{{short description|New Zealand writer (1908–1987)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=August 2022}} {{Use New Zealand English|date=July 2022}} {{Infobox writer | name = Celia Manson | honorific_suffix = {{post-nominals|country=NZL|MBE|size=100%}} | image = | alt = | caption = | pseudonym = | birth_name = Cecilia Evelyn Drummond | birth_date = {{Birth date|1908|08|24|df=y}} | birth_place = Carterton, New Zealand | death_date = {{Death date and age|1987|10|28|1908|08|24|df=y}} | death_place = | resting_place = | occupation = {{Cslist|Writer|journalist|broadcaster}} | period = | spouse = {{Marriage|Cecil Murray Manson|1939|1987|end=d.}} | awards = | relatives = Norah Burnard (sister) }}
'''Cecilia Evelyn Manson''' {{post-nominals|country=NZL|MBE|size=85%}} ({{nee|'''Drummond'''}}; 24 August 1908 – 28 October 1987), known as '''Celia Manson''', was a New Zealand writer, journalist and broadcaster. Many of her works were co-written with her husband Cecil Manson, and together they also laid the foundations for the Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellowship.
==Life and career== Manson was born in Carterton on 24 August 1908.{{sfn|France|Quinn|Henden|Ashforth|1984|p=52}}<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.bdmhistoricalrecords.dia.govt.nz/search/search?path=%2FqueryEntry.m%3Ftype%3Ddeaths |title=Death search: registration number 1987/51128 |website=Births, deaths & marriages online |publisher=Department of Internal Affairs |access-date=8 August 2022}}</ref> She was one of ten children of Agnes Telford and her husband, Robert Drummond, a teacher; the journal editor Norah Burnard was her older sister.<ref name="Norah">{{DNZB|title=Norah Telford Burnard|first= Charlotte|last= Macdonald|id=5b49|accessdate=23 April 2017}}</ref> Manson attended Wairarapa College and subsequently Victoria University College.<ref name="OCNZL">{{cite encyclopedia |last=Robinson |first=Roger |editor1-last=Robinson |editor1-first=Roger |editor2-last=Wattie |editor2-first=Nelson |encyclopedia=The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature |title=Manson, Cecil and Cecilia |chapter=Manson, Cecil |url=https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780195583489.001.0001/acref-9780195583489-e-762 |access-date=27 July 2022 |date=2006 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-1917-3519-6 |oclc=865265749 |doi=10.1093/acref/9780195583489.001.0001|url-access=subscription }}</ref> After university she travelled to the United Kingdom, where she worked as a freelance journalist for the BBC, including narrating a television series about three generations of a New Zealand family.<ref name="Ice Cream">{{cite news |title=Payment Made in Ice Cream: New York Broadcast by N.Z. Woman |url=https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19500125.2.5 |access-date=28 July 2022 |work=The Press |date=25 January 1950 |page=2}}</ref>
In 1939 she married Cecil Manson, an English soldier, in France.<ref>{{cite news |title=Here and There |url=https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/EP19391220.2.161.4 |access-date=28 July 2022 |work=Evening Post |date=20 December 1939 |page=16}}</ref> Their son Hugo was born in London in 1941.<ref name="Rendle"/> They went on to co-write several books together about New Zealand history, including children's books, and beginning with ''Tides of Hokianga'' in 1956.<ref name="OCNZL"/><ref name="Rendle">{{cite news |last1=Rendle |first1=Steve |title=Gallipoli through a father's eyes |url=https://times-age.co.nz/gallipoli-through-a-fathers-eyes/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220211192958/https://times-age.co.nz/gallipoli-through-a-fathers-eyes/ |archive-date=11 February 2022 |work=Wairarapa Times-Age |date=10 September 2018}}</ref><ref name="Shattering">{{cite news |last1=Manson |first1=Beth |title=The shattering of our youth |url=https://www.pressreader.com/new-zealand/the-press/20190425/281775630566117 |access-date=27 July 2022 |work=The Press |date=29 April 2019}}</ref> For some years they published weekly historical essays in ''The Dominion''; these were published in a collection called ''Curtain-raiser to a Colony'' in 1962.