Evangeline Walton (24 November 1907 – 11 March 1996) was the pen name of Evangeline Wilna Ensley, an American writer of fantasy fiction. She remains popular in North America and Europe because of her “ability to humanize historical and mythological subjects with eloquence, humor and compassion”.Spencer, Paul. “Evangeline Walton: an interview.” ''Fantasy Review'', March 1985.

Life

Born in

Indianapolis, Indiana Indianapolis ( ), colloquially known as Indy, is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Indiana, most populous city of the U.S. state of Indiana and the county seat of Marion County, Indiana, Marion ...

to Marion Edmund Ensley and Wilna Eunice Ensley née Coyner, Walton came from a lively, educated, Quaker family. Walton suffered chronic respiratory illnesses as a child, and was privately or self-taught at home. Her parents separated and divorced in 1924. Growing up and living with her mother and her grandmother and witnessing her parents’ marital difficulties roused a natural feminism in Walton which appears throughout her writings. As a child, Walton enjoyed the works of L. Frank Baum, James Stephens, Lord Dunsany and

Algernon Blackwood Algernon Henry Blackwood, CBE (14 March 1869 – 10 December 1951) was an English broadcasting narrator, journalist, novelist and short story writer, and among the most prolific ghost story writers in the history of the genre. The literary cr ...

, which she would later cite as influences on her fiction.Cosette Kies, "Walton, Evangeline" in ''St. James Guide To Fantasy Writers'', edited by

David Pringle David Pringle (born 1 March 1950) is a Scottish science fiction editor and critic. Pringle served as the editor of '' Foundation'', an academic journal, from 1980 to 1986, during which time he became one of the prime movers of the collective whi ...

. St. James Press, 1996, (pp. 586-7) . Walton and her mother traveled often to New York City, Chicago and San Francisco for opera, especially for

Richard Wagner Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, essayist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most o ...

’s

Der Ring des Nibelungen (''The Ring of the Nibelung''), WWV 86, is a cycle of four German-language epic music dramas composed by Richard Wagner. The works are based loosely on characters from Germanic heroic legend, namely Norse legendary sagas and the . The compo ...

; opera was a passion her entire life. In 1946 after the death of her grandmother, Walton and her mother moved to

Tucson, Arizona Tucson (; ; ) is a city in Pima County, Arizona, United States, and its county seat. It is the second-most populous city in Arizona, behind Phoenix, Arizona, Phoenix, with a population of 542,630 in the 2020 United States census. The Tucson ...

. Wilna Ensley died in 1971 but not before she saw the dawn of public recognition for Walton and her works. Most of Walton’s published and unpublished works were originally written in the 1920s through the early 1950s. She worked on her best known work, the Mabinogion tetralogy, during the late 1930s and early 1940s, and her Theseus trilogy during the late 1940s. Once success found her after 1970, she reworked many of her manuscripts for publication over the next twenty years. Walton said of her knack for writing fantasy: “My own method has always been to try to put flesh and blood on the bones of the original myth; I almost never contradict sources, I only add and interpret.” In 1991, she underwent surgery for a brain tumor that proved benign. However, her health continued to decline. Treated as a child with

silver nitrate Silver nitrate is an inorganic compound with chemical formula . It is a versatile precursor to many other silver compounds, such as those used in photography. It is far less sensitive to light than the halides. It was once called ''lunar causti ...

tincture for frequent bronchitis and severe sinus infections, Walton, who had extremely fair skin, absorbed the pigment of the tincture, causing her skin to turn blue-gray and darken as she aged. Walton corresponded with the British novelist, essayist and poet

John Cowper Powys John Cowper Powys ( ; 8 October 187217 June 1963) was an English novelist, philosopher, lecturer, critic and poet born in Shirley, Derbyshire, where his father was vicar of the parish church in 1871–1879. Powys appeared with a volume of verse ...

for many years. Some of Walton's papers from 1936 to 1984—including biographic material, manuscripts and the correspondence with Powys—are archived in Special Collections at the Library, University of Arizona in Tucson. She was first cousin to Clifford C. Furnas (1900–1969), author of ''The Next Hundred Years'', Assistant Secretary of War in the Eisenhower administration, co-founder of NASA and chancellor of SUNY Buffalo; and to Clifton J. Furness (1898–1946), professor of music and author of ''The Genteel Female: An Anthology'' (1931). Furness edited and introduced a facsimile edition of ''

Leaves of Grass ''Leaves of Grass'' is a poetry collection by American poet Walt Whitman. After self-publishing it in 1855, he spent most of his professional life writing, revising, and expanding the collection until his death in 1892. Either six or nine separa ...

'' (1939) and ''Walt Whitman's Workshop: A Collection of Unpublished Manuscripts'' (1928). A writer himself, Furness encouraged, inspired and mentored his young cousin Evangeline. Walton herself wrote about her chosen pen name, "I use the name Walton professionally, partly because I originally hoped to build up different lines of work under different names, partly because Walton is an old family name and appears on the Declaration of Independence. Not that I can trace any blood connection between my Quaker Waltons and the Declaration signer. They came from Virginia, and were supposed to have had a ative Americanman somewhere up the family tree. He may be the reason why both records and tradition trail off into vagueness. But when I was a child, old folk remembered the Waltons as very tall, very dark people, too full of restless energy to fit quietly into their peaceful little Quaker community: a vivid, turbulent note in it."

