Josephine Tey was a pseudonym used by Elizabeth MacKintosh (25 July 1896 – 13 February 1952), a Scottish author best known for her mystery novels.
She also wrote as Gordon Daviot, under which name she wrote plays, many with biblical or historical themes.
Tey lived at her sister's house at 235 Covington Way, Streatham for the last few years of her life, moving from Inverness, her birth place.
She took the name Josephine Tey. Josephine Tey, which combines her mother's name with the surname of an English grandparent from Suffolk was first used in 1937 for Tey's second mystery, A Shilling for Candles. All of her subsequent mystery novels were written as Tey.
Sir John Gielgud stated that she always preferred her plays and that she referred wryly to her novels as her ‘yearly knitting’. However, Gielgud may have taken her remarks too seriously for in October, 1950 in a letter to her publisher, Nico (Nicholas) Davies of the firm Peter Davies Ltd, she stated that she "got more of a kick out of seeing my Josephine Tey novels in the middle of the Times Book Club window than in seeing my name in front of the New Theatre" [where her play Richard of Bordeaux, starring Gielgud, had had its great success].
Many of her theatre friends, including Dame Edith Evans and Sir John Gielgud, attended the funeral service at Streatham Vale Crematorium on Monday, 18th February, 1952
She also wrote as Gordon Daviot, under which name she wrote plays, many with biblical or historical themes.
Tey lived at her sister's house at 235 Covington Way, Streatham for the last few years of her life, moving from Inverness, her birth place.
She took the name Josephine Tey. Josephine Tey, which combines her mother's name with the surname of an English grandparent from Suffolk was first used in 1937 for Tey's second mystery, A Shilling for Candles. All of her subsequent mystery novels were written as Tey.
Sir John Gielgud stated that she always preferred her plays and that she referred wryly to her novels as her ‘yearly knitting’. However, Gielgud may have taken her remarks too seriously for in October, 1950 in a letter to her publisher, Nico (Nicholas) Davies of the firm Peter Davies Ltd, she stated that she "got more of a kick out of seeing my Josephine Tey novels in the middle of the Times Book Club window than in seeing my name in front of the New Theatre" [where her play Richard of Bordeaux, starring Gielgud, had had its great success].
Many of her theatre friends, including Dame Edith Evans and Sir John Gielgud, attended the funeral service at Streatham Vale Crematorium on Monday, 18th February, 1952
