Dorothy Charques (1899–1976)

Keenly interested in social welfare and labor
movements of the day, Dorothy Taylor went to
London after finishing college, to work for the
Fabian Society. From 1925 to 1931 she did
research in local government for the Fabians,
and in the job, she writes, “Everything from
midwives, through hours of work, to cesspools,
came into my province.” During this time and
continuing through World War II — indeed, uninterrupted even by the London blitz — she lectured to university tutorial classes and other
adult education groups on a variety of subjects
— ancient history, local government, and modern social problems.

All this served as valuable training for a
writing career. That career was begun in
earnest some years after her marriage on November 9, 1929 to Richard Denis Charques, a
journalist and author (his A Short History of
Russia was published by Dutton, 1956). Working in collaboration, they published two novels,
Above and Below (1929) and After the Party
(Seeker, 1933), using the pseudonym R. D.
Dorothy. Since then Mrs. Charques has worked
independently, explaining: “I am a storyteller.
. . . My husband, on the other hand, is much
more interested in politics, in criticism, and in
pure history.”