Writings

Walton is best known for her four novels retelling the Welsh

Mabinogi The ''Mabinogion'' () is a collection of the earliest Welsh prose stories, compiled in Middle Welsh in the 12th–13th centuries from earlier oral traditions. There are two main source manuscripts, created –1410, as well as a few earlier frag ...

. She published her first volume in 1936 under the publisher's title of ''The Virgin and the Swine''. Although receiving warm praise from

, the book sold poorly and none of the other novels in the series reached print at the time. Rediscovered by Ballantine's Adult Fantasy series in 1970, it was reissued as '' The Island of the Mighty''. Editors at Ballantine were unaware that she was still alive, till she got in touch and sent them a second novel that had been left unfinished when the first failed to sell. This appeared as '' The Children of Llyr'' in 1971. It was followed by '' The Song of Rhiannon'' in 1972 and '' Prince of Annwn'' in 1974. All four novels were published in a single volume as ''The Mabinogion Tetralogy'' in 2002 by Overlook Press. The four novels are translated and available in several European languages. The rights to Walton’s Mabinogi work were purchased by

Stevie Nicks Stephanie Lynn Nicks (born May 26, 1948) is an American singer-songwriter, known for her work with the band Fleetwood Mac and as a solo artist. After starting her career as a duo with her then-boyfriend Lindsey Buckingham, releasing the album ...

in the hopes of bringing the epic to the big screen. Walton's ''

Witch House ''Witch House'' is a fantasy novel by American writer Evangeline Walton. It was published in 1945 by Arkham House in an edition of 3,000 copies. It was the first full-length novel to be published by Arkham House and was listed as the initial ...

'' was written in the mid- to late-1930s and published in 1945 as the first volume in “The Library of Arkham House Novels of Fantasy and Terror”. It is an occult horror story set in New England. In 1956, she published ''The Cross and the Sword'', a historical novel set during the Danish conquest of England and the destruction of its Celtic culture. In 1983, Walton published '' The Sword Is Forged'', the first of a planned

Theseus Theseus (, ; ) was a divine hero in Greek mythology, famous for slaying the Minotaur. The myths surrounding Theseus, his journeys, exploits, and friends, have provided material for storytelling throughout the ages. Theseus is sometimes desc ...

trilogy. Walton had completed the trilogy in the late 1940s but the publication by Mary Renault of her Theseus novels in 1958 and 1962 kept Walton from publishing her own. The remaining two novels in the trilogy remain unpublished. Walton published several

short stories A short story is a piece of prose fiction. It can typically be read in a single sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the old ...

. The best-known of these are “Above Ker-Is” (1980), “The Judgement of St. Yves” (1981) and “The Mistress of Kaer-Mor” (1980). She also wrote seven unpublished novels, several volumes of unpublished short stories, poems and a verse play. Some of these works have been published posthumously: see bibliography below. Currently Douglas A. Anderson is the agent for Walton's literary works.

Awards

* Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature, Best Novel nominee, 1972: ''The Children of Llyr''. * Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature, Best Novel winner, 1973: ''The Song of Rhiannon''. * Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature, Best Novel nominee, 1975: ''Prince of Annwn''. *

Locus Award The Locus Awards are an annual set of literary awards voted on by readers of the science fiction and fantasy magazine '' Locus'', a monthly magazine based in Oakland, California. The awards are presented at an annual banquet. Originally a poll ...

, 1975: ''Prince of Annwn'', 20th place. *Fritz Leiber Fantasy Award, "Gray Mouser Award", Science Fiction/Fantasy's Fantasy Faire, 1979. *

World Fantasy Convention The World Fantasy Convention is an annual science fiction convention, convention of professionals, collectors, and others interested in the field of fantasy. The World Fantasy Awards are presented at the event. Other features include an art sh ...

, Convention Award, 1985. *

, 1984: '' The Sword Is Forged'', 26th place. *

World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement The world is the totality of entities, the whole of reality, or everything that exists. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the world as unique, while others talk of a "plu ...

, 1989.

Bibliography

Mabinogion tetralogy

#'' The Virgin and the Swine''. November 1936. Republished as ''The Island of the Mighty''. July 1970. #'' The Children of Llyr''. August 1971. #'' The Song of Rhiannon''. August 1972. #'' Prince of Annwn''. November 1974.

Other novels

*''

''. September 1945. *''The Cross and the Sword''. October 1956. *'' The Sword Is Forged''. July 1983. * ''She Walks in Darkness''. Tachyon Publications, September 2013.

Collections

*''Above Ker-Is and Other Stories''. March 2012.

Short stories

*"At the End of the Corridor." 1950. *"Above Ker-Is." 1978. *"The Mistress of Kaer-Mor." 1980. *"The Chinese Woman." 1981. *"The Judgement of St. Yves." 1981. *"The Ship from Away." 1982. *"The Forest That Would Not Be Cut Down." 1985. *"Cannibal Sorcerer" (with Bruce D. Arthurs). 1993. *"They That Have Wings." ''Fantasy & Science Fiction'', Nov/Dec 2011. *"Lus-Mor." 2012. *"The Other One." 2012. *"The Tree of Perkunas." 2012. *"Werewolf." 2012.

References

External links

* maintained by her heir and her literary agent *
Papers of Evangeline Walton: Special Collections, University of Arizona Tucson
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Walton, Evangeline 1907 births 1996 deaths American fantasy writers American women novelists Mythopoeic writers American women science fiction and fantasy writers World Fantasy Award–winning writers 20th-century American women writers 20th-century American novelists American historical novelists Writers of historical fiction set in antiquity Writers of historical fiction set in the Middle Ages American weird fiction writers