Berta Ruck

Born Amy Roberta Ruck in Murree, Punjab, on August 2, 1878, she was closely connected to Wales through her family and later life. She became known to readers as Berta Ruck and built an enormous readership with lively romantic fiction that began appearing in magazines before expanding into novels.

She studied art in London and Paris, and that visual training fed into her early work as an illustrator as well as her writing career. Over the course of many decades she published more than 90 novels, plus short stories, an autobiography, and memoirs, making her one of the most prolific popular writers of her generation.

She married the novelist Oliver Onions in 1909 and later lived in Aberdyfi in Wales, where she remained for the rest of her life. She died there on August 11, 1978, just after her 100th birthday, leaving behind a remarkably long and productive literary career.