Clemence Dane

Clemence Dane was the pseudonym of Winifred Ashton (21 February 1888 in Blackheath, England, United Kingdom – 28 March 1965 in London), an English novelist and playwright.

Life and career

After completing her education, she went to Switzerland to work as a French tutor, but returned home after a year. She studied art in London and Germany. After the First World War, she taught at a girls’ school, and began writing. She took the pseudonym "Clemence Dane" from the church, St Clement Danes on the Strand, London.

Her first play A Regiment of Women was written in 1917, a study of life in a girls' school. In 1919 she wrote Legend, the story of a group of acquaintances who debate the meaning of a dead friend's life and work. Dane's 1921 play, A Bill of Divorcement, tells the story of a daughter who cares for her deranged father. In 1932 the smash hit play was adapted for film starring Katharine Hepburn and John Barrymore. Dane began writing screenplays as well as novels. She co-wrote the screenplay for Anna Karenina starring Greta Garbo. The pinnacle of Dane’s success was winning an Academy Award with Anthony Pelissier for Vacation from Marriage, released in the United Kingdom as Perfect Strangers, starring Robert Donat and Deborah Kerr.

Dane and Helen de Guerry Simpson wrote three detective novels featuring their creation Sir John Saumarez. Both were members of the Detection Club; Dane contributed to the Club's serials The Scoop and The Floating Admiral.

Dane's last play Eighty in the Shade (1959) was written for and starred her friend, Dame Sybil Thorndike. She is believed to be the template of Madame Arcati, the eccentric medium in her friend Noel Coward's play, Blithe Spirit. The National Portrait Gallery contains two works by Dane, both of Coward. One is an oil painting and the other is a bronze bust. The gallery also contains a painting made of Dane by Frederic Yates.

She also wrote a book on the history of Covent Garden (where she lived for a number of years), published in 1964, entitled "London has a Garden".

By the time of her death in London, on March 28, 1965, Dane had written more than 30 plays and 16 novels.

Novels and plays

• Regiment of Women (1917)
• First the Blade: A Comedy of Growth (1918)
• Legend (1919)
• A Bill of Divorcement (1921)
• William Shakespeare: An Invention (1921)
• Naboth’s Vineyard: A Piece in Three Acts (1925)
• The Women’s Side (1926)
• The Babyons (1927)
• The Dearly Beloved of Benjamin Cobb (1927)
• Mariners (1927)
• Adam’s Opera: The Text of a Play (1928)
• Enter Sir John (1928) (with Helen Simpson)
• Third Person Singular (1928)
• The King Waits (1929)
• Author Unknown (1930) (with Helen Simpson)
• Broome Stages (1931)
• Theater Royale (1931)
• Re-enter Sir John (1932) (with Helen Simpson)
• Julia Newberry's Diary (1933)
• Come of Age: The Text of a Play in Music and Words (1934) (with Richard Addinsell)
• Moonlight is Silver: A Play in three acts (1934)
• Wild December: A Play in Three Acts (1934)
• Edmond Rostand's L'aiglon (1934)
• The Amateur Gentleman: From the Novel By Jeffery Farnol (1936)
• The Moon Is Feminine (1938)
• Hebbel's Herod and Mariamne (1938)
• The Arrogant History of White Ben (1939)
• He Brings Great News (1946)
• Bonny Prince Charlie (1948) (with Dorothy Middleton)
• The Flower Girls (1954)
• Eighty in the Shade (1959)
• The Godson: A Fantasy (1964)

References

• http://gadetection.pbwiki.com/Dane,%20Clemence (The Golden Age of Detection Wiki)
• http://www.pollingerltd.com/estates/clemence_dane.htm
• http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/d/clemence-dane/
• Women, a Modern Political Dictionary by Cheryl Law I.B. Tauris, London (2000). ISBN 186064502X