Literary Birthday – 17 September – Mary Stewart

Mary Stewart was born on 17 September 1916 and died on 8 May 2014.

Mary Stewart Quotes

1. I tried to take conventionally bizarre situations (the car chase, the closed-room murder, the wicked uncle tale) and send real people into them, normal, everyday people with normal, everyday reactions to violence and fear; people not ‘heroic’ in the conventional sense, but averagely intelligent men and women who could be shocked or outraged into defending, if necessary, with great physical bravery, what they held to be right. (The Guardian)
2. I think from the very start, if anyone asked what I was going to be when I grew up… I used to say ‘an author. I write stories’ but also an artist, I wanted to draw as well.
3. I think if you’re going to write, it’s in you, you can’t help it, you have a flair and you’ve got to, you’ve got to use it. I just wrote stories all the time when I was young and through my teens and at school and so on.
4. The setting coming first. Wanting to recreate something particularly beautiful or with a history that interested me. Ancient history and natural beauty. Then you shove a few people in and let them get on with it.
5. The conversations aren’t easy but I find when I’ve done a conversation, I read it aloud. I used to do a bit of amateur acting and so I read it, I act it all. And then you can tell whether it’s flowing like real conversation or whether it’s just sounding like something in a book.
6. I wanted to write a historical novel as a sort of literary challenge in a way, to see if I could make that come to life as vividly as a contemporary one. Even though life in that period wasn’t familiar to the readers. And the other thing about the Merlin novels is the other challenge of trying for the first time to write in the person of a man and see if I could get away with that vividly enough and genuinely enough.
7. I’m a loner, and you have to be, I think. It’s a very lonely life and a very hard one. … you have to forget about social life while you’re writing a book, and then of course when you’re not writing a book and you’re doing nothing, social life has forgotten about you so you just… start another book in self-defence.

Source for quotes 3-7: Jenny Brown interviewing Mary Stewart on Mary Queen of Plots

Mary Stewart was a bestselling British novelist known for romantic suspense, historical fiction, and fantasy. She graduated from Durham University in 1938 with first-class honours in English and completed her master’s degree in 1941. Her first published novel, Madam, Will You Talk?, established her reputation for combining romance, mystery, adventure, and suspense. She created intelligent, independent heroines who could hold their own in dangerous situations. The Guardian described her as a pioneer of the romantic suspense genre. Stewart’s novels were praised for their skilful storytelling, elegant prose, and vivid settings. Her best-known romantic suspense novels include Touch Not the Cat, This Rough Magic, and Nine Coaches Waiting. The Moon-Spinners, one of her most popular cozy mystery novels, was adapted into a Walt Disney live-action film. Stewart also wrote poetry and children’s books, but she is perhaps best known for her Merlin series, which blends Arthurian legend with historical fiction and fantasy. Her work continued to find new readers, with The Little Broomstick adapted into the 2017 animated film Mary and the Witch’s Flower. When her husband, Frederick Stewart, was knighted in 1974, she became Lady Mary Stewart. She received the Agatha Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1996.

Source for photograph: Mary Stewart Reading

by Amanda Patterson
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