The winner is....

Rylie! I'll be emailing you shortly to get your mailing address.

Thanks to all who entered! I wish I could send out copies to you all. For those of you who haven't read Mary Stewart, get to your local public library! Most libraries of decent size should have some Stewarts.

Happy Birthday to Mary Stewart!

Today is Mary Stewart's 93rd birthday. We send our best wishes to her for a happy day!

In honor of the event, we'd like to do a little GIVEAWAY! Chicago Review Press has been reissuing some Mary Stewart titles in trade paperback editions with lovely covers. The lastest is The Ivy Tree.

The publisher was nice enough to send us a review copy -- we, in turn, will pass it along to one of you. Simply leave a comment and you'll be entered in a drawing to win it. (International is fine, but please be aware that I will send it by the cheapest, slowest delivery method available to me. I'm a poor grad student, you know.) We'll pick a name out of the hat this Sunday.

Don't know what The Ivy Tree is about?! Read the blurb! It's so fabulous. Believe me.

Contacting Mary Stewart

We've gotten several emails from people asking if we know how to get fan mail to Mary Stewart. I'm afraid I don't have a very good answer. I've never tried to write to her. Has anyone ever been successful in getting mail to her?

The only suggestion I have is to write to her c/o her publisher. Her American publisher is HarperCollins. Their contact page says that they will forward fan mail on to their authors. You should address the envelope as follows:

Mary Stewart
c/o Author mail, 7th Floor
HarperCollins Publishers
10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022

Her British publisher, Hodder, does not have any info on their website about contacting authors. They might forward mail as well, but I'm not sure. I've written emails to them a couple times about it, but haven't gotten any response.

If anyone has any other info to share, please do!

Better scans from LHJ!

A few weeks ago, I posted about the Nine Coaches Waiting condensation that was published in Ladies Home Journal in 1958. I'd scanned some images from a microfilm copy, and the quality was really sad. I have a wonderful mother who loves to shop online (she can find anything!) and who also loves Mary Stewart. So I was surprised by a package on my stoop -- a print copy of the September 1958 Ladies Home Journal. Yay! Here are much improved scans (in color!). They're so pretty.






The table of contents page has a little biography of Mary Stewart. It says that in her spare time she "directs college plays and exercises race horses." I knew about her passion for drama, but exercising race horses? So glamorous! I guess that's why The Ivy Tree's horse-whisperer heroine seems so authentic.


Thanks, Mama!!

Congratulations to Lady Stewart!

On July 3, Mary Stewart was awarded an honorary degree (a Doctor of Letters) by her alma mater, Durham University. This news release states that she is one of six to be honored this summer, though the article is sadly almost entirely about some British newscaster who I don't care about. However, I was able to find a copy of the speech that was to be read at Mary Stewart's ceremony, which includes a nice biographical sketch. Stewart attended Durham University as a student from 1935 to 1938, and then returned in 1941 as a Lecturer of English, during which time she also received her MA. She taught at Durham until 1945, when she married.

Durham Cathedral, where the ceremony took place

The speech doesn't really provide any new info that I haven't found previously in other sources (and I think my biography is a little better!). But it does mention that Stewart currently still resides in her home on the shores of Loch Awe in Scotland. I love the idea of Mary Stewart enjoying her retirement in a picturesque Scottish house on the shores of a beautiful lake.

Loch Awe

I'll keep an eye out for any photos or info that surface on the Internet about the ceremony.

Charles Geer retrospective at Mulford Gallery

Charles Geer is a children's book and cover illustrator who did the beautiful drawings for many of the William Morrow editions of Mary Stewart's hardcovers. I've tried to do research on him, but have been unable to find too much. Here are a couple of his Stewart covers:




I came across an announcement for a show of Geer's work at the Mulford Gallery in Rockland, ME. From the announcement, it sounds like there will be drawings from his Stewart covers there, though I'm not sure. Anyone live near Rockland who can go check it out for us? The show runs through June 15.

Coronet covers

A couple of kind Stewart fans have sent us a few more covers that we'd never seen before, including these two Coronet paperback covers. I've seen other Stewarts in this style and have loved them. They're obviously done by the same illustrator, and I think they really capture the feeling of Stewart's books, with a certain 1970s flair.

Look how glamorous Gianetta looks!

I have to say this one is less attractive than the others. I suppose that man must be Con? He looks so angry and mean he just couldn't possibly be Adam! And in Kelly's words, Annabel looks vapid.

Here are some more that we already had in our collection. This Madam, Will You Talk is my absolute favorite! We loved it so much that we used the illustration on the header of the website. Richard is looking very James Bond with his pistol.

I love that you can see the dead body washed ashore in the background. And Lucy looks so unconcerned.

Beautiful! But why is Jennifer wearing a Grecian outfit? And what is to the left of her? Is that a boat? There are no boats in Thunder, are there?