Alice Elizabeth Burton Explained

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

Life

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. 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

Novels

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

• 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.

External links

• as Elizabeth Burton and Susan Kerby

Notes and References

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