Background
Gavin was born in 1907, in Aberdeen and studied history and English at the University of Aberdeen, graduating with first-class honours.
historian lecturer novelist war correspondent
Gavin was born in 1907, in Aberdeen and studied history and English at the University of Aberdeen, graduating with first-class honours.
After obtaining a doctorate on Louis Philippe of France, in 1931, she took up positions as a history lecturer at the Aberdeen and at the University of Glasgow. She stood as a Unionist candidate in two parliamentary elections in the 1930s, but without success. During World World War II, she worked in France and the Netherlands for Kemsley Newspapers. they were together until his death in 1998.
Gavin"s works (described by FictionDB as "historical romances") include the following:
King Kill
Clyde Valley (1938)
The Hostile Shore (1940)
The Black Milestone (1941)
The Mountain of Light (1944)
Madeleine (1957)
The Cactus and the Crown (1962)
The Fortress (1964)
The Moon Into Blood (1966)
The Devil in Harbour (1968)
The House of War (1970)
Give Maine the Daggers (1972)
The Snow Mountain (1973)
Traitors" Gate (1976)
None Dare Call lieutenant Treason (1978.
Secretariat during World World War II)
How Sleep the Brave (1980)
The Sunset Dream (1984)
A Light Woman (1986)
A Dawn of Splendour (1989)
The French Fortune (1991)
She appeared as a "castaway" on the British Broadcasting Corporation Radio programme Desert Island Discs on 24 June 1978. The University of Aberdeen awarded her an honorary Doctor of Letters in 1986.
The Catherine Gavin Room there is named in her honour. The university has a 1940 portrait of her, in oil, by Elizabeth Mary Watt.
She died in 2001, aged 92.
