D E Stevenson

Life

Stevenson was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1892. Her father was David Alan Stevenson, a lighthouse engineer and first cousin to author Robert Louis Stevenson. A commemorative plaque marking the house where she was born was mounted in 2016. She began writing at a young age but hid her efforts because her parents and governesses disapproved. Her father refused to send her to university, lest she become a bluestocking.

In 1916 Stevenson married James Reid Peploe, a captain in the 6th Ghurkha Rifles. Her 1932 novel Mrs. Tim of the Regiment, which describes her life as a British army wife, was based on her personal diary.

She wrote most of her books while living in the town of Moffat, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. Her novels were best-sellers, with more than seven million copies printed and translations in multiple languages. Her last book was published in 1969.

Stevenson died in 1973.

Inter-book links

Some of Stevenson's characters appear as supporting characters or make cameo appearances in her other novels. She also sometimes reused settings.

Miss Buncle spills into The Four Graces as well as Spring Magic, and her book is described in Anna and her Daughters. Celia's House inspired Listening Valley, where Celia makes a re-appearance. We hear of her again during Anna and Her Daughters. Anna pops up briefly in the Katherine books which link with Charlotte Fairlie (Mr. Heath the vicar makes a re-appearance this time). Later Sarah Morris ends up in Ryddelton in Sarah's Cottage to be befriended by Debbie (who made her debut in Celia's House) and to hear about Tonia (Listening Valley) and Charlotte Fairlie.

More links exist from the Katherine books, via Mr Sandford the lawyer, to House on the Cliff which links via Miss Martineau the landlady to The Blue Sapphire. The Katherine books also tell us more about MacAslan who we first meet in Smouldering Fire. Stevenson's last book, The House of the Deer (a reworking of a serial published in The Glasgow Bulletin in 1936) revisits the MacAslan family in the second generation, and is a sequel to Gerald and Elizabeth.

Gerald and Elizabeth enter into the saga around Drumburly and re-introduce Freda from Five Windows. Jock from the Music in the Hills trilogy also knows of Freda. Bel Lamington links into these books. Bel's friend Margaret was a Musgrave, and there are links from The Musgraves to The Tall Stranger, which was a sequel (of sorts) to Five Windows (though Stevenson, uncharacteristically, makes an error between the two books - in Five Windows the main character is David Kirke while in The Tall Stranger his name is spelled Kirk). The Musgraves give a tenuous link back to Ryddelton via "The Mulberry Coach", a story written by one of Anna's daughters and nearly performed by Delia Musgrave.

The Amberwell books link closely to Still Glides the Stream which in turn ties in with the Sarah books, in that Will and Sarah both visit Nivennes and meet with the Delormes family, although their visits are many years apart.

Another recurring character is the author Janetta Walters, whose light romantic novels are either loved or loathed by Stevenson characters. We first hear of her books in Mrs. Tim Carries On and Spring Magic. She appears in person in The Two Mrs. Abbotts and The Four Graces.

Republication

Some of Stevenson's most popular books are being reissued.

Persephone Books reprinted Miss Buncle's Book in 2008 and Miss Buncle Married in 2011. Mrs. Tim of the Regiment was reprinted by Bloomsbury in 2010. Sourcebooks Landmark released the latter two Miss Buncle books in the U.S. in 2012, followed in 2013 by The Young Clementina and The Two Mrs. Abbotts.