Berta jerk

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Berta Ruck (* 2. August 1878 in Murree , Province Punjab , British India as Amy Roberta jerk , since 1918 official real name Amy Roberta jerk Oliver ; † 11. August 1978 in Aberdyfi , Wales ) was a British writer . Her more than 100 novels mainly belong to the romance genre . In the period between the two world wars in particular, she was one of the most successful authors of English-language trivial literature .

Life

Berta Ruck was born to Welsh parents in what was then British India, where her father was an officer in the British colonial army. Her aunt Amy Ruck († 1876 in childbed) was married to the botanist Francis Darwin , the journalist and author Bernard Darwin was Berta Backpack's cousin. She came to Great Britain at the age of two, where she grew up successively in different places in Wales and England. During a stay as an au pair in Halberstadt in the summer of 1892 , where she made drawings of her travel impressions, she discovered her artistic talent. After graduating from school, she first studied art at the Lambeth School of Arts in London , then from 1901 at the Slade School of Fine Art . In 1904, a scholarship enabled her to spend one year in Paris at the Académie Colarossi . Berta Ruck appeared publicly as an illustrator for magazines during her studies. To encourage her friend Edith Nesbit , the name of Berta Ruck Roberta for a main character of her children's book The Railway Children chose (1905), she began in 1905 and short stories and serialized novels to write for women's magazines. In 1909 she married the writer Oliver Onions , with whom she had two sons Arthur (* 1912) and William (* 1913). She lived with her family first in Henley-on-Thames , then (until 1939) in Hampstead in what was then the County of London . In 1918 the family took the official surname Oliver , but Backpack's books always appeared under the name Berta Ruck .

At the insistence of her husband, Berta Ruck published her story His Official Fiancée in 1914 in book form, which had already appeared in 1912 as a sequel . This novel became a huge success in both the UK and the US, had multiple follow-up editions and was made into two films. As a result, Ruck published one to three other novels annually for more than five decades, some of which appeared simultaneously in British and US publishers. In the 1920s and 1930s, the Bernhard Tauchnitz publishing house in Leipzig also published a number of works by Berta Backpack (in the original English). By 1920 she was so well known that a Berta Ruck Birthday Book was published with excerpts from some of her previously published books. Selected novels Rucksack have been translated into Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Czech and Italian; only Arabella the Awful appeared in German translation (German title Arabella behaves , 1930). She published her first autobiographical work in 1935 under the title The Story-Teller Tells the Truth .

After moving with her husband to the Welsh seaside resort of Aberdyfi in 1939, Berta Ruck also worked as a radio journalist for the BBC 's regional radio programs for Wales until the early 1960s . When selecting her subjects, Ruck moved with the times: While her early works, published at the beginning of the First World War, still play in the society of the Edwardian era , her last novel, Shopping for a Husband from 1967, refers to one in the British public of the 1960s Years of popular matchmaking agency . In 1970 the BBC broadcast the television documentary Yesterday's Witness , in which Berta Ruck reported on her youth in the 1890s. In the last phase of her life, Ruck wrote four books with autobiographical reminiscences, including her autobiography A Trickle of Welsh Blood (1967). With the story of her ancestors ( Ancestral Voices ) she published her last book in 1972. A few days after she turned 100, Berta Ruck died in her house in Aberdyfi.

Works

Novels (selection)

  • His Official Fiancée. Hutchinson, London 1914
  • In Another Girl's Shoes. Hutchinson, London 1916
  • Arabella the Awful. Hodder and Stoughton, London 1919 (German translation: Arabella behaves . Göckner, Berlin / Vienna 1930)
  • The Berta Ruck Birthday Book. Hodder and Stoughton, London 1920
  • Sir or Madam. Hutchinson, London 1923; also: Bernhard Tauchnitz, Leipzig 1923
  • The Unkissed Bride. Dodd, Mead & Co., New York 1929; also: Bernhard Tauchnitz, Leipzig 1929
  • A star in love. Hodder and Stoughton, London 1935
  • He learned about women. Mills & Boon, London 1940
  • Tomboy in Lace. Dodd, Mead & Co., New York 1947
  • We Have All Your Secrets. Hutchinson, London 1955
  • Runaway Lovers. Hurst & Blackett, London 1963
  • Shopping for a Husband. Hurst & Blackett, London 1967

Autobiographical books

  • A story teller tells the truth. Reminiscences and Notes. Hutchinson, London 1935
  • A smile for the past. Hutchinson, London 1959
  • A Trickle of Welsh Blood. To Autobiography. Hutchinson, London 1967
  • An Asset to Wales. Hutchinson, London 1970, ISBN 0-09-101960-5
  • Ancestral Voices. Hutchinson, London 1972, ISBN 0-09-110960-4

Film adaptations

  • In Another Girl's Shoes. Great Britain 1917, directed by Alexander Butler
  • His Official Fiancée. USA 1919, directed by Robert G. Vignola
  • Ossi is wearing his pants. Germany 1928, director: Carl Boese , title role: Ossi Oswalda (based on the novel Sir or Madam )
  • Hans officiella fästmö. Sweden 1944, directed by Nils Jerring (based on the novel His Official Fiancée )

literature

  • Rachel Anderson: Ruck, Berta (Amy Roberta Ruck) , in: Twentieth Century Romance and Gothic Writers. Editor: James Vinson. Gale Research Company, Detroit (Michigan) 1982, ISBN 0-8103-0226-8 , pp. 597-601 (with complete catalog raisonné)
  • Brian Alderson: Ruck, Amy Roberta (1878–1978). In: Henry Colin Gray Matthew, Brian Harrison (Eds.): Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , from the earliest times to the year 2000 (ODNB). Volume 48: Rowell-Sarsfield. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, ISBN 0-19-861398-9 , pp. 69f., ( Oxforddnb.com license required ), as of January 2011 (rev. Sayoni Basu).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Rachel Anderson: Ruck, Berta (Amy Roberta Ruck) , in: Twentieth Century Romance and Gothic Writers. Editor: James Vinson. Gale Research Company, Detroit (Michigan) 1982, ISBN 0-8103-0226-8 , p. 600
personal data
SURNAME Jerk, Berta
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ruck, Amy Roberta (maiden name); Jerk Oliver, Amy Roberta
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British writer
DATE OF BIRTH August 2, 1878
PLACE OF BIRTH Murree , Punjab Province , British India
DATE OF DEATH August 11, 1978
Place of death Aberdyfi , Wales