Denise Robins

Denise Robins (née Denise Naomi Klein; 1 February 1897 – 1 May 1985)

She was the daughter of the novelist K. C. Groom, and mother of romance novelist Patricia Robins. Some other members of her family are well-known artists.

Biography

Personal life Robins was born Denise Naomi Klein on 1 February 1897 in London, England, the daughter of Kathleen Clarice Louise Cornwell, who was also a prolific author who wrote under several names, and of her first husband, Herman Klein, who was a professor of music and journalist. Of Ashkenazi Jewish descent from Riga, he had been born in Norwich in 1856. Her mother Kathleen Clarice had been born in Melbourne, Australia, on 11 March 1872 and was the daughter of George Cornwell and his wife Jemima Ridpath, married in 1850. George Cornwell was a railway guard who became a successful gold prospector in Australia, operating several mines, and a notable building contractor. His eldest daughter, Alice Cornwell, born 1852, was spectacularly rich by the 1890s, returning to England and buying the Sunday Times newspaper.

Her parents had married in 1890. He had a daughter Sibyl Klein, from a previous marriage, and they had two sons: Adrian Bernard Klein (1892–1969) and Daryl Klein (1894), before the birth of Denise Naomi Klein (1897–1985). The childhood of Denise, Adrian and Daryl Klein was far from settled. Kathleen Klein began an affair with a Worcestershire Regiment officer called Herbert Berkeley Dealtry, who was much younger than her husband, and little than herself, and when Hermann Klein became aware of it he filed a petition for divorce, which was granted in December 1901. Kathleen then married Dealtry. In 1918 she married for a third time and wrote at least three books as Mrs Sydney Groom. they had three daughters, Eve Louise, Patricia Robins (a.k.a. Claire Lorrimer) who became another best-selling author, and Anne Eleanor. they married in 1939. However, like Agatha Christie, Robins continued to publish most of her books under her first married name. Her first play, Heatwave, written in collaboration with Roland Pertwee, was produced at the St James's Theatre, London, in 1929. As a writer of fiction, Denise Klein wrote under a variety of pen-names, including Denise Chesterton, Francesca Wright, Ashley French, Harriet Gray, Hervey Hamilton and Julia Kane. After marrying Arthur Robins, many of her books were written under her married name.

Robins became not only Mills & Boon's most prolific writer, but also their best paid. A contract she signed in 1932 paid her £2,400 for eight books, which were those from Shatter the Sky (July 1933) to How Great the Price (June 1935). This was, however, her last work for the firm, as she was then 'poached' by a new publisher, Nicholson & Watson. Of this development, Arthur Boon wrote:

At the time of her death in 1985, Robins's books had been translated into fifteen languages and had sold more than one hundred million copies. In 1984, they were borrowed more than one and a half million times from British libraries. Among her best-selling works were House of the Seventh Cross, Khamsin and Dark Corridor. The novel Emily by Jilly Cooper has been compared to Robins' works.