The man who won 

• 1905 
• Reynolds, Baillie 
• Miscellaneous 
• Hutchinson 

3756657

Books

The man who won

1905

First edition

320

10.5 x 16.0 cm

Gertrude Mary Reynolds (c1875 - d.1939) was a writer of romances and romantic thrillers, sometimes dipping her toe into supernatural tales. You get a marvellous sense of her ouvre from Women writers of the First World War: an annotated bibliography by Sharon Ouditt where one of her novels is described as 'a complex tale of family feuds, vendettas and deathbed confessions'. In Some goddesses of the pen Patrick Braybrooks showers praise on her romantic thrillers, saying they must 'convert the commonplace surroundings of everyday life into a hotbed of trap doors, sudden revolver shots, smart meals with smart villains, unshaved ruffians who speak with a very foreign accent, women who are so beautiful but whose execreble morals and disgraceful feminine wiles have to be forgiven'. Just look at some of her titles and you'll get the idea: It is not safe to know; The terrible baron; The notorious Miss Lisle; Confession corner; The daughter pays; and Accessory after the fact. It's difficult to find out much about her. She was the eldest daughter of Mr Julian Robins, barrister-at-law, she was married in 1890, and was the proud mother of three sons. You do get a marvelous sense of her personality, gloriously expressed in the journalistic style of the day. Take this for example... She was 'gladly acclaimed' President of the Society of Women Journalists in an article in a 1912 Journal of Nursing (in between an account of a Women's Freedom League march and a notice of a lecture on eugenics). She is described as 'a woman of delightful personality, and of very genuine and strenuous character.She is an earnest suffragist, and knows how to play: cycling, travelling, reading, painting and private theatricals - she engages in them with zest