Women Writers Through History | Part 1: Mary Wesley | A Sassy Senior British Writer

Writer of Three Children’s Books and Nine Adult Novels

Mary Aline née Fuller Siepmann (1912–2002), writing under the name Mary Wesley, was a sassy senior British writer.

Born in Surrey, Mary Farmer wasn’t formally educated. Instead, she had sixteen foreign governesses. As a young girl, she asked her mother why they kept leaving. Her mother’s answer was simple: none of them liked her. I have a feeling this helped shape a lot of Wesley’s writing. Another interesting note is that she didn’t publish her first novel until she was seventy-one, then sold over 3 million copies in twenty years.

At eighteen, Wesley volunteered at a London soup kitchen. During the Second World War, she served in the code-breaking section of MI5. During her career, she was one of Britain’s most successful novelists, selling three million copies of her books, including ten bestsellers in the last twenty years of her life.

I will write about her three children’s books in today’s blog. All three received mixed reviews. Common complaints involved flawed plot development, lack of detail about secondary characters, and problems not resolved in the endings.

Speaking Terms (Grades 6-8) (1969) received mixed reviews. The main character, Kate, discovers her pet bullfinch and all the animals in her area can speak. She and her sister Angela join forces with the local boys to save the animals. They convince the animals to form a communications network and warn when hunting or fishing is about to occur. When the community catches no game or fish during the summer, it causes a rift.

The Sixth Seal (1969) (Grades 6-8) is a dystopian children’s novel. After a mysterious catastrophe occurs in much of the earth, Muriel, her son Paul, and his friend Henry must learn how to survive in this new, barren, and disturbingly empty world.

Haphazard House (1983) (Grades 4-6) is a children’s fantasy novel. Eleven-year-old Lisa Fuller and her younger brother Josh use their winnings from a horse race to buy a country estate. Strange things happen: their grandfather grows younger, their kitten grows into a cat overnight, and a mysterious figure haunts the house.

Next Wednesday, I will write about her adult novels.