D. K. Broster

Dorothy Kathleen Broster (2 September 1877– 7 February 1950), usually known as D.K. Broster was a British novelist and short-story writer, born in Garston, Liverpool at Devon Lodge (now known as Monksferry House), which lies in Grassendale Park on the banks of the River Mersey. Educated at Cheltenham Ladies' College and St. Hilda's College, Oxford (where she was one of the first students), she served as a Red Cross nurse during World War I with a voluntary Franco-American hospital.

Following the war she returned to Oxford where she worked as a secretary to the Regius Professor of history and senior civil servants. She produced her best-seller, The Flight of the Heron, in 1925, and followed it up with two successful sequels, The Gleam in the North and The Dark Mile. She wrote several other historical novels, successful and much reprinted in their day, although this Jacobite Trilogy, featuring the dashing hero Ewen Cameron, remain the best known. The Flight of the Heron has been made into a TV serial twice: by Scottish Television in eight episodes in 1968, and by the BBC in 1976.

Her short horror story, Couching at the Door, has appeared in many anthologies.

Bibliography

Novels

• Chantemerle: A Romance of the Vendean War (1911) (with G. W. Taylor)
• The Vision Splendid (1913) (with G. W. Taylor)
• Sir Isumbras at the Ford (1918)
• The Yellow Poppy (1920)
• The Wounded Name (1922)
• "Mr Rowl" (1924)
• The Jacobite Trilogy

• The Flight of the Heron (1925)
• The Gleam in the North (1927)
• The Dark Mile (1929)

• Ships in the Bay! (1931)
• Almond, Wild Almond (1933)
• World under Snow (1935) (with G. Forester)
• Child Royal (1937)
• The Sea without a Haven (1941)
• The Captain's Lady (1947)

Collections

• A Fire of Driftwood (1932)
• Couching at the Door: Strange and Macabre Tales (1942)

References

• Tuck, Donald H. (1974). The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy. Chicago: Advent. pp. 67. ISBN 0-911682-20-1. 
• D.K. Broster: An Appreciation by Belinda Copson