Edith Mary Pargeter, OBE BEM, also known by her pen name Ellis Peters, was an English author of works in many categories, especially history and historical fiction, and was also honored for her translations of Czech classics. She is probably best known for her murder mysteries, both historical and modern, and especially for her medieval detective series The Cadfael Chronicles, which became best-sellers and were later made into a television series.
She was the youngest child of Edmund Valentine Pargeter and Edith Ellen Hordley, with an older brother, Edmund, and sister, Margaret. Her father was a clerk at a local ironworks. Her mother, while a housewife, was "interested in everything", including art, music, and literature. Edith was educated at Dawley Church of England School and the old Coalbrookdale High School for Girls. She had Welsh ancestry, and many of her short stories and books (both fiction and non-fiction) are set in Wales and its borderlands, or have Welsh protagonists.
During World War II, she worked in an administrative role in the Women's Royal Naval Service (the "Wrens") and had reached the rank of petty officer by 1 January 1944 when she was awarded the British Empire Medal (BEM) in the New Year Honours.
In 1947 Pargeter visited Czechoslovakia and became fascinated by the Czech language and culture. She became fluent in Czech and published award-winning translations of Czech poetry and prose into English.
She devoted the rest of her life to writing, both nonfiction and well-researched fiction. She never attended university but became a self-taught scholar in areas that interested her, especially Shropshire and Wales. Birmingham University gave her an honorary master's degree. She never married, but did fall in love with a Czech man 14 years her junior, with whom she remained friends after he married another woman. She was pleased that she could support herself with her writing from the time after the Second World War until her death. She shared a home with her brother Ellis for 35 years.
Pargeter wrote under a number of pseudonyms; it was under the name Ellis Peters that she wrote her later crime stories, especially the highly popular series of Brother Cadfael medieval mysteries, a Benedictine monk at the Abbey in Shrewsbury. That pseudonym was drawn from the name of her brother Ellis and a version of the name of the daughter of Czech friends, Petra. Many of the novels were made into films for television. Although she won her first award for a novel written in 1963, her greatest fame and sales came with the Cadfael Chronicles, which began in 1977. At the time of the 19th in the series of 20 novels, sales exceeded 6.5 million. The Cadfael Chronicles drew international attention to Shrewsbury and its history, and greatly increased tourism to the town. In an interview in 1993, she mentioned her own work before the Second World War as a chemist's assistant, where they prepared many of the compounds they sold. "We used to make bottled medicine that we compounded specially, with ingredients like gentian, rosemary, horehound. You never see that nowadays; those tinctures are never prescribed. They often had bitters of some sort in them, a taste I rather liked. Some of Cadfael’s prescriptions come out of those years."
She died at her home in Madeley, Shropshire in 1995 at the age of 82, having recently returned home from hospital following a stroke. On 14 September 1997, a new stained glass window depicting St. Benedict was installed in Shrewsbury Abbey and was dedicated to the memory of Edith Pargeter, with funds raised by donations from admirers of the author.
She was the youngest child of Edmund Valentine Pargeter and Edith Ellen Hordley, with an older brother, Edmund, and sister, Margaret. Her father was a clerk at a local ironworks. Her mother, while a housewife, was "interested in everything", including art, music, and literature. Edith was educated at Dawley Church of England School and the old Coalbrookdale High School for Girls. She had Welsh ancestry, and many of her short stories and books (both fiction and non-fiction) are set in Wales and its borderlands, or have Welsh protagonists.
During World War II, she worked in an administrative role in the Women's Royal Naval Service (the "Wrens") and had reached the rank of petty officer by 1 January 1944 when she was awarded the British Empire Medal (BEM) in the New Year Honours.
In 1947 Pargeter visited Czechoslovakia and became fascinated by the Czech language and culture. She became fluent in Czech and published award-winning translations of Czech poetry and prose into English.
She devoted the rest of her life to writing, both nonfiction and well-researched fiction. She never attended university but became a self-taught scholar in areas that interested her, especially Shropshire and Wales. Birmingham University gave her an honorary master's degree. She never married, but did fall in love with a Czech man 14 years her junior, with whom she remained friends after he married another woman. She was pleased that she could support herself with her writing from the time after the Second World War until her death. She shared a home with her brother Ellis for 35 years.
Pargeter wrote under a number of pseudonyms; it was under the name Ellis Peters that she wrote her later crime stories, especially the highly popular series of Brother Cadfael medieval mysteries, a Benedictine monk at the Abbey in Shrewsbury. That pseudonym was drawn from the name of her brother Ellis and a version of the name of the daughter of Czech friends, Petra. Many of the novels were made into films for television. Although she won her first award for a novel written in 1963, her greatest fame and sales came with the Cadfael Chronicles, which began in 1977. At the time of the 19th in the series of 20 novels, sales exceeded 6.5 million. The Cadfael Chronicles drew international attention to Shrewsbury and its history, and greatly increased tourism to the town. In an interview in 1993, she mentioned her own work before the Second World War as a chemist's assistant, where they prepared many of the compounds they sold. "We used to make bottled medicine that we compounded specially, with ingredients like gentian, rosemary, horehound. You never see that nowadays; those tinctures are never prescribed. They often had bitters of some sort in them, a taste I rather liked. Some of Cadfael’s prescriptions come out of those years."
She died at her home in Madeley, Shropshire in 1995 at the age of 82, having recently returned home from hospital following a stroke. On 14 September 1997, a new stained glass window depicting St. Benedict was installed in Shrewsbury Abbey and was dedicated to the memory of Edith Pargeter, with funds raised by donations from admirers of the author.
