A Shilling for Candles

Elizabeth MacKintosh was born on the 25th July 1896 in Inverness, Scotland.

After attending Inverness Royal Academy and then the Anstey Physical Training College in Erdington, Birmingham she taught physical training at schools throughout England and Scotland.

In 1923, she returned to Inverness to care for her invalid mother. She stayed after her mother's death later that year to keep house for her father. It was now that she began her literary career and first published in The Westminster Gazette in 1925, under the pseudonym Gordon Daviot. She continued to write and publish in periodicals until, in 1929, her first novel ‘Kif: An Unvarnished History’ was published to good reviews followed, three months later, by her first mystery novel, ‘The Man in the Queue’.

Despite her good fortune and talents her mind was set on writing a play that would receive a West End run. ‘Richard of Bordeaux’, under the Daviot pseudonym, made its debut in 1932 at the Arts Theatre.

In all she completed about a dozen one-act plays and a dozen full-length plays, many with biblical or historical themes, and all with the Daviot pseudonym. Only four of these plays were produced.

Perhaps her best-known books all involve the Scotland Yard Inspector, Alan Grant, and required yet another pseudonym. This time Josephine Tey.

She was intensely private, and during the last months of her life, when she knew she was terminally ill, she avoided all of her friends.

Elizabeth Mackintosh died from liver cancer on 13th February 1952 in London. She was 55.