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On Your Marks
144 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1954
25 people want to read
About the author
Gladys Mitchell
117 books140 followersAka Malcolm Torrie, Stephen Hockaby.
Born in Cowley, Oxford, in 1901, Gladys Maude Winifred Mitchell was the daughter of market gardener James Mitchell, and his wife, Annie.
She was educated at Rothschild School, Brentford and Green School, Isleworth, before attending Goldsmiths College and University College, London from 1919-1921.
She taught English, history and games at St Paul's School, Brentford, from 1921-26, and at St Anne's Senior Girls School, Ealing until 1939.
She earned an external diploma in European history from University College in 1926, beginning to write her novels at this point. Mitchell went on to teach at a number of other schools, including the Brentford Senior Girls School (1941-50), and the Matthew Arnold School, Staines (1953-61). She retired to Corfe Mullen, Dorset in 1961, where she lived until her death in 1983.
Although primarily remembered for her mystery novels, and for her detective creation, Mrs. Bradley, who featured in 66 of her novels, Mitchell also published ten children's books under her own name, historical fiction under the pseudonym Stephen Hockaby, and more detective fiction under the pseudonym Malcolm Torrie. She also wrote a great many short stories, all of which were first published in the Evening Standard.
She was awarded the Crime Writers' Association Silver Dagger Award in 1976.
Born in Cowley, Oxford, in 1901, Gladys Maude Winifred Mitchell was the daughter of market gardener James Mitchell, and his wife, Annie.
She was educated at Rothschild School, Brentford and Green School, Isleworth, before attending Goldsmiths College and University College, London from 1919-1921.
She taught English, history and games at St Paul's School, Brentford, from 1921-26, and at St Anne's Senior Girls School, Ealing until 1939.
She earned an external diploma in European history from University College in 1926, beginning to write her novels at this point. Mitchell went on to teach at a number of other schools, including the Brentford Senior Girls School (1941-50), and the Matthew Arnold School, Staines (1953-61). She retired to Corfe Mullen, Dorset in 1961, where she lived until her death in 1983.
Although primarily remembered for her mystery novels, and for her detective creation, Mrs. Bradley, who featured in 66 of her novels, Mitchell also published ten children's books under her own name, historical fiction under the pseudonym Stephen Hockaby, and more detective fiction under the pseudonym Malcolm Torrie. She also wrote a great many short stories, all of which were first published in the Evening Standard.
She was awarded the Crime Writers' Association Silver Dagger Award in 1976.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 3, 2013
I loved this. It's about college life and what comes next, with a great deal of awesome period detail and lovely friendships. I thoroughly enjoyed the main characters, they're supremely driven and just plain great girls about to go out in the world with passion, intelligence and good sense. It's an awesome novel of school life with quite a bit of humour and some mystery. I'm very happy Grey Ladies reprinted this, I knew Gladys Mitchell from her detective novels but she's as comfortable in the career genre as she is in the whodunnit area. The title comes up in the very last scene of the novel and makes for a beautiful, open end.
July 20, 2016
Undistinguished, plotless (to the best of my recollection) novel, which I sought out and read because it is set at a women's physical training college similar to the one that is the setting for Josephine Tey's Miss Pym Disposes.
October 31, 2013
I loved this book primarily for the social history- so much detail that could never be found in a history book or ever in a novel written today.
It was written in order to give girls in school ideas about future careers. Don't judge this book as a novel but in that light it was written in, as a piece of history itself. I enjoyed the plot, too.
It was written in order to give girls in school ideas about future careers. Don't judge this book as a novel but in that light it was written in, as a piece of history itself. I enjoyed the plot, too.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews