Ethel Lina White

Ethel Lina White (1876-1944) was an English crime writer, best known for her novel, "The Wheel Spins" (1936), on which the Alfred Hitchcock film, "The Lady Vanishes" (1938), was based.

Early years

Born in Abergavenny, Monmouthshire, south east Wales in 1876, White started writing as a child, contributing essays and poems to children's papers. Later she began to write short stories, but it was some years before she wrote books.

One of the best known crime writers

She left employment in a government job working for the Ministry of Pensions in order to pursue writing. Her writing was to make her one of the best known crime writers in Britain and the USA during 1930s and 1940's

Her first three works, published between 1927 and 1930, were mainstream novels. Her first crime novel, published in 1931, was "Put Out the Light".

Death

She died in London in 1944 aged 68. Her works have enjoyed a revival in recent years with a stage adaptation of 'The Lady Vanishes' touring the UK in 2001 and the BBC broadcast and abridged version on BBC Radio 4.

Bibliography

*"The Wish-Bone" (1927)
*"Twill Soon Be Dark" (1929)
*"The Eternal Journey" (1930)
*"Put Out the Light" (1931)
*"Fear Stalks the Village" (1932)
*"Some Must Watch" (1933) (filmed in 1946 as "The Spiral Staircase", remade for TV in 2000)
*"Wax" (1935)
*"The First Time He Died" (1935)
*"The Wheel Spins" (1936) (filmed in 1938 by Alfred Hitchcock as "The Lady Vanishes", remade under the same title in 1979)
*"The Third Eye" (1937)
*"The Elephant Never Forgets" (1937)
*"Step in the Dark" (1938)
*"While She Sleeps" (1940)
*"She Faded into Air" (1941)
*"Midnight House" (U.S. title "Her Heart in Her Throat", 1942, filmed in 1945 as "The Unseen")
*"The Man Who Loved Lions" (U.S. title "The Man Who Was Not There", 1943)
*"They See in Darkness" (1944)