Edith Mary Pargeter, OBE BEM, also known by her pen name Ellis Peters, was an English author of works in many categories, especially history and historical fiction, and was also honored for her translations of Czech classics. She is probably best known for her murder mysteries, both historical and modern, and especially for her medieval detective series The Cadfael Chronicles, which became best-sellers and were later made into a television series.
She was the youngest child of Edmund Valentine Pargeter and Edith Ellen Hordley, with an older brother, Edmund, and sister, Margaret. Her father was a clerk at a local ironworks. Her mother, while a housewife, was "interested in everything", including art, music, and literature. Edith was educated at Dawley Church of England School and the old Coalbrookdale High School for Girls. She had Welsh ancestry, and many of her short stories and books (both fiction and non-fiction) are set in Wales and its borderlands, or have Welsh protagonists.
During World War II, she worked in an administrative role in the Women's Royal Naval Service (the "Wrens") and had reached the rank of petty officer by 1 January 1944 when she was awarded the British Empire Medal (BEM) in the New Year Honours.
In 1947 Pargeter visited Czechoslovakia and became fascinated by the Czech language and culture. She became fluent in Czech and published award-winning translations of Czech poetry and prose into English.
She devoted the rest of her life to writing, both nonfiction and well-researched fiction. She never attended university but became a self-taught scholar in areas that interested her, especially Shropshire and Wales. Birmingham University gave her an honorary master's degree. She never married, but did fall in love with a Czech man 14 years her junior, with whom she remained friends after he married another woman. She was pleased that she could support herself with her writing from the time after the Second World War until her death. She shared a home with her brother Ellis for 35 years.
Pargeter wrote under a number of pseudonyms; it was under the name Ellis Peters that she wrote her later crime stories, especially the highly popular series of Brother Cadfael medieval mysteries, a Benedictine monk at the Abbey in Shrewsbury. That pseudonym was drawn from the name of her brother Ellis and a version of the name of the daughter of Czech friends, Petra. Many of the novels were made into films for television. Although she won her first award for a novel written in 1963, her greatest fame and sales came with the Cadfael Chronicles, which began in 1977. At the time of the 19th in the series of 20 novels, sales exceeded 6.5 million. The Cadfael Chronicles drew international attention to Shrewsbury and its history, and greatly increased tourism to the town. In an interview in 1993, she mentioned her own work before the Second World War as a chemist's assistant, where they prepared many of the compounds they sold. "We used to make bottled medicine that we compounded specially, with ingredients like gentian, rosemary, horehound. You never see that nowadays; those tinctures are never prescribed. They often had bitters of some sort in them, a taste I rather liked. Some of Cadfael’s prescriptions come out of those years."
She died at her home in Madeley, Shropshire in 1995 at the age of 82, having recently returned home from hospital following a stroke. On 14 September 1997, a new stained glass window depicting St. Benedict was installed in Shrewsbury Abbey and was dedicated to the memory of Edith Pargeter, with funds raised by donations from admirers of the author.
She was the youngest child of Edmund Valentine Pargeter and Edith Ellen Hordley, with an older brother, Edmund, and sister, Margaret. Her father was a clerk at a local ironworks. Her mother, while a housewife, was "interested in everything", including art, music, and literature. Edith was educated at Dawley Church of England School and the old Coalbrookdale High School for Girls. She had Welsh ancestry, and many of her short stories and books (both fiction and non-fiction) are set in Wales and its borderlands, or have Welsh protagonists.
During World War II, she worked in an administrative role in the Women's Royal Naval Service (the "Wrens") and had reached the rank of petty officer by 1 January 1944 when she was awarded the British Empire Medal (BEM) in the New Year Honours.
In 1947 Pargeter visited Czechoslovakia and became fascinated by the Czech language and culture. She became fluent in Czech and published award-winning translations of Czech poetry and prose into English.
She devoted the rest of her life to writing, both nonfiction and well-researched fiction. She never attended university but became a self-taught scholar in areas that interested her, especially Shropshire and Wales. Birmingham University gave her an honorary master's degree. She never married, but did fall in love with a Czech man 14 years her junior, with whom she remained friends after he married another woman. She was pleased that she could support herself with her writing from the time after the Second World War until her death. She shared a home with her brother Ellis for 35 years.
Pargeter wrote under a number of pseudonyms; it was under the name Ellis Peters that she wrote her later crime stories, especially the highly popular series of Brother Cadfael medieval mysteries, a Benedictine monk at the Abbey in Shrewsbury. That pseudonym was drawn from the name of her brother Ellis and a version of the name of the daughter of Czech friends, Petra. Many of the novels were made into films for television. Although she won her first award for a novel written in 1963, her greatest fame and sales came with the Cadfael Chronicles, which began in 1977. At the time of the 19th in the series of 20 novels, sales exceeded 6.5 million. The Cadfael Chronicles drew international attention to Shrewsbury and its history, and greatly increased tourism to the town. In an interview in 1993, she mentioned her own work before the Second World War as a chemist's assistant, where they prepared many of the compounds they sold. "We used to make bottled medicine that we compounded specially, with ingredients like gentian, rosemary, horehound. You never see that nowadays; those tinctures are never prescribed. They often had bitters of some sort in them, a taste I rather liked. Some of Cadfael’s prescriptions come out of those years."
She died at her home in Madeley, Shropshire in 1995 at the age of 82, having recently returned home from hospital following a stroke. On 14 September 1997, a new stained glass window depicting St. Benedict was installed in Shrewsbury Abbey and was dedicated to the memory of Edith Pargeter, with funds raised by donations from admirers of the author.
Sponsored by Ancestry
Advertisement
Records on Ancestry
Advertisement
