Violet Needham

Born at 9, John Street, Berkeley Square (now Chesterfield Gardens, W1), London,[2] Needham was the daughter of Colonel Charles Needham, of the 1st Life Guards (illegitimate son of Francis Needham, 2nd Earl of Kilmorey) and Henriette Amélie Charlotte Vincentia (known as 'Amy'), daughter of Dutch aristocrat Vincent Gildemeester Baron van Tuyll van Serooskerken, who had made a fortune in East Indian tin.[3][4][5] Charles Needham was a gambler and their finances fluctuated considerably. The family spent summer holidays in Europe, and lived there for six years when Needham and her sister were young women, their father being military attaché at Rome from 1895 to 1901.[6][7] Needham and her family returned to England in 1902 when her mother bought Tylehurst, Forest Row, East Sussex, which would remain the family home for 35 years.[8]

Needham befriended the explorer and alpinist Douglas William Freshfield (d. 1934), a contemporary of her father but with whom she shared many interests. After his wife's death in 1911 it has been suggested that the two would have married but for the opposition of Freshfield's family. Still living at Tylehurst with her parents, Needham participated in the London season for some years, but gave it up in favour of gardening and home pursuits. Her sister Evelyn had married and had four sons, and Needham was a devoted aunt, telling bedtime stories which formed the basis of the 'Stormy Petrel' adventures. Her attempts at being published were turned down on the grounds that the work was too difficult for children. Following the deaths of Freshfield and Charles Needham in 1934, and Amy Needham in 1936, Tylehurst was sold and Violet went to live in London. Here, through a connection, she was able to present the manuscript of 'The Black Riders' to the publishing house William Collins, Sons, the children of one of the Collins family directors endorsing publication.[9]

Thus Needham came to writing late in life, publishing her first book, The Black Riders, in 1939, at the age of 63. In her lifetime she published 19 novels. They can be divided into three groups: Ruritanian,[10] historical, and contemporary. The eleven Ruritanian novels, sometimes known as the Empire series or the Stormy Petrel series, are set in three fictional countries in Eastern Europe: the Empire, Flavonia, and Ornowitza, the latter being a small duchy between the other two.

Her first novel, The Black Riders, introduces the hero Dick Fauconbois, known as the "Stormy Petrel". He lives in the Empire, although he visits Flavonia during the course of the novel. It is the story of an orphan boy who becomes a member of a secret rebel movement led by a saint-like figure called Far-Away Moses. Their chief enemy is Count Jasper, known as Jasper the Terrible, the chief of the paramilitary Black Riders. The villain Jasper is described as a darkly attractive character, whose allure is felt by the main female heroine, Wych Hazel. The novelist and poet Michele Roberts described how her childhood reading of The Black Riders "both turned me on and made me feel guilty. Secret pleasure reading it; secret guilt."[11]

In the early 1950s, Needham left her London house to live with her widowed sister, subsequently giving up writing after a motor accident. The sisters died a day apart, Violet on the 8th and Evelyn on 9 June 1967.[12]

Ruritanian

• The Black Riders (1939)
• The Emerald Crown (1940)
• The Stormy Petrel (1942)
• The Woods of Windri (1944)
• The House of the Paladin (1945)
• The Changeling of Monte Lucio (1946)
• The Betrayer (1950)
• Richard and the Golden Horse Shoe (1954)
• The Great House of Estraville (1955)
• The Secret of the White Peacock (1956)
• The Red Rose of Ruvina (1957)

Contemporary

• The Horn of Merlyns (1943)
• The Bell of the Four Evangelists (1947)
• Pandora of Parrham Royal (1951)
• How Many Miles to Babylon? (1953)

Historical

• The Boy in Red (1948)
• The Avenue (1952)
• Adventures at Hampton Court (1954)
• Adventures at Windsor Castle (1957)

• The Password is Fortitude: an evaluation of some children's books by Violet Needham by Judith Crabb, Hermit Press, South Australia (1992)