Fri 4 Jul 2008
A distant relative of this female author recently asked me if I had any information about her. Unfortunately, other than the list of books she wrote, I didn’t. It seems, though, that the following photo has recently surfaced on the Internet, helping to prompt the inquiry, and I thought you’d like to see it, too.
There are no prizes for this contest, but before I tell you the little that’s known about her, I thought I’d see if anyone recognizes her, especially in light of the fact that such a beautiful woman later became, believe it or not, a hard-boiled P.I. writer.
Between 1939 and 1953 she wrote 21 novels under her own name, most of them with one private eye leading character, and 11 more under a pen name, all of these cases tackled by another PI.
Maybe this is too much information, making the contest too easy, but if I didn’t tell you anything, I don’t think anyone would come up with the answer at all!
July 4th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
You must be referring to M. V. Heberden (Mary Violet). Pen name Charles Leonard. I had quite a few of her hard boiled novels starring Desmond Shannon. She never became a favorite of mine because how can you match up to Raymond Chandler, Hammett, Ross Macdonald, Norbert Davis and many other writers in Black Mask and Dime Detective.
July 4th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
That’s her, Walker. Congratulations! She’s come up on this blog before, way back at the beginning, in only the tenth post I did.
This was a short piece that ended up with me asking another question: what other women used (had to use) men’s names or initials in order to get published?
There wasn’t a lot of traffic to this blog back then, but a followup post (#13) listed a few more. (And Nick Fuller pointed out that in turnabout fashion, H. R. F. Keating wrote a few books as Evelyn Hervey, reminding me that lots of gothic romances in the 1960s and 70s were written by men under women’s names.)
So that’s one of the reasons I’d like to know more about Mary Heberden: why she chose to write about private eyes and how much of the decision to use initials or a man’s name to do so was her idea, or her publisher’s.
July 4th, 2008 at 7:08 pm
[…] other reason, of course, for retrieving this review from the archives, is the preceding post, the “mystery author” turning out to be Mary Heberden, aka M. V. Heberden, aka Charles […]
February 11th, 2009 at 2:19 am
Though Craig Rice was known to be a woman I’m sure she used the name knowing she would be thought a man by some, and Leigh Brackett is ambiguous at best. Though C.L. Moore didn’t write mysteries originally I think quite a few people were surprised when she turned out to be a female, and later she wrote with husband Henry Kuttner as HK and Lewis Padgett, including the Dr. Michael Gray mysteries published by Pocket Books.
Peter O’Donnell, creator of Modesty Blaise, was recently revealed to have been Madeline Brent, writer of gothics, and of course Norman Daniels and Michael Avallone notably wrote as Dorothy Daniels and Edwina Noone. Though I can’t think of any examples off hand quite a few genre writers have used female psuedonyms to write romance novels and bodice rippers. F. Tennyson Jessie (A Pin to See the Peepshow) is another who may have used initials to disguise her sex originally. Margery Allignham also wrote as Maxwell March, and there was a rumor for years that Harper Lee wrote a Nick Carter novel (as far as I know that never happened). Valerie Moolman however did write many of the early Carter’s, usually with Michael Avallone. Margaret Vere Campbell Long wrote most famously as Joseph Shearing and also as George R. Preedy as well as Margorie Bowen. I know Talmage Powell also wrote as Anne Talmage, and at various times Q Patrick included Mary Louise Aswell or Martha Mott Kelly as well as Richard Webb or Hugh Wheeler. John Marsh was Harrington Hastings and Florence Shepherd. Half of Manning Coles was Adelade Manning and Jonathan Burke wrote as Robert Miall with wife Harriet Esmond. The ambiguous Dion Fortune was Violet Firth. Those are the only ones I can think of off hand, though I would guess many of the gothics would reveal at least a male co-writer. William Ross was also Clarissa Ross, Dana Ross, Rose Dana, Marilyn Ross and others.
January 18th, 2011 at 6:58 pm
[…] a list of all eleven of his adventures. Preceding that is a post containing (believe it or not) a glamour shot of the author from Vogue Magazine. […]
June 18th, 2011 at 10:01 pm
[…] Mystery Woman. Reviewed by William F. Deeck: CHARLES L. LEONARD – Deadline for Destruction. Archived Review by Steve Lewis: CHARLES L. LEONARD – Sinister Shelter. […]