Marie Hampton Joseph (née Downs, 21 May 1920 – 28 December 1996) was a British writer of short-stories in magazines, 16 romance novels and a book about her arthritis. In 1987, her novel A Better World Than won the Romantic Novel of the Year Award by the Romantic Novelists' Association.[4]

Marie Joseph
BornMarie Hampton Downs
21 May 1920[1]
Blackburn, Lancashire, England
Died28 December 1996 (aged 76)[2]
Harrow, London, England[3]
Pen nameMarie Joseph
OccupationNovelist
LanguageEnglish
NationalityBritish
Period1960s–1992
GenreRomance
Notable awardsRoNA Award
SpouseFrank Joseph (m. 1942)
Children2 daughters

Biography edit

Personal life edit

Joseph was born in Blackburn, Lancashire, England in May 1920 and was educated at Blackburn High School for Girls. She was in the Civil Service, before her marriage with a chartered Engineer. They had two daughters, now married, and eight grandchildren. She lived in Middlesex with her retired husband. [5]

Career edit

She started to write at the age of 40, and she managed to publish in journals during the 1960s and 1970s, the stories are reedited in collection in the 1990s. Joseph published her first long romance novel in 1975. In 1976, she wrote a book about her life with arthritis. She continued publishing romance novels until 1992 and died in Harrow, London in December 1996 at the age of 76.

Bibliography edit

Single novels edit

  • The Guilty Party (1975)
  • One Step at a Time (1976)
  • Ring-a-roses (1979)
  • Maggie Craig (1980)
  • A Leaf in the Wind (1980)
  • Emma Sparrow (1981)
  • Gemini Girls (1982)
  • The Listening Silence (1983)
  • Lisa Logan (1984)
  • Polly Pilgrim (1984)
  • The Clogger's Child (1985) aka Prelude (US title)
  • The Travelling Man (1989)
  • Since He Went Away (1992)

Daisy's World edit

  1. A Better World Than This (1986)
  2. A World Apart (1988)

Collections of short stories edit

  • Passing Strangers and Other Stories (1987)
  • When Love Was Like That: A Collection of Short Stories (1991)
  • The Way We Were: A Collection of Short Stories (1994)
  • A Time to Remember: A Collection of Short Stories (1997)

Non-fiction edit

  • Footsteps in the Park (1976)

References and sources edit

  1. ^ Cotton Town: Marie Joseph
  2. ^ Crime Fiction IV: A Comprehensive Bibliography 1749-2000 – New Addenda #24
  3. ^ Ancestry: Marie Hampton Joseph in the England & Wales, Civil Registration Death Index, 1916-2007
  4. ^ Awards by the Romantic Novelists' Association, 3 October 2012
  5. ^ Mandy Hicken; Raymond John Prytherch (1994), Now Read On... A guide to contemporary popular fiction, Scolar Press, p. 442