Gladys Malvern (1897–1962)

Gladys Malvern was born in New Jersey. She and her younger sister Corinne had a peripatetic childhood with their mother, Cora, a theatrical wardrobe keeper. They became actors as small children and by their teens were performing in traveling vaudeville shows and working in the growing New York movie industry. In the early 1920s, they gave up acting. Gladys worked for advertising agencies for a dozen years, and then sold her first novel for young adults. She became a prolific author, producing more than 45 books as well as short stories and radio scripts over a nearly 30-year career. Many of her books were historical novels or biographies. She collaborated with her sister, who had become a commercial artist, on a number of books, including the award-winning Valiant Minstrel (1943), a biography of Sir Harry Lauder. After her death, her titles went out of print until 2011, when several were reissued by Special Edition Books.