Hilda Lewis #NottsWriters

To celebrate the May 5th launch of Follow the Moon and Stars here's a new series on #NottsWriters: 

Hilda Lewis (1896–1974)

After marrying in 1921, London born Hilda Lewis remained in Nottingham for the rest of her life, the city inspiring one of her early novels set in the lace-making industry.

Lewis believed in the importance of authenticity and, based on diligent research into the declining Nottingham lace industry of the late nineteenth century, her Penny Lace (1946) captures the difficulties faced by the Lace Market’s factories. Lewis corresponded with several lace manufacturers before writing Penny Lace, a masterly chronicle of Nottingham life featuring some iconic settings.

Hilda Lewis lived at the edge of Wollaton Park and her novel More Glass than Wall is set in a fictional Wollaton Hall and Park. 

Her interest in social issues was explored in Strange Story (1945) which influenced post-war opinion on capital punishment. Strange Story is a disturbing tale of twins:

Lying there…with her miraculous twins…Emmy Wilder was the happiest woman in the world. It was well that she was not to know that she held in her arms the killer and the slain…

And, in a time when the return of capital punishment was a matter of much debate, Because I Must (1938) made a powerful argument. The book begins “I remember the day they hanged my mother.’

Her husband was Director of Education at Nottingham University, and, as Professor M. Michael Lewis, he specialised in the education of the deaf, work that inspired Lewis’s The Day is Ours (1947).

Via her husband, Hilda Lewis developed an interest in the language of children. He had focused his educational research on deaf children, resulting in her most famous book.

In The Day is Ours filmed as Mandy, also known as Crash of Silence (1952), it takes a mother some time before she realises her perfect child, Tamsie, has been born completely deaf. Facing a life of isolation, Tamsie Garland's spirit to conquer comes through. Read as a serial for Women’s Hour, the story and its realism touched hearts and raised awareness of hearing difficulties. 

In later years she wrote historical novels.

Set in the East Midlands The Witch and the Priest (1956) is a story concerning a notorious witch of exotic appearance.

Enter a Player (1952) is a powerful novel of life in the theatre in the great days of Irving Tree and George Edwardes.

Gone to the Pictures (1946) is a valuable contribution to the literature of the cinema. It offers an unusual and absorbing background of the growth of early cinema, set in London’s East End where her first book had been set in 1930.

In the tragi-comedy Madam Gold (1947), Ester Gold fights through poverty and power.

In Imogen under Glass (1943), Imogen Hutton fears living an adult life whilst also being jealous of her younger sister. Imogen, who literally cannot move, sets her heart on her sister’s lover.

Call Lady Purbeck (1961) is a true and moving story of a young girl’s travail in a world populated with some of the most colourful figures in English history.

“Had Eliza Hatton taken Francis Bacon for her second husband – this tale would not have been written.”

‘This is a novel few women could resist’, wrote The Daily Telegraph of Wife to Great Buckingham (1971). Lewis brings colour, excitement and the vitality of truth into the turbulent story of the charming Catherine Manners and George Villiers.

Excluded by former friends after attending a posh school, Geraldine starts a new life in Pilican Inn (1972).

I, Jacqueline (1957) has its jacket designed by the renowned Nottingham artist Evelyn Gibbs (1905-1991), who created the artwork for several of Lewis’ books.

Gibbs wrote the influential book The Teaching of Art in Schools. Her biography was written by the local writer Pauline Lucas.

Lewis also wrote for children and young adults, her books included The Gentle Falcon about Richard II and his bride Isabella, adapted for television in 1954, and The Ship that Flew, her first famous book (1939).

Hilda Lewis died in January 1974 after complications following a major operation.