Helena Ruth France (née Henderson; 12 June 1913 – 19 August 1968) was a New Zealand librarian, poet and novelist.
Early life and education
France was born in
Leithfield
Leithfield is a small town in north Canterbury, New Zealand. It is on State Highway 1, south of Amberley and north of Christchurch and 11.8 kilometers north of Waikuku. The Leithfield area consists of two semi-distinct areas, Leithfield Beac ...
,
North Canterbury
Canterbury ( mi, Waitaha) is a region of New Zealand, located in the central-eastern South Island. The region covers an area of , making it the largest region in the country by area. It is home to a population of
The region in its current fo ...
, New Zealand in 1913, the daughter of Francis and Helena Henderson. Her mother Helena was a writer of unpublished novels and plays as well as published poems and stories in the local Christchurch newspaper.
She attended
Christchurch Girls' High School.
Career
France worked at the Canterbury Public Library before her marriage to boat-builder Arnold France in 1934.
The Henderson family were Catholic; France's father objected to her marriage to a non-Catholic and feigned suicide the night before the wedding. She then rejected Catholicism.
She lived on a yacht in
Lyttleton Harbour for four years, rowing Arnold to work.
They had two sons and the family moved to
Sumner. She was friends with
Elsie Locke, but considered Christchurch authors and poets prejudiced against women.
Her two published novels are ''The Race'' (1958) and ''Ice Cold River'' (1961). ''The Race'' is based on the ill-fated Lyttleton to Wellington yacht race in 1951 in which her husband participated.
She received a £100 award from the New Zealand Literary Fund for ''The Race.'' ''Ice Cold River'' is a family story set on a Canterbury farm which is cut off by floods.
She published poems under her own name in various publications including ''
Landfall
Landfall is the event of a storm moving over land after being over water. More broadly, and in relation to human travel, it refers to 'the first land that is reached or seen at the end of a journey across the sea or through the air, or the fact ...
'', and two books of poems ''Unwilling Pilgrim'' (1955) and ''The Halting Place'' (1961) under the name of Paul Henderson.
Her poems were included in a publication ''Best Poems'' in 1958 and the Penguin Book of New Zealand Verse.
She died in Christchurch in 1968, leaving a third adult novel ''The Tunnel'' unfinished.
A collection of her poems ''No Traveller Returns: the selected poems of Ruth France'' was published in 2020.
References
Further reading
* Murray, Heather (1992
''Ruth France and the male monolith''.PhD thesis, University of Otago
External links
''Sound Clip: Ruth France Tribute'' by Monte Holcroft on NZHistory 2013
{{DEFAULTSORT:France, Ruth
1913 births
1968 deaths
New Zealand librarians
Women librarians
New Zealand women novelists
20th-century New Zealand poets
New Zealand women poets
People from North Canterbury
20th-century New Zealand novelists
20th-century New Zealand women writers
People educated at Christchurch Girls' High School