author

Gertrude Page

1872–1922

A hugely popular novelist in the early 1900s, she wrote warm, plot-driven romances that traveled from Ireland to Southern Rhodesia and often drew on the frontier life she knew firsthand. Her best-known book, Paddy the Next Best Thing, became a bestseller and was later adapted for the stage and screen.

3 Audiobooks

Winding Paths

Winding Paths

by Gertrude Page

The Rhodesian

The Rhodesian

by Gertrude Page

Paddy-The-Next-Best-Thing

Paddy-The-Next-Best-Thing

by Gertrude Page

About the author

Born in Erdington, Warwickshire, in 1872, Gertrude Eliza Page was educated at Bedford High School and began writing young, contributing to The Girl's Own Paper while still a teenager. In 1902 she married George Alexander "Alec" Dobbin and later moved with him to Rhodesia, an experience that shaped much of her fiction.

Page went on to write a long run of popular novels between 1907 and 1922. Her stories were known for romance, strong storytelling, and settings that ranged from Irish family life to colonial Africa. Paddy the Next Best Thing was her standout success, and The Edge O' Beyond also sold widely and was adapted for the stage and film.

Although she was once read around the world, Page is less widely known today. Her books still offer a vivid glimpse of the reading tastes of the early twentieth century, along with the personal and colonial worlds that fed her imagination.