<ref name="About">{{cite news |title=About New Zealand |url=https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19630112.2.8.7 |access-date=28 July 2022 |work=The Press |date=12 January 1963}}</ref> They moved back to New Zealand after the end of the war,<ref name="OCNZL"/><ref name="Rendle"/><ref name="Shattering"/> with Manson recording a programme for Wellington radio about her impressions on her return.<ref>{{cite news |title=Broadcasting |url=https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/WC19480827.2.95 |access-date=28 July 2022 |work=Wanganui Chronicle |date=27 August 1948 |page=7}}</ref> In 1949 her book ''Willow's Point'', an adventure story for children set in New Zealand, was published by the Museum Press in London, under the name C. Drummond Manson; her publisher anticipated that boys would not want to read a book written by a woman.<ref name="Ice Cream"/>
Together with her husband and Sheilah Winn she initiated the Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellowship. In 1967 Cecil and Celia visited the Villa Isola Bella where Mansfield wrote some of her best-known short stories, and discovered that a room on the lower level where she worked was derelict and not in use.<ref name="OCNZL fellowship">{{cite encyclopedia |last1=Mortelier |first1=Christine |last2=Robinson |first2=Roger |editor1-last=Robinson |editor1-first=Roger |editor2-last=Wattie |editor2-first=Nelson |encyclopedia=The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature |title=Mansfield Fellowship, The |url=https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780195583489.001.0001/acref-9780195583489-e-761 |access-date=7 January 2021 |date=2006 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-1917-3519-6 |oclc=865265749 |doi=10.1093/acref/9780195583489.001.0001 |url-access=subscription}}</ref> Together with Winn, they decided to set up a fellowship for New Zealand authors, and formed a committee in Wellington to raise funds. Their vision was "to give a selected New Zealand writer a period of leisure to write or study ... [in] a different and more ancient culture, and thereby to see [their] own remote country in a better perspective".<ref name="OCNZL fellowship"/><ref name="Whip">{{cite news |last1=Catherall |first1=Sarah |title=Katherine Mansfield Fellowship saved by a literary whip-round |url=https://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/books/73669933/katherine-mansfield-fellowship-saved-by-a-literary-whip-round |accessdate=20 October 2020 |work=Stuff.co.nz |date=5 November 2015}}</ref><ref name="Ghost">{{cite news |last1=Manson |first1=Bess |title=Writing with the ghost of Katherine Mansfield |url=https://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/books/300040717/writing-with-the-ghost-of-katherine-mansfield |accessdate=19 October 2020 |work=Stuff.co.nz |date=23 August 2020}}</ref>
In 1960 she joined the New Zealand Women Writers' Society, and in 1969 was appointed an honorary vice-president. She served as president of the society from 1970 to 1972.{{sfn|France|Quinn|Henden|Ashforth|1984|p=52}}{{sfn|Hayward|Cowley|1982|p=28}} She was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire, for services to literature, in the 1977 New Year Honours.<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=47104 |date=31 December 1976 |pages=43}}</ref> In 1978, a review of the Mansons' book ''The Affair of the Wellington Brig: A True and Terrible Tale'' by ''The Press'' described it as a "story superbly told with the skill expected of Cecil and Celia Manson".<ref>{{cite news |title=Dark Convict Voyage |url=https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19781118.2.87.3 |access-date=28 July 2022 |work=The Press |date=18 November 1978 |page=17}}</ref>
