Ethel Lina White

Ethel Lina White (2 April 1876^[1] – 13 August 1944) was an English crime writer from Abergavenny, Monmouthshire, best known for her novel The Wheel Spins (1936), on which the Alfred Hitchcock 1938 film The Lady Vanishes was based.

Early years[]

Born in Abergavenny, Monmouthshire, in 1876,^[2] Ethel Lina White was the daughter of William White, builder and inventor of the Hygeian Rock Building Composition, and Ethel C White, both of Clifton, Bristol. She was one of nine children.

White grew up in Fairlea Grange,^[3] which was built in the 1880s by her father,^[4] and started writing as a child and contributing essays and poems to children's papers. She passed the Government Examination (Second Class) in freehand drawing at Newport School of Art in 1890. She later began to write short stories, but it was some years before she wrote books.

Career as a writer[]

White left government employment with the Ministry of Pensions to pursue her writing. Her publications made her one of the best known crime writers in Britain and the United States in the 1930s and 1940s.

White's first three works, published between 1927 and 1930, were mainstream novels. Her first crime novel, published in 1931, was Put Out the Light. Although attention to her has faded, in her day she was as well known as writers like Dorothy L. Sayers and Agatha Christie. Her works have enjoyed a revival in recent years with a stage adaptation of The Lady Vanishes touring the UK in 2001, a BBC broadcast of an abridged version on BBC Radio 4, and a BBC TV adaptation in 2013. Also, many of her works previously unavailable have recently reappeared in Amazon Kindle.

Death[]

Ethel Lina White died in London in 1944 aged 68. Her estate was valued at £5,737.^[5]

Adaptations[]

The first adaptation of White's work was The Wheel Spins. Whilst The Lady Vanishes is primarily seen as one of the highlights in Alfred Hitchcock's career, he almost did not make the film. He only did so to fulfil a studio contract.

The success of The Lady Vanishes brought interest in making more films from her books. In 1945, her novel Midnight House became The Unseen, directed by Lewis Allen. Shortly after came an adaptation of Some Must Watch, one of White's earlier novels. Again the name of the novel was changed and became The Spiral Staircase. It gained a Best Supporting Actress Oscar Nomination for Ethel Barrymore.

Bibliography[]

• The Wish-Bone (1927)
• Twill Soon Be Dark (1929)
• The Eternal Journey (1930)
• Put Out the Light (1931)
• Fear Stalks the Village (1932)
• Some Must Watch (1933; filmed in 1946 as The Spiral Staircase; remade under the same title in 1975, and again for TV in 2000)
• Wax (1935)
• The First Time He Died (1935)
• The Wheel Spins (1936) (filmed in 1938 by Alfred Hitchcock as The Lady Vanishes; remade in 1979 and again for TV in 2013) ^{[Note 1]}
• The Third Eye (1937)
• The Elephant Never Forgets (1937)
• Step in the Dark (1938)
• While She Sleeps (1940)
• She Faded into Air (1941)
• Midnight House (U.S. title Her Heart in Her Throat, 1942, filmed in 1945 as The Unseen)
• The Man Who Loved Lions (U.S. title The Man Who Was Not There, 1943)
• They See in Darkness (1944)

Short stories[]

• Green Ginger. Windsor Magazine, March 1932
• Honey. Pearson's Weekly, 7 September 1935
• Cheese. Reprinted, Capital Crimes (British Library, ed. Martin Edwards)
• Old Man River Reprinted, Best Mystery Stories (Faber & Faber, 1930)
• [Title unknown]. Windsor Magazine, April 1933
• Waxworks. Australian Women's Weekly, 25 May 1935. Reprinted, Silent Nights (British Library, Ed. Martin Edwards, 2015)
• White Cap. Akron Beacon Journal, 31 January 1942. Reprinted, Bodies from the Library. Volume 2 (HarperCollins, ed. Tony Medawar, 2019)

Stage plays[]

• The Port of Yesterday (1928)

References[]

Note

Citations

External links[]

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Ethel Lina White

• Works by Ethel Lina White at Project Gutenberg Australia
• Ethel Lina White at IMDb
• Ethel Lina White at Find a Grave