Margaret Jowett

Margaret Jowett (born 1921) is a British children's writer who wrote two historical novels about the English theatre. She wrote that her books were intended for those readers "who will one day take their theatrical scholarship neat, but are not yet of an age to do so".[1]

Her novel Candidate for Fame (1955), set in Richard Sheridan's Drury Lane theatre, was commended for the Carnegie Medal in 1955. Its title is a reference to the actress Sarah Siddons, who described herself as "an ambitious candidate for fame".[2] Jowett's story of Deborah Keate, the daughter of a travelling actor-manager in the reign of George III, provides a framework for a description of 18th-century society, politics, and theatre. The novel includes portrayals of the Season at Bath, the furore of a Westminster election, the rivalries of leading ladies and the political intrigues connected with the theatre.[1]

A Cry of Players (1961) is set in the world of Elizabethan theatre. It tells the story of Harry Lulworth, who becomes a boy player in London acting in plays by a new dramatist, Will Shakespeare, while looking for his father, a player who has mysteriously disappeared.

Life

She progressed to Princess Mary High School in Halifax where she sat her school certificate examinations in 1937, and from there she gained her place at The University of Leeds. She obtained her Degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1942 and her Diploma in Education in 1943. From 1943 to 1950 Jowett taught English at Withington Girls' School.

Works

  • Candidate for Fame, Oxford University Press, 1955. With illustrations by Peggy Fortnum. Republished in the Oxford Children's Library.
  • A Cry of Players, Oxford University Press, 1961. Illustrated by Asgeir Scott.

References

  1. 1 2 Book jacket of A Cry of Players
  2. ↑ Three Tragic Actresses: Siddons, Rachel, Ristori by Michael R. Booth, John Stokes, Susan Bassnett, Cambridge University Press, 1996, p.15, quoting Siddons' memoir



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