author
Elizabeth M. Duffield
1895–1983
A prolific early 20th-century writer, she created the spirited Lucile Payton books and also worked behind the scenes on many Stratemeyer Syndicate series for young readers.
1 Audiobook
Lucile Triumphant
by Elizabeth M. Duffield
About the author
Elizabeth M. Duffield Ward (1895–1983) was an American author best known for the Lucile Payton series, which includes Lucile Triumphant, Lucile, Bringer of Joy, and Lucile on the Heights. Her fiction is lively, adventurous, and shaped by the fast-moving style that made girls' series books so popular in the early 1900s.
She was also one of the many writers connected with the Stratemeyer Syndicate, the book-packaging company behind some of the era's most successful children's series. Sources available here credit her with writing for syndicate projects including Ruth Fielding, Betty Gordon, and Kay Tracey, and describe her as the daughter of writer John William Duffield.
Much of her work was published under house names or tied to long-running series, so her own name is less widely known than the characters she helped bring to life. Even so, her stories remain part of the rich tradition of classic girls' adventure fiction and are still being rediscovered by readers today.