E. M. Almedingen Explained

E. M. Almedingen
Birth Name:Marta Aleksandrovna Almedingen
Birth Date:21 July 1898
Birth Place:Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire
Death Place:England
Resting Place:St James Churchyard, Ashwick, Somerset, England[1]
Occupation:Biographer, children's author, novelist
Father:Alexander Almedingen
Mother:Olga Sergeevna

E. M. Almedingen (born Marta Aleksandrovna Almedingen, also known as Martha Edith Almedingen or von Almedingen; 21 July 1898 – 5 March 1971) was a British novelist, biographer, children's author,[2] and member of the Royal Society of Literature.

Family

On her mother's side, she was descended from the aristocratic Poltoratsky family; her maternal grandfather was Serge Poltoratzky, the literary scholar and bibliophile who ended his days in exile, shuttling between France and England. His second wife, Ellen Sarah Southee, the daughter of an English gentleman farmer, grew up in Kent, and was related to poet Robert Southey. Their children had English governesses and grew up speaking English. Their daughter and the novelist's mother, Olga Sergeevna, grew up in Kent— but, fascinated by her father's native Russian, moved to Russia in 1800s. There, she married Alexander Almedingen,[3] who had turned his back on his family's military traditions to become a scientist.

Early life

After her father abandoned his family in 1900, they increasingly lived in impoverishment. Despite this, the author was able to attend the Kseniinsky Institute in 1913 and eke out a living in the increasingly desperate times of the Russian revolution and civil war. She received the highest honors in history and literature at Kseniinsky. She transferred from Kseniinsky to Petrograd University in 1916, where she attended until she earned her first doctorate in 1920.[4]

Career

From 1920, Almedingen taught English history and literature at Petrograd University. She then emigrated to England in 1923, where she began work as a journalist. She settled in Shropshire, living initially at Worfield,[5] and later at Church Stretton by time of the Second World War.[6]

In parallel, she dabbled in fiction writing with works such as “An Examination in Diplomacy”, before ultimately going on to publish upwards of 60 books over the next several decades. Despite her wide range of work from biography to poetry, she became well-known for her children's novels in particular.[7] Almedingen wrote two historical novels: The Lion of the North (1938), about Charles XII of Sweden, and Fair Haven (1956), about Peter the Great.[8] In 1951, she became a lecturer in Russian literature at Oxford University.

In 1941 she won the $5,000 Atlantic Monthly nonfiction prize for one of her autobiographical works, Tomorrow Will Come. Five years later she moved to Frogmore, a house near Upton Magna in Shropshire, where she remained until her death.[9]

Bibliography

Fiction

Non-fiction

Poetry

Plays

Compilations

Translations

Further reading

Notes and References

  1. Web site: АЛЬМЕДИНГЕН . ru . Almedingen . Necropolis of the Russian Academic Diaspora.
  2. Web site: Martha Edith von Almedingen . Contemporary Authors Online . Gale . 2003 . 2019-02-04 . subscription .
  3. E. M. Almedingen, Tomorrow Will Come (Holt Rinehart Winston, 1968), p. 19.
  4. E.M. Almedingen. DePiero. Deborah Lucia. 2007. Guide to the Literary Masters & Their Works. 30 December 2015. EBSCOhost. subscription .
  5. Book: Dickens, Gordon. An Illustrated Literary Guide to Shropshire. 1987. Shropshire Libraries. 1, 120. 0-903802-37-6.
  6. An Illustrated Literary Guide to Shropshire, pp.1,94.
  7. Book: Fryatt, Norma R.. Twentieth Century Children's Writers. St. James Press. 1995. 9781558621770. Detroit. 22–24. Almedingen, E.M.. Berger. Laura Standley. 4th.
  8. Book: Taylor, W.A. Historical Fiction: National Book League Readers' Guides . Cambridge University Press. 1957. Cambridge. 13.
  9. An Illustrated Literary Guide to Shropshire, pp.1-2,117.
  10. Web site: Edith M. Almedingen. The Internet Speculative Fiction Database . 2019-02-02 .
  11. Book: The lion of the north : Charles XII-King of Sweden (Book, 1938) . OCLC . 1063928075.
  12. Web site: Authors: Almedingen, E M . Science Fiction Encyclopedia . Gollancz . 2019-02-02.
  13. Book: Young Mark : the story of a venture (Book, 1969) . OCLC . 671511051.
  14. Book: The Romanovs three centuries of an ill-fated dynasty (Book, 1967) . OCLC . 1073682916.
  15. Book: Charlemagne: a study (Book, 1968) . OCLC . 924478406.

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