Audrey White Beyer (1916 - 1985)

Genre: Young Adult

Audrey Beyer was born in Portland on 12 Nov. 1916 and lived in Cape Elizabeth. She attended Westbrook Jr. College (1937), received her bachelor's degree from the University of Maine (1939), and did graduate work at Northeastern University. Her career was spent teaching English at Westbrook College and other schools; in 1960, Westbrook gave her its Award for Alumnae Achievement.

Beyer is best known for her historical fiction for young adults:

• Dark Venture (1958), which won the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, is the story of a 12-year-old African boy, captured and sold into slavery, first in Barbados and then in New England.
• Capture at Sea (1959), which won the Jack and Jill Award, takes place in 1812 with battles at sea.
• The Sapphire Pendant (1961), in which an English orphan girl, rebelling against her guardian, runs away from home and becomes embroiled in the Napoleonic wars.
• Katharine Leslie (1963) is a novel about an innocent sixteen-year-old English girl sentenced to prison for theft. She escapes to pre-Revolutionary Maine and gets caught up in the struggle for American independence. Based on actual incidents.

Last Update: 06/06/2007

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