Ursula Bloom

Ursula Bloom (11 December 1892 – 29 October 1984) was a British novelist.

Biography

Ursula Harvey Bloom was born on 11 December 1892 in Springfield, Chelmsford, Essex, the daughter of the Reverend James Harvey Bloom, whom she wrote about in a biography entitled Parson Extraordinary. She also wrote about her great-grandmother, Frances Graver (born 1809), who was of gypsy (Diddicoy) birth. Graver became known as the "Rose of Norfolk", a sobriquet used by Bloom as the title of her biography. Bloom lived for a number of years in Stratford-upon-Avon, which was the subject of another book, Rosemary for Stratford-upon-Avon.[1]

She wrote her first book at the age of seven. Charles Dickens was always a dominant influence: she had read every book of his before she was ten years of age, and then re-read them in her teens. A prolific author, she wrote over 500 books, an achievement that earned her recognition in the Guinness Book of World Records. Many of her novels were written under pseudonyms, including Sheila Burns, Mary Essex, Rachel Harvey, Deborah Mann, Lozania Prole and Sara Sloane.[2] She appeared frequently on British television. Her journalistic experiences were written about in her book The Mightier Sword[3]

Her hobbies included needlework, which she exhibited, and cooking.

Ursula Bloom married twice. Her first husband was Arthur Brownlow Denham-Cookes, whom she married in 1916 and with whom she had a son, Pip, born in 1917. Arthur died of influenza in 1918, in the final days of the war.[4] In 1925 she married Charles Gower Robinson, a Royal Navy Commander. She died on 29 October 1984, aged 91, in a nursing home in Nether Wallop, Hampshire.[5]

Works
  • The Duke of Windsor
  • Victorian Vinaigrette
  • The Song of Philomel
  • The Elegant Edwardian
  • Youth at the Gate
  • Down to the Sea in Ships
  • War isn't Wonderful
  • Twilight of a Tudor
  • The Dragonfly
  • The Flight of the Falcon
  • The Ring Tree
  • The Girl Who Loved Crippen (The Story of Dr Crippen and Ethel Le Neve)
  • Parson Extraordinary (About Bloom's father - The Reverend Harvey Bloom) [6]
  • Rosemary for Stratford-upon-Avon (Written about the town by Bloom while she was living there) [7]
  • Rosemary for Frinton (Norfolk - UK)
  • The Rose of Norfolk (About Bloom's Great Grandmother - Frances Graver) [8]
  • Tea Is So Intoxicating (as Mary Essex)
  • The Amorous Bicycle (as Mary Essex)
  • Haircut For Samson (as Mary Essex)
  • Nesting Cats (as Mary Essex)
  • Eve Didn't Care (as Mary Essex)
  • Marry To Taste (as Mary Essex)
  • Freddy For Fun (as Mary Essex)
  • ‘’Henry's Golden Queen’’ (as Lozania Prole)

Footnotes
  1. Detail from a copy of The Rose of Norfolk published by Robert Hale (London) in 1964
  2. https://web.archive.org/web/20131228100752/http://www3.shropshire-cc.gov.uk/bloom.htm
  3. Facts from a copy of The Rose of Norfolk published by Robert Hale (London) in 1964
  4. Bloom, Ursula (1959), Youth at the Gate, Hutchinson, London
  5. "Ursula Bloom Dies at 91". Newcastle Journal (43006). 31 October 1984. p. 2. Retrieved 4 March 2019 – via British Newspaper Archive.
  6. Detail taken from a copy of The Rose of Norfolk by Ursula Bloom published by Robert Hale (London) in 1964
  7. Detail taken from a copy of The Rose of Norfolk
  8. Detail taken from a copy of the book published by Robert Hale (London) in 1964.
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