Manson died on 28 October 1987, four months after the death of her husband.<ref name="Shattering"/><ref>{{cite book |title=Who's Who in New Zealand. |date=1991 |publisher=Reed |location=Wellington, New Zealand |isbn=9780790001302 |page=725 |edition=12th |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6x8OAQAAMAAJ&q=manson |access-date=28 July 2022}}</ref>
==Selected works== Manson and her husband Cecil jointly co-authored:<ref name="OCNZL"/> *''Tides of Hokianga'' (Wingfield Press, 1956) * ''Doctor Agnes Bennett'' (Whitcombe & Tombs, 1960, also published in London by Michael Joseph<ref>{{cite web |title=Doctor Agnes Bennett / Cecil & Celia Manson; foreword J.C. Beaglehole; epilogue by Agnes Bennett. |url=https://natlib.govt.nz/records/21969812 |website=National Library of New Zealand}}</ref>) * ''Curtain-raiser to a Colony'' (Whitcombe & Tombs, 1962) * ''The Lonely One'' (Whitcombe & Tombs, 1963, also published in New York by Roy Publishers<ref>{{cite web |title=The lonely one / Cecil & Celia Manson; illustrated by Ian Armour-Chelu |url=https://natlib.govt.nz/records/20990913 |website=National Library of New Zealand |access-date=28 July 2022}}</ref> and in London by Epworth Press<ref>{{cite web |title=The lonely one / Cecil & Celia Manson; illustrated by Ian Armour-Chelu |url=https://natlib.govt.nz/records/21195515 |website=National Library of New Zealand |access-date=28 July 2022}}</ref>) (children's book) * ''Pioneer Parade'' (A.H. & A.W. Reed, 1966) * ''The Adventures of Johnny van Bart'' (Whitcombe & Tombs, 1965, also published in New York by Roy Publishers<ref>{{cite web |title=The adventures of Johnny van Bart / Cecil & Celia Manson; illustrated by Ian Armour-Chelu |url=https://natlib.govt.nz/records/21185768 |website=National Library of New Zealand |access-date=28 July 2022}}</ref> and in London by Epworth Press<ref>{{cite web |title=The adventures of Johnny van Bart / Cecil & Celia Manson; illustrated by Ian Armour-Chelu |url=https://natlib.govt.nz/records/21000163 |website=National Library of New Zealand |access-date=28 July 2022}}</ref>) (children's book) * ''I Take Up My Pen: An Early Colonial Scrapbook'' (Pigeon Press, 1972) *''The Affair of the Wellington Brig: A True and Terrible Story'' (Millwood Press, 1978)
Manson separately authored: * ''Willow's Point'' (Museum Press, 1949) *''Story of a New Zealand Family'' (Cape Catley, 1974) *''The Widow of Thorndon Quay'' (Pigeon Press, 1981)
== References == {{Reflist}}
==Bibliography== * {{cite book |editor1-first=Thelma |editor1-last=France |editor2-first=Hestia|editor2-last=Quinn |editor3-first=Roma|editor3-last=Henden |editor4-first=Isobelle |editor4-last=Ashforth | title=History of the New Zealand Women Writers' Society, 1932–1982 | publisher=The New Zealand Women Writers' Society | location=Wellington | year=1984 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eMlHAAAAYAAJ |access-date=21 July 2022 |isbn=0-9597705-0-X}} *{{cite book |editor1-first=Margaret |editor1-last=Hayward |editor2-first=Joy |editor2-last=Cowley| title=Women Writers of NZ 1932–1982, Jubilee History and Writings of the New Zealand Women Writers' Society | publisher=Colonial Associates | location=Wellington | year=1982 |isbn=0-9597585-4-2}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Manson, Celia}} Category:1908 births Category:1987 deaths Category:People from Carterton, New Zealand Category:People educated at Wairarapa College Category:Victoria University of Wellington alumni Category:New Zealand women essayists Category:New Zealand women historians Category:New Zealand women children's writers Category:20th-century New Zealand women writers Category:20th-century New Zealand historians Category:20th-century New Zealand journalists Category:20th-century New Zealand women journalists Category:New Zealand children's writers Category:New Zealand essayists Category:New Zealand Members of the Order of the British Empire