Marjorie Bowen

Margaret Gabrielle Vere Long who used the pseudonym Marjorie Bowen, was a British author who wrote historical romances, supernatural horror stories, popular history and biography.

Bowen was born in 1885 on Hayling Island in Hampshire. She had a difficult childhood; her alcoholic father Vere Douglas Campbell left the family at an early stage and was eventually found dead on a London street. She and her sister grew up in poverty with a less than affectionate mother. Bowen studied at the Slade School of Fine Art and later in Paris. Her first fiction was a violent historical novel, The Viper of Milan (written when she was 16), set in medieval Italy. The Viper of Milan was rejected by several publishers, who considered it inappropriate for a young woman to have written such a novel. It went on to become a best-seller when eventually published. After this, Bowen's prolific writings were the chief financial support for her family.

She was married twice: first, from 1912 to 1916, to a Sicilian, Zefferino Emilio Constanza, who died of tuberculosis, and then to Arthur L. Long. Bowen had four children; a son and a daughter (who died in infancy) with Constanza, and two sons with Long.

In 1938, Bowen was one of the signatories to a petition organised by the National Peace Council, calling for an international peace conference in an effort to avert war in Europe.

In an interview for Twentieth Century Authors, she listed her hobbies as "painting, needlework and reading". Her cousin was the artist Nora Molly Campbell 1888-1971. Bowen died on 23 December 1952 at the St Charles Hospital in Kensington, London after suffering serious concussion as a result of a fall in her bedroom.

Her total output numbers over 150 volumes with the bulk of her work under the 'Bowen' pseudonym. She also wrote under the names Joseph Shearing, George R. Preedy, John Winch, Robert Paye and Margaret Campbell. After The Viper of Milan (1906), she produced a steady stream of writings until the day of her death.Bowen's work under her own name was primarily historical novels. Bowen crafted a trilogy of historical novels about King William III. The novels are I Will Maintain (1910), Defender of the Faith (1911), and God and the King (1911). The 1909 novel Black Magic is a Gothic horror novel about a medieval witch." Bowen also wrote non-fiction history books aimed at a popular readership.