Ruby Mildred Ayres (28 January 1881 – 14 November 1955) was a British
romance novel
A romance or romantic novel is a genre fiction novel that primarily focuses on the relationship and Romance (love), romantic love between two people, typically with an emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending. Authors who have contributed ...
ist, "one of the most popular and prolific romantic novelists of the twentieth century".
Personal life
Ayres was born in
Watford
Watford () is a town and non-metropolitan district with Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough status in Hertfordshire, England, northwest of Central London, on the banks of the River Colne, Hertfordshire, River Colne.
Initially a smal ...
on 28 January 1881, the third daughter of
London
London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
-based architect Charles Pryor Ayres and his wife Alice (née Whitford).
In 1909 she married insurance broker Reginald William Pocock. She died on 14 November 1955 at home in
Weybridge
Weybridge () is a town in the Borough of Elmbridge, Elmbridge district in Surrey, England, around southwest of central London. The settlement is recorded as ''Waigebrugge'' and ''Weibrugge'' in the 7th century and the name derives from a cro ...
,
Surrey
Surrey () is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Greater London to the northeast, Kent to the east, East Sussex, East and West Sussex to the south, and Hampshire and Berkshire to the wes ...
, aged 74, of a combination of pneumonia and a cerebral thrombosis. She was cremated four days later at
Golders Green
Golders Green is a suburb in the London Borough of Barnet in north London, northwest of Charing Cross. It began as a medieval small suburban linear settlement near a farm and public grazing area green, and dates to the early 19th century. It ...
in north London.
Career
Ayres stated that she had started to write as a girl, and said that she had been expelled at the age of 15 for the offence of writing what she described as "an advanced love story",
although there is no corroboration for her claim. Her first story was published in a magazine shortly after her marriage in 1909, and in 1912 she published her first novel, ''Castles in Spain''. In September 1915, with her first popular success, ''Richard Chatterton, V.C.'' (which sold over 50,000 copies in the first three years),
she moved publishing houses to
, where she remained until her death in 1955. She wrote over 135 novels over her career, mostly for Hodder, as well as a number of serialised works.
She has been referred to as an "over-productive romance writer",
and was possibly an inspiration for the
P. G. Wodehouse
Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse ( ; 15 October 1881 – 14 February 1975) was an English writer and one of the most widely read humorists of the 20th century. His creations include the feather-brained Bertie Wooster and his sagacious valet, Je ...
character
Rosie M. Banks.
Wodehouse intentionally chose the name "Rosie M. Banks" to be similar to hers, stating in a 1955 letter to his biographer
Richard Usborne
Richard Alexander Usborne (16 May 1910 – 21 March 2006) was a journalist, advertising executive, schoolmaster and author. After the publication of his book ''Wodehouse at Work'' in 1961 he became regarded as the leading authority on the works ...
that he "wanted a name that would give a Ruby M. Ayres suggestion". Several of her works became films and she did screenwriting for ''
Society for Sale''
among others. She also corresponded with
Douglas Sladen
Douglas Brooke Wheelton Sladen (5 February 1856, London-12 February 1947, Hove) was an English author and academic.
Life
Educated at Temple Grove School, East Sheen, Cheltenham College, and Trinity College, Oxford, in 1879 Sladen migrated to A ...
.
In the late 1930s, she was targeted in a prospective study by
W. H. Auden
Wystan Hugh Auden (; 21 February 1907 – 29 September 1973) was a British-American poet. Auden's poetry is noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in tone, ...
- alongside such figures as
John Buchan
John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir (; 26 August 1875 – 11 February 1940) was a Scottish novelist, historian, British Army officer, and Unionist politician who served as Governor General of Canada, the 15th since Canadian Confederation.
As a ...
and
Henry Williamson
Henry William Williamson (1 December 1895 – 13 August 1977) was an English writer who wrote novels concerned with wildlife, English social history, ruralism and the First World War. He was awarded the Hawthornden Prize for literature in 1928 ...
- as representative of the
proto-Fascist
Proto-fascism represents the direct predecessor ideologies and cultural movements that influenced and formed the basis of fascism. A prominent proto-fascist figure is Gabriele D'Annunzio, the Italian nationalist whose politics influenced Benit ...
in English writing, perhaps because of her glorification of the wartime soldier-hero.
[J. Onions, ''English Fiction and Drama of the Great War'' (1990) p. 32] During the late 1930s, she wrote an advice column in the Oracle, complimented as "extremely sensible" by
George Orwell
Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950) was an English novelist, poet, essayist, journalist, and critic who wrote under the pen name of George Orwell. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to a ...
in an essay on the media consumption of the
working class
The working class is a subset of employees who are compensated with wage or salary-based contracts, whose exact membership varies from definition to definition. Members of the working class rely primarily upon earnings from wage labour. Most c ...
