Paula Schwartz (1925-2003) was an American playwright and novelist. Schwartz was the author of 36
Regency romance
Regency romances are a subgenre of romance novels set during the period of the British Regency (1811–1820) or early 19th century. Rather than simply being versions of contemporary romance stories transported to a historical setting, Regency rom ...
novels under the pen name Elizabeth Mansfield and of mainstream fiction under the name Paula Reibel, Paula Jonas, and Paula Reid.
Schwartz was born in the Bronx neighborhood of New York City. She graduated from Hunter College and earned her M.A. in English from the City University of New York.
Schwartz taught drama and English and drama in New York and moved to Washington, D.C. in 1965 where she taught English at Dunbarton College of Holy Cross, Washington, D.C., a women's college. She began to write novels when the College closed in 1973. She lived in
Annandale, Virginia
Annandale () is a census-designated place (CDP) in Fairfax County, Virginia.
Schwartz's musical, ''An Accident At Lyme'', an adaptation of Jane Austen's novel ''Persuasion,'' was staged in Baltimore in 1986 by Theatre Hopkins.
Books
As Paula Reibel
* ''A Morning Moon;'' a Jewish family saga spanning the years from 1895–1933. (1984, Morrow, )
As Elizabeth Mansfield
As Paula Reid
* ''Rachel's Passage''; An historical novel set in America at the turn of the 19th century, exploring marital abandonment, marriage, and "criminal conversation" (1998 )
As Paula Jonas
* ''To Spite the Devil''; An historical novel set in Revolutionary America, in what is now currently one of the boroughs of New York City. (1994 ). This novel is based on the musical ''The Tory Spinster,'' by Paula Schwartz and Neil Moyer (1975).
Plays and musicals
Musicals
Schwartz collaborated with composers Neil Moyer and Howard Levetsky on several musical projects.
* ''The Tory Spinster'', (with Neil Moyer) a musical set in Revolutionary America, won the Delaware Bicentennial Playwriting Contest, sponsored by the Delaware Theatre Association, and was performed in April and May 1975.
* ''An Accident At Lyme'', (with Neil Moyer), a musical adaptation of Jane Austen's Persuasion
Plays
* ''Parcel Pickup'', a one-act play published in ''Dramatics'' Magazine, 1973