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Mary Renault

British novelist (1905–1983)

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Born in Forest Gate in 1905, she attended St Hugh's College, Oxford, from 1924 until 1928. After graduating from St Hugh's with a Third Class in English, she worked as a nurse and began writing her first novels, which were contemporary romances. In 1948, she moved to Durban, South Africa with her partner, Julie Mullard, and later to Cape Town, where she spent the rest of her life. Living in South Africa allowed her to write about openly gay characters without fearing the censorship and homophobia of England. She devoted herself to writing historical fiction in the 1950s, which were also her most successful books. She is best known for her historical fiction today.

Renault's works are often rooted in themes related to love, sexuality and relationships. Her books attracted a large gay following at the time of their publication, when few mainstream works depicted homosexuality in a positive light. Her work has had a generally positive reception by critics. She has received numerous awards and honours, both during her lifetime and posthumously.

Biography

Youth and education

Eileen Mary Challans was born on 4 September 1905 at Dacre Lodge, 49 Plashet Road, Forest Gate, Essex. She was the elder daughter of physician Frank Challans and (Mary) Clementine Newsome, daughter of dentist John Baxter, who claimed descent from the Puritan church leader Richard Baxter. Her mother was "a desperately aspirational housewife, whose favourite word was 'nice'". She had one younger sister, (Frances) Joyce, who Challans always felt was the favourite daughter. She had a comfortable, yet strained childhood; her parents had a contentious relationship, and her father was neglectful of his children. When she was 15, her mother's sister Bertha paid for her to be sent to a boarding school in Bristol, and then to attend the University of Oxford. As a result of entering boarding school later than most of her peers, Challans struggled to catch up in mathematics and Latin. She relied on the Loeb Classical Library to read Greek and Latin texts with English translation.

Challans was educated first at Levick Family School and Clifton Girls School in Bristol. She began attending St Hugh's College, Oxford, then an all-women's college, in 1924. While at St Hugh's, she studied history, mythology, philosophy and ancient literature. Although her studies included classical languages such as Latin, her Ancient Greek language skills were self taught. She graduated with an undergraduate degree in English in 1928. One of her tutors was J.R.R. Tolkien, who encouraged her to write a novel set in medieval times, but she burned the manuscript because she felt it lacked authenticity.

Nursing and early writing

Challans' mother encouraged her to take an interest in marriage. Following her degree, when her father refused to support her career as a writer, she left home and, to support herself, trained as a nurse. She began her training in 1933 at the Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford. During her training she met Julie Mullard, a fellow nurse with whom she established a lifelong romantic relationship. Despite the mores of the time and the fact that Mullard had received an offer of marriage from one of her male lovers, they were determined to be a couple. They sneaked into each other's rooms at night, and on one occasion had to hide beneath the sheets when a matron burst in.

Challans worked as a nurse while writing her first novel, Purposes of Love, using the pseudonym Mary Renault to keep her writing secret should it meet with disapproval. She chose this pseudonym from Froissart's Chronicles and used it for the entirety of her professional literary career. The novel was published in 1939 by Longman in the United Kingdom, and by William Morrow and Company in the United States. After receiving a cash advance from Morrow, Challans bought an MG sports car. Although Challans had failed her driving test, she decided to drive the car anyway along with Mullard, who also did not have a driving licence. In June 1939, they were in a car crash. Mullard was hospitalized for facial injuries. A few weeks later, the two women retreated to a small cottage in Cornwall where they lived off the income from Purposes of Love. Challans had nearly completed her second novel when World War II began. By May 1940, both Challans and Mullard had been called in to treat patients at Winford Emergency Hospital in Bristol. There, they briefly treated evacuees from the Battle of Dunkirk. Renault worked in the Radcliffe Infirmary's brain surgery ward until 1945.

Her novel The Friendly Young Ladies (1943), about a lesbian relationship between a writer and a nurse, is thought to be inspired by her relationship with Mullard. It is the only lesbian novel written by Renault.

Academic and writing career

In 1948, after winning an MGM prize worth £37,000 for Return to Night, Challans was able to leave nursing and devote herself to writing full time. Challans and Mullard emigrated to Durban, South Africa, which was home to a community of gay and lesbian expatriates who had left the more sexually repressive environments of Britain and the United States. Because of this, Challans and Mullard were able to live together as a couple without causing much controversy. Challans worked successfully as an author after the couple's arrival in South Africa in 1948, and continued to write until her death in 1983. In 1964, she became president of the South African chapter of International PEN, an association of writers, a position which she held until 1981. Both women were critical of the less liberal aspects of their new home, and participated in the Black Sash movement against apartheid in the 1950s. Challans became disillusioned with Black Sash, however, when it refused to protest against new anti-homosexuality laws in 1968.

Challans travelled in Africa, Greece and Crete, but never returned to Britain. She had a mutual admiration for the novelist Patrick O'Brian, with whom she exchanged letters. Her earlier British reputation as a writer of sensationalist bestsellers faded, and in 1983 she was listed as one of the famous alumnae who had brought honour to the Radcliffe Infirmary Nurses' Home. Challans became ill in August 1983, and was diagnosed with lung cancer and pneumonia. In her final days she tried to complete a final novel, which remained unfinished after she went into residential hospice care. She died in Cape Town on 13 December 1983. She directed her papers, including correspondence and the partially finished manuscript, were to be burned upon her death. Mullard died in 1996.

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