![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Essie Summers wrote 55 romance novels, selling more than 19 million copies in 105 countries and published in 25 languages. Her novels focused on romance and family life with touches of adventure and humour and her winning formula earned her the loyalty of millions of readers.Essie was born in Christchurch, New Zealand, to Edwin and Ethel Summers on July 24, 1912. She died in Taradale, Hawkes Bay on the August 27, 1998, at the age of 86.
Essie was born a year to the day after her parents left for New Zealand, in Linwood, Christchurch. At four years old, out of "sheer cussedness", she started at North Linwood Primary School. She survived the 1918 influenza epidemic and at twelve years left primary school to go to the Christchurch Technical College. At the time New Zealand was entering the depression and when she left college she got job at the Londontown Drapers instead of pursuing the career in teaching that she desired.
She met her husband, Bill Flett, when she was 13 but it was another 13 years before she became interested in him romantically. He eventually proposed by a letter; not recognising the handwriting she flicked to the last page to see who had written it and spotted his proposal in the final paragraph. A six week courtship by mail ensued until Bill was able to come to Christchurch and they ratified their engagement beneath the moon at Scarborough. The Second World War broke out that September and they were married the following May at the Oxford Terrace Baptist Church. Bill and Essie honeymooned on Banks Peninsula.
Essie and Bill moved to a manse in Ashburton, where their son William was born, then to Wanganui where Elizabeth their daughter was born. After changing to the Presbyterian ministry they went to Dunedin but Essie found the Dunedin manse too damp and was afflicted with fibrositis so they moved to Weston, four miles out of Oamaru in North Otago. They spent many years in Weston before moving north to Rakaia where Essie wrote her first novel. In 1958 they returned to Dunedin where they bought a house. Essie and Bill eventually retired to Napier in 1976.
( Read more... )
Essie Summers’s Books on Amazon: Essie Summers
( vintage cover )
Source: http://library.christchurch.org.nz/Heritage/LocalHistory/CanterburyWriters/essie_summers.asp
Essie Summers wrote 55 romance novels, selling more than 19 million copies in 105 countries and published in 25 languages. Her novels focused on romance and family life with touches of adventure and humour and her winning formula earned her the loyalty of millions of readers.
