Helen Rosaline Ashton Jordan (18 October 1891 – 27 June 1958) was a British novelist, literary biographer and physician.
Life
Helen Rosaline Ashton was born in
Kensington
Kensington is a district in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in the West End of London, West of Central London.
The district's commercial heart is Kensington High Street, running on an east–west axis. The north-east is taken up b ...
, London, the daughter of Emma Burnie and Arthur Jacob Ashton, KC, Recorder of
Manchester. Her brother was
Sir Leigh Ashton, director of the
Victoria and Albert Museum.
[Obituary]
''British Medical Journal
''The BMJ'' is a weekly peer-reviewed medical trade journal, published by the trade union the British Medical Association (BMA). ''The BMJ'' has editorial freedom from the BMA. It is one of the world's oldest general medical journals. Origi ...
''[Virginia Blain, Isobel Grundy, Patricia Clements (eds.), ''The Feminist Companion to Literature in English'', Yale University Press, 1990]
She wrote her first novel in 1913, ''Pierrot In Town'',.
[ During World War I, she nursed as a VAD, and over the course of the war she wrote three novels.
After the war, Ashton studied medicine, qualifying from the London Hospital in 1921 and graduating M.B., B.S. in 1922.][ She was then a ]house physician
Pre-registration house officer (PRHO), often known as a houseman or house officer, is a former official term for a grade of junior doctor that was, until 2005, the only job open to medical graduates in the United Kingdom who had just passed the ...
at Great Ormond Street Hospital until she married Arthur Jordan, a barrister, in 1927. After her marriage, Ashton retired from medicine but continued to write.
Over 43 years she published 26 books, which included several literary biographies, such as ''I Had A Sister'' (written with Katharine Davies in 1937 - a study of Mary Lamb, Dorothy Wordsworth, Caroline Herschel and ), ''William and Dorothy'' (1938), and ''Parson Austen's Daughter'' (1949) amongst others. Her first major fictional success was ''Doctor Serocold'' (1930) in which she was able to draw upon her medical knowledge. Also included amongst her fictional works were ''Bricks and Mortar'' (1932), republished in 2004 by Persephone Books
''Persephone Books'' is an independent publisher based in Bath, England. Founded in 1999 by Nicola Beauman, Persephone Books reprints works largely by women writers of the late 19th and 20th century, though a few books by men are included. Th ...
, and ''Yeoman's Hospital'' (1944), on which the 1951 film ''White Corridors
''White Corridors'' is a 1951 British drama film directed by Pat Jackson and starring Googie Withers, Godfrey Tearle, James Donald and Petula Clark. It is based on a novel by Helen Ashton. The film is set in a hospital shortly after the establish ...
'' was based.
She died at 66, on 27 June 1958 in Lechlade.[“Helen Rosaline Jordan”
in ''England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1858-1995'']
References
External links
Author profile at Persephone Books
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ashton, Helen
1891 births
1958 deaths
British women novelists
20th-century British novelists
20th-century British women writers