Alice Elizabeth Burton

Alice Elizabeth Burton or Aitken (4 October 1908 – 20 July 1990)[1] was a British-Canadian novelist and popular historian.

Life

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Born in Cairo to Richard Burton and Alice Gwendolyn (née Kerby, later Duck),[2][3] she grew up in Windsor, Ontario. She later studied privately in Rome.[4] In 1935 Burton married John Theodore Aitken at Windsor, Ontario.[2] In the 1940s she wrote comic fantasy novels under the pseudonym Susan Alice Kerby. In Miss Carter and the Ifrit (1945), a Muslim spirit helped a spinster to find love during the Second World War.[5] In Mr Kronion (1949), a Greek god defended English village life.

From 1945 to 1965, she was the London correspondent of a Canadian daily, the Windsor Star.[6] Changing her surname by deed poll from Aitken to Burton in 1950,[7] she published her historical writing as Elizabeth Burton.

She died in Witney, Oxfordshire, in 1990.[8]

Works

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Novels

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As Alice Elizabeth Burton
  • Cling to her, waiting. London: A. Dakers, 1939.
As Susan Alice Kerby
  • Fortnight in Frascati. London: A. Dakers, 1940.
  • Miss Carter and the Ifrit. London: Hutchinson, 1945.
  • Many Strange Birds. London: Hutchinson, 1947. Published in the US as Fortune's Gift. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1947.
  • Gone to Grass: a novel. London: Hutchinson, 1948. Published in the US as The Roaring Dove. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1948.
  • Mr Kronion: a novel. London: Werner Laurie, 1949.

Historical writing

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  • The Elizabethans at Home. Secker & Warburg, 1958. Illustrated by Felix Kelly. Published in the US as The Pageant of Elizabethan England, Scribner, 1959.
  • The Jacobeans at Home Secker & Warburg, 1962. Illustrated by Felix Kelly. Published in the US as The Pageant of Stuart England, Scribner, 1962.
  • Here is England. New York: Ariel Books, 1965.
  • The Georgians at Home, 1714-1830. London: Longman, 1967. Illustrated by Felix Kelly. Published in the US as The Pageant of Georgian England, Scribner, 1967.
  • The Early Victorians at Home, 1837-1861. London: Longman, 1972. Illustrated by Felix Kelly. Published in the US as The Pageant of Early Victorian England, Scribner, 1972.
  • The Early Tudors at Home, 1485-1558. London: Allen Lane, 1976. Illustrated by Felix Kelly. Published in the US as The Pageant of Early Tudor England, Scribner, 1976.

References

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  1. ^ England & Wales, Civil Registration Death Index, 1916–2007
  2. ^ a b "[Marriage registration]". Ancestry.co.uk. 23 Nov 1935. Retrieved 16 May 2021.
  3. ^ "[Marriage registration]". Ancestry.co.uk. 9 Oct 1911. Retrieved 16 May 2021.
  4. ^ Burton, The Georgians at Home, Arrow Books, 1973.
  5. ^ Colin Manlove (2016-07-27). The Fantasy Literature of England. Springer. p. 128. ISBN 978-1-349-27499-4.
  6. ^ The Writers Directory 1980-1982. Springer. 1979. p. 178. ISBN 978-1-349-03650-9.
  7. ^ The London Gazette, 14 July 1950, p.3658
  8. ^ England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1858–1995
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