Edith Lyttleton (New Zealand writer)

Edith Joan Lyttleton (18 December 1873 – 10 March 1945)[1][2] was an Australasian author, who wrote as G. B. Lancaster.

For the British novelist and activist, see Edith Balfour Lyttelton.

Edith Joan Lyttleton
Born(1873-12-18)18 December 1873
Epping, near Campbell Town, Tasmania
Died10 March 1945(1945-03-10) (aged 71)
London, England
Pen nameG. B. Lancaster
OccupationWriter

Life and career

Lyttleton was born on the family farm near Campbell Town, Tasmania, and brought up from 1879 in New Zealand on a sheep station at Rakaia in Canterbury.[1] Between 1904 and 1943 she produced 13 novels, a collection of stories, two serialised novels and over 250 stories.

She was New Zealand's most widely read writer of the first half of the twentieth century.[1] She wrote about the formation of colonial identity and the legacy of imperialism in the lives of settlers and their descendants. Her settings were Australia, Canada and New Zealand. She was influenced by Rudyard Kipling and R. L. Stevenson.[1]

Her first success was with The Law-Bringers (1913), which was made into a Hollywood feature film in the 1920s (as was The Altar Stairs). Pageant (1933) topped the American best-seller list for six months. Other successes were Promenade (1938) and Grand Parade (1943).

Lyttleton left New Zealand in 1909 for America, before settling in England.[3] She died in a nursing home in London on 10 March 1945.[2]

Awards and recognition

Lyttleton was awarded the Australian Literary Society Gold Medal for an outstanding literary work in the previous calendar year, for Pageant in 1933.[4]

Lyttleton Crescent, a street in the Canberra suburb of Cook, is named in her honour.[5]

Novels
  • Sons O' Man (1904)
  • The Spur to Smite (1905)
  • The Tracks We Tread (1907)
  • The Altar Stairs (1907)
  • Jim of the Ranges (1910)
  • The Honorable Peggy (1911)
  • The Law-Bringers (1913)
  • Food Divine (1917)
  • The Savignys (1918)
  • Pageant (1933)
  • The World is Yours (1933)
  • Promenade (1938)
  • Grand Parade (1943)

Film adaptations

Further reading
  • King, Michael (2003). The Penguin History of New Zealand. Penguin Books. p. 321. ISBN 0-14-301867-1.
  • Sturm, Terry (2003). An unsettled spirit: The life and frontier fiction of Edith Lyttleton (G.B. Lancaster) (1st ed.). Auckland University Press ; London : Eurospan [distributor]. ISBN 978-1-86940-294-5.

References
  1. Sturm, Terry. "Lyttleton, Edith Joan". Dictionary of New Zealand Biography. Ministry for Culture and Heritage. Retrieved 9 April 2011.
  2. "Deaths". The Times. London, England. 13 March 1945. p. 1.
  3. "Swinburne's Parodies". The Register (Adelaide). 1 May 1909. p. 12.
  4. "Australian Literature : Society's Annual 'Drama Night'", The Age, 6 October 1934, p21.
  5. "Australian Capital Territory National Memorials Ordinance 1928-1959". Commonwealth of Australia Gazette (National : 1901 - 1973). 2 October 1969. p. 5790. Retrieved 28 October 2019.
  6. IMDB - Rider of the Law
  7. IMDB - The Altar Stairs
  8. IMDB - The Eternal Struggle
  9. IMDB - The Little Irish Girl
  10. IMDB - Bred in Old Kentucky
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