Pauline Gedge

Author profile

born

in Auckland, New Zealand

December 11, 1945

gender

female

website

http://www.paulinegedge.com/

genre

Historical Fiction, Science Fiction & Fantasy

About this author

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I was born in Auckland, New Zealand, on December 11, 1945, the first of three girls. Six years later my family emigrated to England where my father, an ex-policeman, wanted to study for the Anglican ministry. We lived in an ancient and very dilapidated cottage in the heart of the English Buckinghamshire woodland, and later in a small village in Oxfordshire called Great Haseley. I grew up surrounded by countryside that I observed, played in, and grew to know and love passionately, and I wrote lyrically of its many moods.

My father had his first parish in Oxford, so in 1956, having passed the eleven-plus exam, a torture now fortunately defunct, I attended what was then the Oxford Central School for Girls. I was a very good student in everythin...more I was born in Auckland, New Zealand, on December 11, 1945, the first of three girls. Six years later my family emigrated to England where my father, an ex-policeman, wanted to study for the Anglican ministry. We lived in an ancient and very dilapidated cottage in the heart of the English Buckinghamshire woodland, and later in a small village in Oxfordshire called Great Haseley. I grew up surrounded by countryside that I observed, played in, and grew to know and love passionately, and I wrote lyrically of its many moods.

My father had his first parish in Oxford, so in 1956, having passed the eleven-plus exam, a torture now fortunately defunct, I attended what was then the Oxford Central School for Girls. I was a very good student in everything but mathematics. Any academic discipline that is expressed and interpreted through words I could conquer, but math was bewildering and foreign, a maze of numbers and ridiculous symbols with which I had nothing in common. I liked chemistry, because I was allowed to play with pretty crystals and chemicals that behaved as if they had magic in them. I studied the violin, an instrument I struggled over and gave up after two years, and the piano, which I enjoyed and continue to play, along with the recorders. Music has always been important to me.

Then in 1959 my father accepted a parish in Virden, Manitoba, and the family left for Canada. After three months at the local high school, I was sent to a boarding school in Saskatchewan. It was the most dehumanizing, miserable experience of my life. In 1961 I began one inglorious year at the University of Manitoba’s Brandon College. I did not work very hard, and just before final exams I was told that my sister Anne was dying. I lost all interest in passing.

Anne wanted to die in the country where she was born, so we all returned to New Zealand. She died a month after our arrival, and is buried in Auckland. The rest of us moved down to the tip of the South Island where my father had taken the parish of Riverton. For a year I worked as a substitute teacher in three rural schools. In ’64 I attended the Teachers’ Training College in Dunedin, South Island, where my writing output became prolific but again my studies suffered. I did not particularly want to be a teacher. All I wanted to do was stay home and read and write. I was eighteen, bored and restless. I met my first husband there.

In 1966 I married and returned to Canada, this time to Alberta, with my husband and my family. I found work at a day care in Edmonton. My husband and I returned to England the next year, and my first son, Simon, was born there in January ’68. In 1969 we came back to Edmonton, and my second son was born there in December 1970.

By 1972 I was divorced, and I moved east of Edmonton to the village of Edgerton. I wrote my first novel and entered it in the Alberta Search-for-a-New-Novelist Competition. It took fourth place out of ninety-eight entries, and though it received no prize, the comments from the judges and my family encouraged me to try again. The next year I entered my second attempt, a bad novel that sank out of sight. Finally in 1975 I wrote and submitted Child of the Morning, the story of Hatshepsut, an 18th Dynasty Egyptian pharaoh, which won the competition. With it came a publishing deal with Macmillan of Canada and the rest, as they say, is history.
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Published on April 05, 2013 13:15 • 43 views

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Pauline Gedge's Books

Average rating: 4.08 · 4,628 ratings · 334 reviews · 20 distinct works · Similar authors

	Child of the Morning 4.14 of 5 stars 4.14 avg rating — 1,117 ratings — published 1977 — 39 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Eagle and the Raven by Pauline Gedge, Donna Gillespie (Goodreads Author) (Foreword) 4.14 of 5 stars 4.14 avg rating — 451 ratings — published 1978 — 15 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Hippopotamus Marsh (Lord of the Two Lands, #1) 4.0 of 5 stars 4.00 avg rating — 436 ratings — published 1998 — 11 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	House of Illusions 4.08 of 5 stars 4.08 avg rating — 380 ratings — published 1996 — 11 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Lady of the Reeds (Lady of the Reeds, #1) 4.17 of 5 stars 4.17 avg rating — 430 ratings — published 1994 — 9 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Oasis (Lords of the Two Lands, #2) 4.04 of 5 stars 4.04 avg rating — 322 ratings — published 1988 — 10 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Twelfth Transforming 3.95 of 5 stars 3.95 avg rating — 314 ratings — published 1984 — 15 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Horus Road (Lords of the Two Lands, #3) 4.08 of 5 stars 4.08 avg rating — 289 ratings — published 1998 — 10 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Scroll of Saqqara 4.07 of 5 stars 4.07 avg rating — 280 ratings — published 1990 — 11 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Twice Born (The King's Man #1) 4.11 of 5 stars 4.11 avg rating — 237 ratings — published 2007 — 8 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Pauline Gedge…

Series by Pauline Gedge

Lords of the Two Lands (3 books)
by Pauline Gedge
4.032473734479465 of 5 stars 4.03 avg rating — 1,047 ratings

Lady of the Reeds (2 books)
by Pauline Gedge
4.12716049382716 of 5 stars 4.13 avg rating — 810 ratings

The King's Man (3 books)
by Pauline Gedge
4.070247933884297 of 5 stars 4.07 avg rating — 484 ratings

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Quotes by Pauline Gedge

“... but now men who could work preferred to beg, and the artists forgot that their calling was noble and became imitators instead of creators, charging exorbitant sums for the rubbish they churned out with one eye closed.”
― Pauline Gedge, The Eagle and the Raven

tags: artists, beg, creators, forgot, imitators, rubbish

3 people liked it

“Khaemwaset’s eyes remained on the riverbank as the green confusion of spring glided by. Beyond the fecund, brilliant life of the bank with its choked river growth, its darting, piping birds, its busy insects and occasionally its sleepy grinning crocodiles, was a wealth of rich black soil in which the fellahin were struggling, knee-deep, to strew the fresh seed.”
― Pauline Gedge, Scroll of Saqqara

tags: nile

2 people liked it

“Noon was approaching and the shadows under the sycamores were thin and short. The surface of the blue-tiled fish-pond was glassily still and water splashed monotonously into the fountain’s basins. Khaemwaset held his fingers under the glittering flow and found it silky and warm.”
― Pauline Gedge, Scroll of Saqqara

tags: fountain

2 people liked it

See all Pauline Gedge's quotes »

Polls

Which book would you like to read for our April 15 - May 15 European Royalty group read?

The Scarlet Lion by Elizabeth Chadwick

15 votes, 32.6%

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

11 votes, 23.9%

Hugh and Bess by Susan Higginbotham

10 votes, 21.7%

Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks

6 votes, 13.0%

The Eagle and the Raven by Pauline Gedge

4 votes, 8.7%

46 total votes

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