Ellis Peters Part I

 Ellis Peters is the pen name of the author Edith Pargeter who created the Cadfael novels, which are set in Wales and England, in the time of the Civil War between King Stephen and the Empress Matilda…

She was born in Shropshire in 1913, and was the daughter of a clerk in a local business.  She had a good education in a Church of England school. She was not well off enough to attend university, but she was a keen learner and taught herself a good deal.  She wanted to be a writer, but took a job before the war as a chemists assistant, which gave her knowledge about medicines and poison.  During World War Two, she went into the WRENS  and worked as an administrative officer, reaching the rank of Petty Officer.  She continued to write often under pseudonyms, and after the war she dedicated herself to full time writing.  She became an expert on medieval history and wrote historical stories, r omances and detective fiction.

She was of Welsh ancestry and chose to set her most famous mysteries in the borderlands of Wales and England… With the background of the Anarchy, the war between Stephen and Maud….It was a violent time, and the monastery where Cadfael works is a haven for orphans and the sick.  Cadfael investigates crimes, because as the monastery herbalist, he has a knowledge of drugs and poisons.