# Violet Methley

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{{Short description|English children's writer (1882 – 1953)}}
[[File:Camille Desmoulins, a biography (IA camilledesmoulin00meth).pdf|thumb|Methley's biography of [Camille Desmoulins](/source/Camille_Desmoulins)]]
'''Violet M. Methley''' (1882 – 1953) was an English writer of children's adventure novels, short stories, and drama.

==Early life==
Methley was born in [Seal, Kent](/source/Seal%2C_Kent).<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?18351|title=Summary Bibliography: Violet Methley|work=The Internet Speculative Fiction Database|accessdate=3 October 2025}}</ref>

==Works==
Notable themes in her works are:

* '''Biography.''' Methley was the author of ''Camille Desmoulins: A Biography'' (1915) and gave a 'Biography of Boots and Shoes' on Radio 4 in 1924.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bradford |first=Richard |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EtpwDwAAQBAJ&dq=violet+methley&pg=PA88 |title=A Companion to Literary Biography |date=2018-11-28 |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |isbn=978-1-118-89629-7 |pages=88 |language=en}}</ref>
* '''Drama'''. Methley wrote plays for young children to act out<ref>{{Cite book |last1=May |first1=Helen |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Gf1aEAAAQBAJ&dq=violet+methley&pg=PA128 |title=Kindergarten Narratives on Froebelian Education: Transnational Investigations |last2=Nawrotzki |first2=Kristen |last3=Prochner |first3=Larry |date=2018-05-31 |publisher=Bloomsbury Academic |isbn=978-1-350-06993-0 |language=en}}</ref> and a guide to drama (''Amateur Actor's Companion'', 1915), noting that 'We are very far removed now from the century-old days when [Jane Austen's heroine](/source/Fanny_Price) considered it grossly indecent and immodest for young ladies to dream of acting a play with a love-scene.'<ref>{{Cite book |last=Meeuwis |first=Michael |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cwucDwAAQBAJ&dq=violet+methley&pg=PA92 |title=Everyone's Theater: Literature and Daily Life in England, 1860-1914 |date=2019 |publisher=University of Michigan Press |isbn=978-0-472-13147-1 |pages=92 |language=en}}</ref>
* '''Australia'''. It is speculated that Methley spent time living in Australia as many of her stories feature Australia or Australian people. For example, 'The Bunyip Patrol' (1926) features a patrol of schoolgirls who attempt to track down the creature of Aboriginal legend, the [bunyip](/source/bunyip).<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Holden |first1=Robert |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UnKPCZT0x6kC&dq=violet+methley&pg=PA222 |title=Bunyips: Australia's Folklore of Fear |last2=Holden |first2=Nicholas |date=2001 |publisher=National Library Australia |isbn=978-0-642-10732-9 |pages=165 |language=en}}</ref>
* '''Horror'''. Methley is noted as an early woman writer of science fiction and horror.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Davin |first=Eric Leif |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZoNDebTvUnsC&dq=violet+methley&pg=PA67 |title=Partners in Wonder: Women and the Birth of Science Fiction, 1926-1965 |date=2006 |publisher=Lexington Books |isbn=978-0-7391-1267-0 |pages=66 |language=en}}</ref> Some of her stories ('Dread at Darracombe', 1930 and 'The Milk Carts', 1932) appear in ''[Weird Tales](/source/Weird_Tales)'' under her own name.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Howlett |first=Mike |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-1RjCwAAQBAJ&dq=violet+methley&pg=PA295 |title=The Weird World of Eerie Publications: Comic Gore That Warped Millions of Young Minds |date=2010-11-30 |publisher=Feral House |isbn=978-1-936239-21-4 |language=en}}</ref>
* '''WWII'''. 'The Vackies' (1941) follows a family of [evacuated children](/source/Evacuations_of_civilians_in_Britain_during_World_War_II) and picks up on the themes of evacuated children’s attachment to animals.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Andrews |first=Maggie |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=u6oyEAAAQBAJ&dq=violet+methley&pg=PA213 |title=Women and Evacuation in the Second World War: Femininity, Domesticity and Motherhood |date=2019-08-08 |publisher=Bloomsbury Academic |isbn=978-1-4411-4068-5 |pages=163 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Edwards |first=Owen Dudley |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=89iqBgAAQBAJ&dq=violet+methley&pg=PA179 |title=British Children's Fiction in the Second World War |date=2007-08-01 |publisher=Edinburgh University Press |isbn=978-0-7486-2872-8 |pages=149 |language=en}}</ref>

== Select works ==

* ''Fourteen Fourteens'' (1900)
* ''Camille Desmoulins: A Biography'' (1914)
* ''Girl Friday'' (1928)
* ''The Windmill Guides'' (1930)
* ''The Queer Island'' (1934)
* ''Seeing the Empire'' (1935)
* ''Cocky and Co. and Their Adventures'' (1937)
* ''Dragon Island: An Adventure Story for Girls'' (1938)
* ''Mystery Camp'' (1940)
* ''Lydia Gaff'' (1941)
* ''Great Galleon'' (1942)
* ''Derry Down-Under: A Story of Adventure in Australia'' (1943)
* ''Two in the Bush'' (1945)
* ''Georgie and the Dragon'' (1950)
* ''Armada Ahoy!'' (1953)

== References ==
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{{reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Methley, Violet M.}}
Category:1882 births
Category:1953 deaths
Category:20th-century English women writers
Category:English women science fiction and fantasy writers
Category:British women horror writers
Category:English women biographers
Category:English women children's writers
Category:English children's writers
Category:People from Seal, Kent
Category:Writers from Kent
Category:20th-century English biographers

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Violet Methley](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violet_Methley) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violet_Methley?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.