Marie Hampton Joseph (née Downs, 21 May 1920 – 28 December 1996) was a British writer of short-stories in magazines, 16 romance novels and a book about her arthritis. In 1987, her novel ''A Better World Than'' won the

Romantic Novel of the Year Award The Romantic Novel of the Year Award is an award for romance novels since 1960, presented by Romantic Novelists' Association, and since 2003, the novellas, also won the Love Story of the Year (now RoNA Rose Award). Winners Romantic Novel of th ...

by the

Romantic Novelists' Association The Romantic Novelists' Association (RNA) is the professional body representing authors of romantic fiction in the United Kingdom. It was founded in 1960 by Denise Robins (first president), Barbara Cartland (first vice-president), Vivian Stua ...

Biography

Personal life

Joseph was born in

Blackburn Blackburn () is an industrial town and the administrative centre of the Blackburn with Darwen borough in Lancashire, England. The town is north of the West Pennine Moors on the southern edge of the River Ribble, Ribble Valley, east of Preston ...

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated ''Lancs'') is a ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Cumbria to the north, North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire to the east, Greater Manchester and Merseyside to the south, and the Irish Sea to ...

, England in May 1920 and was educated at

High School for Girls. She was in the Civil Service, before her marriage with a chartered Engineer. They had two daughters, now married, and eight grandchildren. She lived in Middlesex with her retired husband.

Career

She started to write at the age of 40, and she managed to publish in journals during the 1960s and 1970s, the stories are reedited in collection in the 1990s. Joseph published her first long romance novel in 1975. In 1976, she wrote a book about her life with arthritis. She continued publishing romance novels until 1992 and died in Harrow, London in December 1996 at the age of 76.

Bibliography

Single novels

* ''The Guilty Party'' (1975) * ''One Step at a Time'' (1976) * ''Ring-a-roses'' (1979) * ''Maggie Craig'' (1980) * ''A Leaf in the Wind'' (1980) * ''Emma Sparrow'' (1981) * ''Gemini Girls'' (1982) * ''The Listening Silence'' (1983) * ''Lisa Logan'' (1984) * ''Polly Pilgrim'' (1984) * ''The Clogger's Child'' (1985) aka ''Prelude'' (US title) * ''The Travelling Man'' (1989) * ''Since He Went Away'' (1992)

Daisy's World

# ''A Better World Than This'' (1986) # ''A World Apart'' (1988)

Collections of short stories

* ''Passing Strangers and Other Stories'' (1987) * ''When Love Was Like That: A Collection of Short Stories'' (1991) * ''The Way We Were: A Collection of Short Stories'' (1994) * ''A Time to Remember: A Collection of Short Stories'' (1997)

Non-fiction

* ''Footsteps in the Park'' (1976)

References and sources

{{DEFAULTSORT:Joseph, Marie 1920 births 1996 deaths 20th-century English women writers 20th-century English novelists English romantic fiction writers English women novelists Writers from Blackburn RoNA Award winners British women romantic fiction writers