Onions, Oliver, 1873-1961

Author.

From the description of Papers, 1905-1911. (Indiana University). WorldCat record id: 28084787

The British writer George Oliver Onions was born November 13, 1872, in Bradford, England; he died April 9, 1961. After studying art at the National Arts Training Schools (now the Royal Academy) in London, and then in Paris, Onions began his career as a commercial artist. Onions legally changed his name to George Oliver in 1918, but continued to publish ghost stories, mysteries, and historical fiction, as Oliver Onions. During his early writing career Onions frequently published his short stories in magazines. His trilogy of novels– In Accordance with the Evidence (1910), The Debit Account (1913), and The Story of Louie (1913)--established Onions's reputation as a writer of psychological thrillers.

In 1909, Onions married the writer Berta Ruck (1878-1978). They had two sons, Arthur (b. 1912) and William (b. 1913). With Onions’s assistance, Ruck revised her story “His Official Fiancée,” which had been serialized in Home Chat in 1912, for publication in book form. The novel, which appeared two years later, was a success in both Great Britain and the United States, and it began Ruck’s prolific career as a popular writer. Ruck was also a frequent traveler, but the couple appear to have traveled separately.

Onions enjoyed a long career as a popular author, publishing over forty novels and short stories collections, receiving, in 1946, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction, for his novel Poor Man's Tapestry .

Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2004. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: The Gale Group. 2004. http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/BioRC "Oliver Onions." Britannica Student Encyclopedia. 2004. Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Retrieved 2 July 2004 . http://search.eb.com/ebi/article?eu=356818 “Oliver Onions, 87, British Novelist.” New York Times. 10 Apr 1961: 31.

From the guide to the Oliver Onions papers, 1927–1938, (University of Delaware Library - Special Collections)