Marjorie Bowen
1885–1952
Biography
Marjorie Bowen was the best-known of several pen names used by Margaret Gabrielle Vere Long, a British writer. Her childhood was hard: her father left the household while she was young, and for a time the family had very little money. She published under other names too, including Joseph Shearing and George R. Preedy, and over her career she is credited with more than 150 books.
Her reputation rests on historical romances set in the medieval and early modern periods, and on supernatural stories admired for their careful research and their atmosphere. Under the name Joseph Shearing she wrote crime novels based on real murders. Her ghost stories were gathered into several collections, and the novelist Graham Greene later named her as one of the writers who had influenced him.
The Viper of Milan, the book on this site, is the novel that launched her career. It is set among the Visconti, the rulers of Milan, whose serpent emblem lies behind the book's title, and it is a good introduction to the historical romances that became the mainstay of her work.
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Books
The Viper of Milan: A Romance of Lombardy
by Marjorie Bowen
The Viper of Milan is a 1906 historical novel by the British writer Marjorie Bowen. Written when she was sixteen it received a number of rejections from publishers before its eventual publication. It proved a bestseller and launched her on a prolific career involving many…
Summary from Wikipedia: The Viper of Milan (CC BY-SA 4.0)