reviews_and_ramblings | Marjorie Lewty (April 8, 1906

Marjorie Lewty, nee Lobb (April 8, 1906 – January 21, 2002) was a popular writer of over 45 romance novels from 1958 to 1999.

Apart from proper names, situations and facts in Mills & Boon romances were checked carefully. In 1958 Joan Bryant from Mills & Boon questioned Marjorie Lewty about her debut novel, Never Call It Loving.

"Are you sure that tea is grown in Nyasaland?" Bryant asked. "I've no doubt it is climatically possible, but I'm not conscious of having ever drunk African tea or seen it advertised... I know it seems utterly trivial, but it is just the sort of thing that, if it is wrong, readers tend to pick on."

Yes indeed, Lewty replied, her husband's nephew managed a tea estate there:

"I certainly don't think the point trivial. Ever since I began writing for magazines I've tried to check every little point. I've always understood that readers will go to no end of trouble to draw attention to anything incorrect."

At the end of the '40 and beginning of the '50 the use of agents for romance authors diminished, in a deliberate effort by Mills & Boon to control its authors and their costs. Marjorie Lewty, who joined Mills & Boon in 1958, remembered receiving a call from Alan Boon when her agent, Peter Lewin, stopped representing her.

"Alan said, "For goodness sake, don't get another agent. We will handle your stuff." And they did very successfully, much better than an agent, who of course you pay 10 per cent for doing really nothing. Mills & Boon do the agency for you, really, and get the best prices you can get from foreign translations."

First Book - Never Call It Loving (1958): Never Call It Loving (Harlequin Romance Ser., No. 1183)

Last Book - A Real Engagement (1999): A Real Engagement (Enchanted)

Source: Passion's Fortune: The Story of Mills & Boon