Rosalind Brett (author)

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Lillian Warren
BornEngland, United Kingdom
Pen nameRosalind Brett
Occupation Novelist
NationalityBritish
Period1950 - 1959
Genre Romantic novel

Lillian Warren, pseudonym Rosalind Brett (fl. 1950s) was a British author who wrote for Mills & Boon romance. As a prolific author of romance novels, she had two other pseudonyms, Kathryn Blair and Celine Conway. At the height of her career, Warren was considered one of publisher's superstars, who set high sales records and a standard for romances published during the 1950s. Joseph McAleer in his book Passion's Fortune: The Story of Mills and Boon, describes Brett's work as so sexy for the era, that it often had to be "watered down". According to McAleer, she is credited by Anne Weale as inventing the "punishing kiss". Brett/Warren came to Mills & Boon from Rich & Cowan, a publisher she felt didn't offer her enough support.

Contents

Book notes

Rosalind Brett's romances from the 1950s are historically significant for the Mills & Boon series, by her choice of locations. Her stories take readers away from the British Isles, to East Africa: Rhodesia, Nyasaland, providing glimpses of Salisbury (present day Harare) and Bulawayo, the second city in what is now Zimbabwe. Other locations are French Morocco, Nigeria, South Africa, and the Pacific Islands. The main characters are at work trying to build prosperous lives in what were British, French and Portuguese colonies.

Publishing in post World War II period, Brett writes at the crossroads of history when, colonial rule once paramount in parts of Africa, Asia and the Pacific, would come to be challenged. While her stories depict the colonial life, absent from them is any underlying tension between rulers and subjects.

Bibliography

As Rosalind BrettSingle novels

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References

[1] [2] [3] [4]

  1. Hsu-Ming Teo - Desert Passions: Orientalism and Romance Novels 2012- Page 203 "“Rosalind Brett” (Lillian Warren), one of the most popular postwar authors for Mills & Boon, tapped into a growing trend when she wrote stories about independent young women who went out to the sunlit plains of Africa, where they met, ..."
  2. The Writer's Directory, 1998-2000 - Page 136 Miranda H. Ferrara - 1995 "Also writes as Rosalind Brett, Celine Conway. British. GENRES: Romance/Historical. PUBLICATIONS: (as Rosalind Brett) Green Leaves, 1947; (as Rosalind Brett) Pagan Interlude, 1947; (as Rosalind Brett) Secret Marriage, 1947; (as Rosalind ..."
  3. Abby Gaines - - Her So-Called Fiancé 2012 It was written by Kathryn Blair, who also wrote as Rosalind Brett and Celine Conway (though it took me a while to figure out my three favorite authors were the same person!). I loved those books! They set such high ideals for the kind of ..."
  4. Joseph McAleer Passion’s Fortune: The Story of Mills & Boon Print publication date: 1999 Print ISBN   9780198204558 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: October 2011 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198204558.001.0001 08 Chapter PF "the 1950s, Lillian Warren (as Rosalind Brett), earned the wrath of Canadian readers when her heroine, while paddling a canoe in a Canadian lake, dropped her "