First Edition The Ivy Tree by Mary Stewart, 1961

First edition of The Ivy Tree by Mary Stewart, printed by Hodder and Stoughton in 1961. Foxing to the paper ends and the cover is somewhat shabby but the pages inside are tight and clean and in good condition. Bears an inscription dated 17 January 1962.

Mary Lady Stewart (born Mary Florence Elinor Rainbow, 1916 –2014) was a British novelist who developed the romantic mystery genre, featuring smart, adventurous heroines who could hold their own in dangerous situations. She graduated from Durham University in 1938 with first-class honours in English and worked part-time as a temporary lecturer in the English Department at Durham University, where she met her husband, Frederick Stewart. They moved to Edinburgh in 1956 where he became professor of geology and mineralogy. It was there she submitted her first novel to the publishers Hodder & Stoughton. ‘Madam, Will You Talk?’ was an immediate success. The Ivy Tree was her sixth novel.

Matthew Winslow depends on his great-nephew, Connor, for the running of the manor farm Whitescar, but the return “home” of a young woman calling herself Annabel Winslow threatens to set a spark into the powder-keg of Con’s ambition.