana; from the river in his backyard to the holiest waters of the American fishery, and to such far-flung locales as Ireland, Argentina, New Zealand, and Russia. As he travels with friends, with his son, alone, or in the literary company of Roderick Haig-Brown or Isaak Walton, the fish take him to such subjects as "unfounded opinions" on rods and reels, the classification of anglers according to the flies they prefer, family, and memory - right down to why fishermen lie."--BOOK JACKET. "Infused with a deep experience of wildlife and the outdoors, dedicated to conservation, reverent and hilarious by turns or at once, The Longest Silence sets the heart pounding for a glimpse of moving water, and demonstrates what a life dedicated to sport reveals about life."--BOOK JACKET.
Standing Alone
One moment of motorway madness is about to shape the destinies of four women. None of them has ever met London publisher Jarvis Elliott, but his sudden illness triggers a train of events bringing Helen, Madge, Penny and Candida together, even as it forces each of them to build an entirely new life.
The Hardie Inheritance
Grace Hardie leading a contented life as a sculptor, has chosen not to marry. But she is unable to maintain Greystones, the mansion she lives in to its former glory. Her life is transformed by the arrival of four uninvited visitors.
The Dangerfield Diaries
This saga spans most of the 20th century as it tells the story of Dr Ainslie Dangerfield and her life-long love affair with Gil Blakey, a writer whose wife dies while under Ainslie's care.
Grace Hardie
Volume One of the Enchanting Saga of a Victorian Family's Fortunes. In the summer of 1898, the Marquess of Ross travels to Oxford seeking reconciliation with his only granddaughter, Lucy. On meeting her children for the first and last time, the old man's love goes out to the tiny asthmatic baby girl. This is Grace Hardie and for her he will build an English palace. Grace grows up in her fairy tale home filled with sunshine and laughter and is secure in the love of her family. But even before the horrors of the Great War, two domestic tragedies on the same day cast Grace into a sea of guilt and grief.
The House of Hardie
Volume One of the Griping New Saga of a Victorian Family's Fortunes. Set in Oxford where the Hardies are prosperous tradespeople, but their children are ambitious to move up the social ladder....
Lorimer Loyalties
Volume Six of the dramatic saga of The Lorimer Family Unknown to each other, the Lorimer cousins share a history... Paula Mattison, unaware of her Lorimer connections, arrives from Jamaica, determined to make her mark in a country where she is now a foreigner. Meanwhile John Lorimer, deceived by his mother as a child, refuses to recognise his Lorimer relations and basks in spectacular business success. Only Sir Bernard Lorimer is secure and established in his inherited fortune and baronetcy. He devotes his time to scientific research and to the domestic pleasures of a happy marriage. But three women, Angela, Gitta and Isabel, will utterly transform the fortunes of the remaining Lorimers. And by the intervention of strangers the scattered cousins will come to recognise their common bond. Lorimer Loyalties is the sixth and concluding novel in the engrossing series which chronicles the lives and fortunes of the Lorimer family from the 1870s to the 1940s.
Lorimers at war
Volume Three of the dramatic saga of the Lorimer Family Scattered by War, but the Lorimer saga continues... The ball which Lord and Lady Glanville give for the 21st birthday of their nephew Brinsley Lorimer is a glittering social occasion in their country house, Blaize. But the year is 1914 and the telegram which summons Brinsley from the dance floor to the Western Front heralds the scattering of the Lorimer family. While Brinsley's 23-year-old sister Kate goes to Serbia to work as a doctor, Dr Margaret Lorimer converts her sister's opera house at Blaize into a military hospital. Only after the war ends is Margaret able to look into the future with hope for those of the younger generation who have survived... Lorimers at War is the third engrossing novel in the series which chronicles the lives and fortunes of the Lorimer family from the 1870's to the 1940's.
Lochandar
A young English heiress searches for the truth behind a charitable society which shipped thousands of orphans, including her grandfather, to the colonies at the turn of the century.
The last of the Lorimers
Volume Five of the dramatic saga of the Lorimer Family Survivors of a disappearing generation, the Lorimers struggle to preserve their heritafe... The end of the Second World War finds Kate Lorimer a refugee in occupied Germany. Once back in England she and Alexa must accept that they will have no descendants as the family teeters towards bankruptcy. Only Asha can keep the family traditions alive, but women of her generation are faced with a choice between family and career. As guardian of the Lorimer heritage, she is presented with the most difficult decision of her life... The Last of the Lorimers is the powerful fifth volume in the sequence which chronicles the lives and fortunes of the Lorimer family from the 1870s to the 1940s.