Margaret Irwin Books In Order

Publication Order of Elizabeth Trilogy Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas

Publication Order of Collections

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

Margaret Irwin
Margaret Irwin was born March 27, 1889 in the London, England to Anna Julia Irwin and Andrew Clarke Irwin. She was raised by S. T. Irwin, her uncle and schoolmaster at Clifton High School in Bristol after both of her parents died. She attended Clifton High School in Bristol, and then went on to Oxford University.

She started writing short stories and books during the early twenties. In the year 1929, she married a children’s illustrator and author named John Robert Monsell, and he created some covers for some of her books.

Margaret was praised for historical accuracy in each of her novels, and wrote passionately on the subject of the English Civil War. In “The Proud Servant”, she caused multiple generations to fall in love with the charismatic yet ill-fated Earl of Montrose, Charles I’s Commander back in Scotland. As a result of this distinction, she became a noted authority both on the Elizabethan era as well as the early Stuart era.

“Young Bess”, which is about the Queen Elizabeth I’s early years, was adapted into a film that starred Jean Simmons and released in the year 1953. “The Doughty Plot” is an episode of “Sir Francis Drake”, a television series which was adapted from her own story and screenplay, which she co-wrote herself.

In addition to her historical stories, she also wrote many ghost stories (like “The Earlier Service” and “The Book”). She also penned a couple of fantasy novels: “These Mortals” is an adult-fairy tale that is about a wizard’s daughter, and “Still She Wished for Company” is about a magical timeslip.

Margaret’s debut novel, called “Still She Wished for Company”, was released in the year 1924. She wrote historical, and horror as well as a factual biography on Sir Walter Raleigh, which was called “That Great Lucifer”.

She died in London, England on December 11, 1967 at the age of 78, after having been a widow for fifteen years.

“Knock Four Times” is a stand alone novel and was released in the year 1927. This isn’t a historical novel, rather a peep-show at more recent times. So wonderfully happy that this, London during the twenties, seems to be just as the iridescent scene of a holiday charade or a pantomime.

What could possibly have happened behind the door at which somebody had to knock on it four times? Different wildly unsuitable events, however chiefly one attack on some of the other doors, the ‘everlasting doors’ of Prince’s Gate, Emperor’s Gate, Queen’s Gate. This was in order to make them open wide to Dicky, the rash young adventurer that once gatecrashed them, however was resolved just to ‘spurn Kensington, then march on Mayfair,’ and conquer both the Old World and the New.

How Dicky battled his way to fortune, and just Celia fought hers to get free from behind the Gates of Kensington, by knocking on Dicky’s door four times. All of this is all told in this tale, which dances along just as irresponsibly like a soap bubble in this wonderfully realized background, and shading from the raffish to the respectable.

For all of its strange situations and laughter, it is marked with some humorous sympathy and integrity that distinguished all of Margaret Irwin’s work.

“The Gay Galliard” is a stand alone novel and was released in the year 1941. Queen of Scotland when she was six days old. Then Queen of France when was seventeen. Then a widow by the time she hit eighteen. The trusting and young Mary, Queen of Scots, sails back home to her kingdom after spending years in exile.

The danger from The English Queen, her cousin, has not let up even a little in that time. Religious divides threaten to tear her nation apart and Elizabeth, across the border, is watching this new threat to her throne intently. Amid all the turmoil and the uncertainty in her Scottish kingdom, she finds that she has a loyal servant in James Hepburn (the Earl of Bothwell) who is a rash, glorious, and hazardous man known to everybody as the Galliard.

In Bothwell’s love for Mary and courage, she finds some serenity, and even though fate works against each of them, there is no force that is able to conquer either one of their spirits.

This stunning book breathes some new life into a little known tale of Mary, Queen of Scots’ great love.

“Young Bess” is the first novel in the “Elizabeth” series and was released in the year 1944. The young Princess Elizabeth, after growing up in the shadow of Anne Boleyn, her infamous dead mom, has learned to be continuously on the lookout for the political games being played out all around her. It is never obvious when one may rise, or precariously fall, right out of royal favor.

When her distant dad, Henry VIII dies, the future immediately brightens up for her. She is able to set up home with Katherine Parr, Henry’s final wife, who is married again to Tom Seymour.

Tom has been playing a risky game, as marrying a widowed queen is certainly one thing, but flirting with the King’s daughter and second in line for the throne is a whole other. While the adolescent Elizabeth finds that she is dangerously attracted to the man, danger is encroaching upon herself and the kingdom.

“None So Pretty” is a stand alone novel and was released in the year 1953. This novel describes a young girl’s life where she is brought up in a huge, aristocratic, yet impecunious family, who is then married off at a young age to one neighboring squire that drinks himself under the table on a nightly basis. It is not long before the young wife learns about her sottish husband keeping a mistress back at his lodge gates, and that he does not propose that they consummate their marriage.

A young cavalier relieves her from living a life of intolerable loneliness when he stumbles into her bedroom one night after one hearty carouse downstairs. And this acquaintance thus began swiftly blossoms into some deeper affection.