Lambeth Fantastical - August 2025
Ethel M Dell
Ethel May Dell was born in Streatham on August 2nd 1881. The youngest of three children, her father worked as a clerk for the city of London. Her ambition to become a writer was initially plagued by constant rejections from publishers. But she stuck with it and her first novel 'The Way of an Eagle' was published by T Fisher Unwin in 1911,when she was thirty.
The main character, Muriel, is rescued from a perilous situation in India, by a British officer, Nick Radcliffe. She breaks off her relationship with him for someone she considers more reliable and returns to Britain. Realising she has made a mistake she then makes her way back to India where the fort in which Nick is stationed is overrun by insurgents and they have to embark on a treacherous trek across the desert to find sanctuary in a garrison town.
This became the formula for a whole series of best selling novels mixing romance and adventure in the far flung corners of the British empire, featuring the ups and downs of romantic interludes between feisty heroines and rugged British army officers. In all she wrote over 30 romantic novels as well as publishing short story collections. Her novels were referenced by writers such as George Orwell, Noel Coward and PG Wodehouse when making tongue in cheek remarks about the reading habits of some of their characters. She was so prolific she has been called the Catherine Cookson of her era and was said to be earning £20,000 to £30,000 a year from her writing at the height of her career (which would be the equivalent of over £1million a year in today's values).
Life imitated art when, at the age of 40 she married British Army officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Gerard Savage, who resigned his commission and devoted the next 18 years to her, until her tragic death from cancer at age 58.
Between 1918 and 1926 no less than less than 22 of her novels received silent movie adaptations. The most successful of these 'The Rocks of Valpre' (1919) was remade as a 'talkie' in 1935 and distributed by RKO Radio Pictures.
Most of the silent films were produced by Cricklewood and Surbiton based Stoll Pictures. Stoll also made the first silent movie adaptations of the works of another Lambeth associated writer when they brought Sax Rohmer's villainous Fu Manchu to the screen in two popular silent era matinee serials 'The Mystery of Dr Fu-Manchu' (1923) and 'The Further Mysteries of Dr Fu-Manchu' (1924). Fu Manchu was played by Wandsworth based Irish born actor Harry Agar Lyons, launching an unfortunate trend of white European actors being made up to look Chinese, including, Boris Karloff Christopher Lee and Peter Sellers, in their own interpretations of the role.
You can download some of Ethel M Dell's novels for free at Project Gutenberg on this link.
Fancy training as a Lambeth Tour Guide? Applications are being invited for the new course starting at Morley College in the autumn. Scan the QR code below for details.
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