Elisabeth Ogilvie (1917 - 2006)

Genre: Young Adult, Children's Literature, General Fiction

Ogilvie was born in Boston and raised in Dorchester and Wollaston, MA, summering on the island of Criehaven in Maine. She lived in Cushing, Maine, and wintered in a farmhouse on 33 acres on Gay Island, off Friendship, where she lived with longtime companion (and another Maine writer) Dorothy Simpson for many years. Ogilvie wrote 46 adult, young adult, and children's books, most of them set in Maine, although her Jennie Glenroy series is set in Scotland, the place she called her second favorite after Maine. For more information on Ogilvie, read her autobiographical work, My World is An Island (1950/1990).

Ogilvie's books for adults include:

• High Tide at Noon (1944), the first of the Bennett Island families series
• Storm Tide (1945), second in Bennett Island series
• The Ebbing Tide (1947), third in Bennett Island series
• Rowan Head (1949)
• The Dawning of the Day (1954/1999), 4th in Bennett Island series, romantic suspense fiction set on a remote island off the coast of Maine, involving a young war widow overcoming the prejudice of family rivalries
• No Evil Angel (1956)
• The Witch Door (1959)
• Call Home the Heart (1962)
• There May Be Heaven (1964)
• The Seasons Hereafter (1966), 5th in Bennett Island series
• Waters on a Starry Night( (1968)
• Bellwood (1969)
• The Face of Innocence (1970)
• A Theme for Reason (1970)
• Weep & Know Why (1972)
• Strawberries in the Sea (1973/1999), 6th in Bennett Island series, the story of a young woman on the coast of Maine, who can work as hard as any man, and love as passionately as any woman
• The Dawning of the Day (1973), which is a reprint of the title book, plus The Seasons Hereafter, and Strawberries in the Sea,
• Image of a Lover (1974): Seafair Bell's summer idyll on Drummond's Island, off Maine, begins with songs, swims, and seafood, but before long the golden summer will end in murder and madness
• Where the Lost Aprils Are( (1975)
• The Dreaming Swimmer (1976), romantic suspense
• An Answer in the Tide (1978), 7th in Bennett Island series
• A Dancer in Yellow (1979)
• The Devil in Tartan (1980)
• The Silent Ones (1981)
• The Road to Nowhere (1983)
• Jennie About to Be (1984), set in Scotland
• The World of Jennie G. (1986), 2nd in the Jennie series, set in Maine in early 1800s
• The Summer of the Osprey (1987), 8th in Bennett Island series, in which a mysterious, wealthy lobsterman comes to Bennett Island to catch lobsters for fun, but island residents become suspicious of his motives
• When the Music Stopped (1989), suspense novel, set in the sleepy seaside village of Job's Harbor, Maine; scandals erupt as an incident that took place many years ago is again brought to life
• Jennie Glenroy (1993), 3rd in the Jennie series; setting is based on Thomaston, Maine
• The Day Before Winter (1997), 9th in Bennett Island series.

Her books for children include:

• Whistle for the Wind (1954; takes place in early 1800s)
• Blueberry Summer (1956; romance of a girl on the Maine coast)
• The Fabulous Year (1958)
• How Wide the Heart (1959; later republished as A Steady Kind of Love, 1979)
• The Young Islanders (1960)
• Becky's Island (1961)
• Turn Around Twice (1962)
• Ceiling of Amber (1964)
• Masquerade at Sea House (1965)
• The Pigeon Pair (1967)
• Come Aboard & Bring Your Dory! (1969)
• Beautiful Girl (1980)

Marilyn Westervelt and Melissa Hayes published a book, A Mug-Up with Elisabeth: A Companion for Readers of Elisabeth Ogilvie (2001), which includes a biography, samples from her early writings, and synopses of all her published works.


Last Update: 08/02/2007

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