{{short description|Historical fiction author}} {{Use dmy dates|date=October 2018}} {{Infobox writer <!-- for more information see [[:Template:Infobox writer/doc]] --> | name = Elizabeth Byrd | image = Elizabeth_Byrd_died_1989.jpg | caption = | pseudonym = | birth_name = Sarah Elizabeth Evelyn Byrd | birth_date = {{birth date|mf=yes|1912|12|8}} | birth_place = [[St. Louis|St. Louis, Missouri]], US | death_date = {{death date and age|mf=yes|1989|5|11|1912|12|8}} | death_place = [[Tucson, Arizona]], US | occupation = {{flatlist| * Radio writer * editor * literary critic * novelist }} | notableworks = ''Immortal Queen'' | spouse = Don Phares, Barrie Gaunt | relatives = [[Joseph Byrd|Joseph Byrd, Jr.]] (brother) }} '''Elizabeth Byrd''' (December 8, 1912 – May 11, 1989) was an American author. Her main body of work is [[historical fiction]], and her most successful novel is ''Immortal Queen,'' a historical romance about [[Mary, Queen of Scots]].<ref name=":1" /> Nine of her thirteen novels were published while she was living in Scotland.
== Early life and education == Byrd was born Sarah Elizabeth Evelyn Byrd on December 8, 1912 in St. Louis, Missouri, to Joseph Hunter Byrd and his wife Emma Evangeline Byrd, née Howard.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|title=Something about the Author|publisher=Gale Cengage|year=1984|isbn=978-0-8103-0063-7|editor-last=Commire|editor-first=Anne|volume=34|pages=[https://archive.org/details/somethingaboutau34comm/page/46 46–48]|chapter=Byrd, Elizabeth (1912–)|chapter-url-access=registration|chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/somethingaboutau34comm/page/46}}</ref> Shortly after she was born, the family moved to New York.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=Immortal Queen|last=Byrd|first=Elizabeth|publisher=Ballantine|year=1956|location=New York|chapter=Afterword: About Elizabeth Byrd}}</ref> Joseph Byrd was a mining prospector and promoter who eventually remarried and settled in [[Tucson, Arizona|Tucson]], Arizona.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/bookstlouisansa00marqgoog|title=The Book of St. Louisans: A Biographical Dictionary of Leading Living Men of the City of St. Louis and Vicinity|last=Marquis|first=Albert Nelson|publisher=The Saint Louis Republic|year=1912|pages=[https://archive.org/details/bookstlouisansa00marqgoog/page/n106 100]–101|author-link=Albert Nelson Marquis}}</ref><ref name=":3">{{Cite news|title=Obituary: Joseph Hunter Byrd, Sr.|date=31 January 1966|work=Tucson Daily Citizen|page=38}}</ref> The musician [[Joseph Byrd|Joseph Hunter Byrd, Jr.]] is her half-brother, from her father's second marriage.<ref name=":3" /><ref name="GoodreadsBio">{{cite web|url=https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/383326.Elizabeth_Byrd |title=Elizabeth Byrd (Author of Immortal Queen) |publisher=Goodreads.com |access-date=2018-10-10}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://tucsoncitizen.com/morgue2/1999/03/27/42650-funeral-notices/|title=FUNERAL NOTICES - Tucson Citizen Morgue, Part 2 (1993-2009)|website=tucsoncitizen.com|at=BYRD, Dian (Attie Bryant Nall)|language=en|access-date=2018-10-10}}</ref>
Byrd claimed to be a descendant, through her father, of [[John Campbell, 1st Earl of Loudoun]].<ref name=":0" />
During 1932–33, Byrd attended writing courses at [[New York University]].<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":0" />
== Early career == For nine years, between 1935 and 1944, Byrd was a radio news writer for [[CBS]], then Columbia Broadcasting System. Starting in 1938, she was also a script writer and radio speaker for the New York City radio station [[WMCA (AM)|WMCA]], contributing to the "What's News" broadcasts and husband-and-wife breakfast table chats.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":0" />
In 1944, Byrd left radio and began a new career path, working until 1950 as an associate editor for New York literary agencies.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":0" /> She established her own literary agency, Betty Byrd Associates, in 1951. This venture appears to have only lasted until 1953, during which time she was also a critic for the A. L. Fierst Literary Agency in New York City. She was the editor for three years of ''Your Romance'', a salacious [[confessional writing|confession magazine]].<ref name=":1" /><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/romance-march-1958-magazine-complete-669137594|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181109143030/https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/romance-march-1958-magazine-complete-669137594|url-status=dead|archive-date=2018-11-09|title=Cover of "Your Romance" magazine from March 1958 {{!}} #669137594|date=2018-11-09|access-date=2018-11-09}}</ref> Before settling down to her eventual career as a novelist, Byrd also wrote jacket copy for the publishing house [[Julian Messner|Julian Messner, Inc]]. from 1952 to 1960.<ref name=":1" />
