Bowen, Marjorie, 1888-1952

The British author Marjorie Bowen was born Gabrielle Margaret Vere Campbell on Hayling Island, Hampshire, on November 1, 1885, the daughter of Josephine Elisabeth Ellis and Vere Douglas Campbell. An introspective and unhappy child, Bowen was raised by her unstable mother in a chaotic and peripatetic Bohemian household in and around London. She studied with John Crompton at the Heatherley School of Art, attended the Slade School of Fine Art (1901-1904), and studied art in Paris, but was largely and intensely self-taught in history, languages, and literature. In 1912 she married a Sicilian man, Zeffrino Emilio Costanzo (died 1916), then a resident of London, with whom she lived in England and Italy and had two children: Paolo Maura (1914-1915) and Michael (born 1916). Her second marriage, to Arthur L. Long produced two sons, Hilary Blaise and Athelstane. Bowen was a remarkably prolific author of more than one hundred works of fiction, historical fiction, and history, issued in "astonishing profusion" (Times, December 27, 1952) as novels, biographies, plays, and short stories, which enabled her to support her family, including her mother, sister, and husbands. In addition, she wrote scores of book reviews, essays, and opinion pieces, particularly on issues related to women, including education, character, independence, marriage, and child-rearing; extremely successful and with a reputation as an "outspoken woman," Bowen was often solicited for her opinion on current events and contemporary lifestyles. She also had a special interest in romance, fantasy, occult, and supernatural themes and topics, and published under several pseudonyms including Robert Paye, George R. Preedy, Joseph Shearing, and John Winch. Her autobiography, The Debate Continues, was published in 1939 under the name Margaret Campbell. Bowen died in a London hospital, following a fall at her home, on December 23, 1952.

The British author Mrs. Vere Campbell was born Josephine Elisabeth Ellis on July 20, 1860, in Carmarthanshire, Wales, the daughter of Charles Bowen Ellis (1821-1887), a Moravian clergyman, and Priscilla Harson Bayley (1829-1879). Educated at Moravian schools in England and Germany, she married Vere Douglas Campbell (circa 1854-1905), the alcoholic son and grandson of respected London physicians Hugh Campbell and David Campbell. The marriage produced three children including the author Marjorie Bowen; the couple separated soon after the birth of their third child, Phyllis (born 1891). Mrs. Campbell published fewer than ten novels and had a few of her plays produced during her lifetime; she died in December 1921.

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