Ella Lindow aka Gabrielle Wodnil and Ella Wodnil (12 February 1880 – 27 April 1933) was a British novelist and songwriter.

Life

Lindow was born in 1880 in

Islington Islington () is a district in the north of Greater London, England, and part of the London Borough of Islington. It is a mainly residential district of Inner London, extending from Islington's High Street to Highbury Fields, encompassing the ar ...

. She was the only child of Angelina (born Levy in London) and her Russian born husband Joseph Lindow. Her father dealt in diamonds and he had been married before, giving her seven elder half-siblings who had been born in America and Germany. She had two successful careers and the first was in music. She used the name "Gabrielle Wodnil" (Lindow spelt backwards) for her songs and her writing. After her skills as a pianist gained her the

Royal Academy of Music The Royal Academy of Music (RAM) in London, England, is the oldest conservatoire in the UK, founded in 1822 by John Fane and Nicolas-Charles Bochsa. It received its royal charter in 1830 from King George IV with the support of the first Duke of ...

's bronze medal, she tried writing, performing and writing songs. By 1906 she was performing in variety and successfully selling her songs. The pantomime and Edwardian musical comedy star

Evie Greene Edith Elizabeth "Evie" Greene (14 January 1875 – 11 September 1917) was a much-photographed English actress and singer who played in Edwardian musical comedies in London and on Broadway. She starred as Dolores in the international hit musical ' ...

took up her song "Yet, if I Said, Forgive" and other notable songs were "Lapland", "Just a Snapshot" and "Won't You Come Rinking?". She believed that great songs made great pantomimes and by 1910 she was writing about pantomimes and the conventional theatre. In 1912 she published her first novel as "Gabrielle Wodnil" with the title ''Maggie of Margate: a Seaside Sensation'', which fitted in with a trend to have alliterative titles that included the name of a resort reachable on the railway. The novel involved Mike Bhear who believes that money can buy him nearly anything he wants and his young maid who expects more respect than she gets. The maid is actually Lady Margaret Taunton but the boss does not know that and she says "Oh Sir you mustn't talk like that with you a real gentleman and me just a poor girl". Mike's offer to Maggie includes a career on the stage in the musical theatre. The beach novel includes a reference to "Evie Green" singing "Yet, if I Said, Forgive" but the link between Wodnil as a songwriter and Wodnil as a novelist does not appear to have been spotted. Wodnil's next novel in 1913 also alluded to the seaside, holidays and romance. It was titled ''Brineta ar Brighton: A Boarding house romance'' and it involved a meeting of people of different social classes. Brineta O'Byrne is employed as a lady's companion.

Death and legacy

Lindow's ''Maggie of Margate'' was republished in 1926 in paperback. She died in 1933 in

Hampstead Hampstead () is an area in London, which lies northwest of Charing Cross, and extends from Watling Street, the A5 road (Roman Watling Street) to Hampstead Heath, a large, hilly expanse of parkland. The area forms the northwest part of the Lon ...

. In 2023 the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography included her,

Florence L. Barclay Florence Louisa Barclay (2 December 1862 – 10 March 1921) was an English romance novelist and short story writer. Biography She was born Florence Louisa Charlesworth in Limpsfield, Surrey, England, the daughter of the local Anglican rector ...

Mrs. Disney Leith Mary Charlotte Julia Gordon became Mary Charlotte Julia Leith (1840–1926), she was best known as Mrs Disney Leith who was a British novelist and traveller. She was a childhood friend of Swinburne and after her husband died she visited Iceland num ...

and

Bessie Marchant Bessie Marchant (1862–1941) was a prolific English writer of adventure novels featuring young female heroines. She published most of her work under the name Bessie Marchant, but occasionally published as Bessie Marchant Comfort or Mrs J.A. Comf ...

in new biographies of eleven Victorian writers who have caught the attention of academics.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lindow, Ella 1880 births 1933 deaths People from Islington (district) British women novelists Romantic fiction novelists