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Mary Wesley

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Mary Wesley


Born
in Englefield Green, Surrey, The United Kingdom
June 24, 1912

Died
December 30, 2002

Genre
Children's Books, Literature & Fiction


Mary Wesley, CBE was an English novelist. She reportedly worked in MI5 during World War II. During her career, she became one of Britain's most successful novelists, selling three million copies of her books, including 10 best-sellers in the last 20 years of her life.

She wrote three children's books, Speaking Terms and The Sixth Seal (both 1969) and Haphazard House (1983), before publishing adult fiction. Since her first adult novel was published only in 1983, when she was 71, she may be regarded as a late bloomer. The publication of Jumping the Queue in 1983 was the beginning of an intensely creative period of Wesley's life. From 1982 to 1991, she wrote and delivered seven novels. While she aged from 70 to 79 she still showed the focus and ...more

Combine Editions

Average rating: 3.85 · 16,399 ratings · 1,316 reviews · 71 distinct works • Similar authors
The Camomile Lawn
3.86 avg rating — 5,427 ratings — published 1984 — 6 editions
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Part of the Furniture
3.96 avg rating — 1,464 ratings — published 1997 — 35 editions
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Harnessing Peacocks
3.89 avg rating — 1,432 ratings — published 1985 — 35 editions
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A Sensible Life
3.88 avg rating — 1,422 ratings — published 1990 — 48 editions
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Not That Sort of Girl
3.94 avg rating — 1,366 ratings — published 1987 — 2 editions
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Jumping the Queue
3.78 avg rating — 1,206 ratings — published 1983 — 30 editions
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The Vacillations of Poppy C...
3.86 avg rating — 1,110 ratings — published 1986 — 24 editions
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A Dubious Legacy
3.67 avg rating — 1,036 ratings — published 1992 — 42 editions
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An Imaginative Experience
3.89 avg rating — 915 ratings — published 1994 — 39 editions
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Second Fiddle
3.57 avg rating — 761 ratings — published 1988 — 30 editions
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55 likes · 83 comments
Quotes by Mary Wesley  (?)
Quotes are added by the Goodreads community and are not verified by Goodreads. (Learn more)

“Unimaginative people are spared quite a lot.”
― Mary Wesley
20 likes
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“I have no patience with people who grow old at sixty... Sixty should be the time to start something new, not put your feet up.”
― Mary Wesley
tags: aging-evolving
11 likes
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“herself could only just manage Hebe’s exorbitant fees once or twice a year. She was quite unaware that Hebe,”
― Mary Wesley, Harnessing Peacocks
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