Ethel Lina White

Ethel Lina White (2 April 1876 – 13 August 1944) was a British crime writer from Abergavenny, Monmouthshire, Wales. She was 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, 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. Her father's invention, a compound of bitumen and cement was the first waterproof building material, and used in the construction of the London Underground, which brought wealth to the family.

White grew up in Fairlea Grange, which was built in the 1880s by her father, 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. She was living in Abergavenny in 1911.

Career as a writer

By 1917 White was working in London in the Ministry of Pensions, but in 1919 she resigned for a £10 advance in order to write, later saying it was because she disliked "the lack of fresh air and office life". 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
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