.
Partial bibliography
*''Castles in Spain'' (1912)
*''Richard Chatterton, V.C.'' (1915)
*''Paper Roses'' (1916)
*''The Black Sheep'' (1917)
*''The Second Honeymoon'' (1918)
*''The Girl Next Door'' (1919)
*''The Beggar Man'' (1920)
*''Master Man'' (1920)
*''A Bachelor Husband'' (1920)
*''The Second Honeymoon'' (1921)
*''The Uphill Road'' (1921)
*''The Street Below'' (1922)
*''The Man the Women Loved'' (1923)
*''The Romance of a Rogue'' (1923)
*''Ribbons and Laces'' (1924)
*''A Man of His Word'' (1926)
*''Spoilt Music'' (1926)
*''The Planter of the Tree'' (1927)
*''Heartbreak Marriage'' (1929)
*''Love Changes'' (1929)
*''Giving Him Up'' (1930)
*''In the Day's March'' (1930)
*''The Big Fellah'' (1931)
*''The Princess Passes'' (1931)
*''Changing Pilots'' (1932)
*''Look To the Spring'' (1932)
*''So Many Miles'' (1932)
*''By the World Forgot (1933)
*''Much Loved'' (1934)
*''All Over Again'' (1934)
*''Feather'' (1935)
*''Happy Endings'' (1935)
*''The Man in Her Life'' (1935)
*''Some Day'' (1935)
*''Compromise'' (1936)
*''Afterglow'' (1936)
*''Our Avenue'' (1936)
*''Somebody Else'' (1936)
*''Too Much Together'' (1936)
*''Owner Gone Abroad'' (1937)
*''The Sun and the Sea'' (1937)
*''Follow a Shadow'' (1937)
*''Unofficial Wife'' (1937)
*''High Noon'' (1938)
*''One To Live With'' (1938)
*''Return Journey'' (1938)
*''There Was Another'' (1938)
*''Big Ben'' (1939)
*''The Moon in the Water'' (1939)
*''Weep for Love'' (1939)
*''The Tree Drops a Leaf'' (1939)
*''Little and Good'' (1940)
*''The Little Sinner'' (1940)
*''The Constant Heart'' (1941)
*''Lost Property'' (1943)
*''April's Day'' (1945)
*''Where Are You Going?'' (1946)
*''Young Shoulders'' (1947)
*''Missing the Tide'' (1948)
*''The Day Comes Round'' (1949)
*''Steering by a Star'' (1949)
*''The Man From Ceylon'' (1950)
*''The Man Who Lived Alone'' (1950)
*''Autumn Fires'' (1951)
*''The Story of Fish and Chips'' (1951)
*''Twice a Boy'' (1951)
*''One Sees Stars'' (1952)
*''One Woman Too Many'' (1952)
*''Love Without Wings'' (1953)
*''The Youngest Aunt'' (1954)
Filmography
*' (1915, short film)
*''Somewhere in France'' (UK, 1915)
*''
Society for Sale'' (1918)
*''
The Model's Confession
''A Model's Confession'' is a 1918 American silent drama film directed by Ida May Park and starring Mary MacLaren, Kenneth Harlan and Gretchen Lederer.Cooper p.157
Cast
* Mary MacLaren as Iva Seldon
* Kenneth Harlan as Billy Ravensworth
* Ed ...
'' (1918)
*''
Castles in Spain'' (UK, 1920)
*''
A Bachelor Husband
''A Bachelor Husband'' is a 1920 British silent romance film directed by Kenelm Foss and starring Lyn Harding, Renee Mayer and Hayford Hobbs. It was based on a story by Ruby M. Ayres, originally published in the ''Daily Mirror''.
Plot
Inherit ...
'' (UK, 1920)
*''
The Man Without a Heart
''The Man Without a Heart'' is a 1924 American silent drama film directed by Burton L. King and starring Kenneth Harlan, Jane Novak and David Powell.Munden p.362
Cast
* Kenneth Harlan as Rufus Asher
* Jane Novak as Barbara Wier
* David Pow ...
'' (1924)
*''
The Woman Hater'' (1925)
*''Romance of a Rogue'' (1928)
*''
Second Honeymoon'' (1930)
References
External links
*
*
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ayres, Ruby M.
British women screenwriters
English romantic fiction writers
English women novelists
British women romantic fiction writers
People from Watford
1881 births
1955 deaths
20th-century English novelists
20th-century English women writers
20th-century British screenwriters
Proto-fascists
Advice columnists