Sometime during her early career in New York City, she married Don Phares.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Contemporary Authors New Revision Series|volume=5|page=93|chapter=BYRD, Elizabeth 1912-}}</ref>
== Writing career == [[Mary, Queen of Scots|Mary Stuart]], Queen of Scots, became a figure of great interest to Byrd when she was 7 years old, and learned that her birthday was the same as Mary's, and her mother Emma's birthday was the same as [[Elizabeth I of England|Queen Elizabeth I]]'s. She began collecting biographies on the life of Stuart and wrote a play about her when she was 12.<ref name=":0" /> Byrd travelled to Scotland in 1953 and researched Stuart's life further, leading to the writing of ''Immortal Queen'', which was published in 1956 when she was 43 years old.<ref name=":2">{{Cite news|url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1956/09/09/306588402.html?zoom=14.63|title=Sovereign in Technicolor|last=Lyell|first=Frank H.|date=9 September 1956|work=The New York Times|access-date=2018-10-03|page=156|language=en}}</ref> Her first novel, it was also her most successful, being translated into seven languages, and was self-reported as a bestseller, though by which contemporary lists is unknown.<ref name=":1" />
Byrd moved to Scotland {{circa|1966}} and lived there for the following 10 years, publishing nine more works, six of them Europe-based historical fiction. Her first accommodation in Scotland was [[Leith Hall]] in Aberdeenshire, where she rented 14 rooms with her second husband, Barrie Gaunt. In ''The Ghosts in My Life'' and ''A Strange and Seeing Time,'' Byrd describes the paranormal occurrences she and her husband experienced while living there, along with other spectral encounters.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Yankee Ghosts: Spine Tingling Encounters with the Phantoms of New York and New England|last=Holzer|first=Hans|publisher=Yankee Publishing, Inc.|year=1989|isbn=9780899091471}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Qd-TUu3IQMAC&q=byrd+leith+hall&pg=PT6|title=White Indian: 1755 The True Story of John Leith|last=Leith|first=Audie Dallas|date=2011-10-14|publisher=Xlibris Corporation|isbn=9781465376565|language=en}}</ref>
Having tired of the meticulous research she undertook for her historical fiction, Byrd wrote an autobiographical novel in 1975, titled ''I'll Get By'', for which she won the Scottish Arts Council Book Award.<ref name=":1" /> She published a sequel to this, ''It Had to Be You,'' in 1982.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3275116-it-had-to-be-you|title=It Had to Be You|website=www.goodreads.com|access-date=2018-10-10}}</ref>
Byrd returned to the United States in 1976, to Tucson where her family had previously settled. She felt homesick for Edinburgh, however, and returned to Scotland after five years.<ref name=":1" /> In total, although labelled an American author, only four of her thirteen novels were published while she lived in the US.<ref name=":1" />
Throughout her adult life, Byrd contributed articles to various serial publications, including ''Scottish Field'', ''[[McCall's]]'', ''[[Reader's Digest]]'', ''[[Esquire (magazine)|Esquire]]'', and ''[[Collier's]]''.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":0" />
Byrd died in Tucson on May 11, 1989, at the age of 76.<ref name="GoodreadsBio"/>
==Works== * ''Immortal Queen: A Novel of Mary, Queen of Scots'' (Ballantine, 1956) * ''The Flowers of the Forest'' (Constable, 1962) * ''The Ghosts in My Life'' (Ballantine, 1968) * ''A Strange and Seeing Time'' (R. Hale, 1971) * ''The Famished Land: A Novel of the Irish Potato Famine'' (Lippincott, 1972) * ''The Long Enchantment: A Novel of Queen Victoria and John Brown'' (Macmillan, 1973) *''Rest Without Peace'' (Macmillan, 1974) *''I'll Get By: An Autobiographical Novel'' (Macmillan, 1975) *''The Lady of Monkton'' (Macmillan, 1975) *''The Search for Maggie Hare'' (Macmillan, 1976) *''Maid of Honour: The Court of Mary Queen of Scots'' (Macmillan London, 1978) *''The Diamond'' (Macmillan, 1979) *''It Had to Be You'' (Viking Children's Books, 1982)<ref>{{cite web |title=WorldCat Identities: Byrd, Elizabeth |url=https://www.worldcat.org/identities/lccn-n50032944/ |website=WorldCat.org |publisher=[[OCLC]] |access-date=2018-11-25}}</ref>
==References== {{reflist|30em}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Byrd, Elizabeth}} [[Category:1912 births]] [[Category:1989 deaths]] [[Category:Writers from St. Louis]] [[Category:20th-century American women novelists]] [[Category:American historical novelists]] [[Category:Writers of historical fiction set in the early modern period]] [[Category:American women historical novelists]] [[Category:20th-century American novelists]]