In search of Marjorie Bowen

This thesis is about the British writer Gabrielle Margaret Campbell Long (1885-1952) who wrote 150 novels from 1906-1952. She wrote historical romances, gothic fiction, plays, short stories and non-fiction books under various pseudonyms such as Marjorie Bowen, Joseph Shearing, George R. Preedy, Robert Paye and John Winch. Her work was extremely popular during her lifetime both in England and abroad. Several of the Joseph Shearing mystery thriller novels, novels based on true-crime events and the novels produced under the George Preedy pseudonym were adapted into films. She gained a great deal of critical acclaim and the reviews of her work were extremely positive. Her opinion was much sought after when she was alive and she regularly lectured on art, history and wrote various opinion pieces. Yet today, Marjorie Bowen, a late Romantic writer essentially, is largely forgotten and unrecognised by literary scholarship. The thesis, In Search of Marjorie Bowen, while exploring a carefully chosen selection of Marjorie Bowen’s various works, examines and discusses why this author is worthy of study and modern critical attention, while also examining the reasons for her undeserved obscurity. Particular attention is paid to the historical, gothic and supernatural genres within a romantic framework. This thesis has four main aims in regards to the study of Marjorie Bowen’s work: To discuss Bowen’s abilities as a writer, including in comparison to other authors, to consider the vast extent of her imagination, to determine why she disappeared from our literary picture and to re-establish her as an important writer worthy of academic consideration and attention. This thesis seeks to revive interest in the work of an extraordinary writer.