Evangeline Walton
Evangeline Walton Ensley | |
---|---|
Indianapolis, Indiana | |
Died | March 11, 1996 Tucson, Arizona | (aged 88)
Pen name | Evangeline Walton |
Occupation | Author |
Genre | Fantasy |
Notable works |
|
Evangeline Walton (24 November 1907 – 11 March 1996) was the pen name of Evangeline Wilna Ensley, an American writer of fantasy fiction. She remains popular in North America and Europe because of her “ability to humanize historical and mythological subjects with eloquence, humor and compassion”.[1]
Life
Born in
Most of Walton’s published and unpublished works were originally written in the 1920s through the early 1950s. She worked on her best known work, the Mabinogion tetralogy, during the late 1930s and early 1940s, and her Theseus trilogy during the late 1940s. Once success found her after 1970, she reworked many of her manuscripts for publication over the next twenty years. Walton said of her knack for writing fantasy: “My own method has always been to try to put flesh and blood on the bones of the original myth; I almost never contradict sources, I only add and interpret.”[1] In 1991, she underwent surgery for a brain tumor that proved benign. However, her health continued to decline.
Treated as a child with silver nitrate tincture for frequent bronchitis and severe sinus infections, Walton, who had extremely fair skin, absorbed the pigment of the tincture, causing her skin to turn blue-gray and darken as she aged.
Walton corresponded with the British novelist, essayist and poet
Walton herself wrote about her chosen pen name, "I use the name Walton professionally, partly because I originally hoped to build up different lines of work under different names, partly because Walton is an old family name and appears on the Declaration of Independence. Not that I can trace any blood connection between my Quaker Waltons and the Declaration signer. They came from Virginia, and were supposed to have had a [Native American] man somewhere up the family tree. He may be the reason why both records and tradition trail off into vagueness. But when I was a child, old folk remembered the Waltons as very tall, very dark people, too full of restless energy to fit quietly into their peaceful little Quaker community: a vivid, turbulent note in it."
Writings
Walton is best known for her four novels retelling the Welsh
Editors at Ballantine were unaware that she was still alive, till she got in touch and sent them a second novel that had been left unfinished when the first failed to sell. This appeared as
Walton's Witch House was written in the mid- to late-1930s and published in 1945 as the first volume in “The Library of Arkham House Novels of Fantasy and Terror”. It is an occult horror story set in New England. In 1956, she published The Cross and the Sword, a historical novel set during the Danish conquest of England and the destruction of its Celtic culture.[2]
In 1983, Walton published The Sword Is Forged, the first of a planned Theseus trilogy.[2] Walton had completed the trilogy in the late 1940s but the publication by Mary Renault of her Theseus novels in 1958 and 1962 kept Walton from publishing her own. The remaining two novels in the trilogy remain unpublished.[6]
Walton published several
Currently Douglas A. Anderson is the agent for Walton's literary works.
Awards
- Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature, Best Novel nominee, 1972: The Children of Llyr.
- Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature, Best Novel winner, 1973: The Song of Rhiannon.
- Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature, Best Novel nominee, 1975: Prince of Annwn.
- Locus Award, 1975: Prince of Annwn, 20th place.
- Fritz Leiber Fantasy Award, "Gray Mouser Award", Science Fiction/Fantasy's Fantasy Faire, 1979.
- World Fantasy Convention, Convention Award, 1985.
- Locus Award, 1984: The Sword Is Forged, 26th place.
- World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement, 1989.[7]
Bibliography
Mabinogion tetralogy
- The Virgin and the Swine. November 1936. Republished as The Island of the Mighty. July 1970.
- The Children of Llyr. August 1971.
- The Song of Rhiannon. August 1972.
- Prince of Annwn. November 1974.
Other novels
- Witch House. September 1945.
- The Cross and the Sword. October 1956.
- The Sword Is Forged. July 1983.
- She Walks in Darkness. Tachyon Publications, September 2013.
Collections
- Above Ker-Is and Other Stories. March 2012.
Short stories
- "At the End of the Corridor." 1950.
- "Above Ker-Is." 1978.
- "The Mistress of Kaer-Mor." 1980.
- "The Chinese Woman." 1981.
- "The Judgement of St. Yves." 1981.
- "The Ship from Away." 1982.
- "The Forest That Would Not Be Cut Down." 1985.
- "Cannibal Sorcerer" (with Bruce D. Arthurs). 1993.
- "They That Have Wings." Fantasy & Science Fiction, Nov/Dec 2011.
- "Lus-Mor." 2012.
- "The Other One." 2012.
- "The Tree of Perkunas." 2012.
- "Werewolf." 2012.
References
- ^ a b Spencer, Paul. “Evangeline Walton: an interview.” Fantasy Review, March 1985.
- ^ ISBN 9781558622050(pp. 586-7) .
- ^ Pavillard, Dan. "Fantastic Author Escapes on the Typewriter." Tucson Daily Citizen. (Dec. 2, 1972) pg. 11ff.
- ^ This is detailed in the introduction to the 1971 edition.
- ^ "The moonlight confessions of Stevie Nicks". Los Angeles Times. September 30, 2020. Retrieved October 8, 2020.
- ^ "Interview: Douglas A. Anderson on Evangeline Walton". SF Site. November 22, 2011. Retrieved March 16, 2016.
- ^ World Fantasy Convention. "Award Winners and Nominees". Archived from the original on December 1, 2010. Retrieved 4 Feb 2011.
Further reading
- Lin Carter. Imaginary Worlds: The Art of Fantasy. NY: Ballantine, 1973, pp. 169–73.
External links
- Official website maintained by her heir and her literary agent
- Evangeline Walton at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
- Papers of Evangeline Walton: Special Collections, University of Arizona Tucson
- Evangeline Walton at Library of Congress, with 14 library catalog records