Catherine Gavin


Catherine Irvine Gavin was a Scottish academic historian, war correspondent, and historical novelist.

Early life

Gavin was born in Aberdeen in 1907, and studied history and English at the University of Aberdeen, graduating with first-class honours. She completed doctoral work in 1931, with a doctoral thesis on Louis Philippe of France; her thesis was published in 1933.

Career

Gavin held positions as a history lecturer at Aberdeen and at the University of Glasgow. She stood unsuccessfully as a Unionist candidate in two parliamentary elections in the 1930s.
During World War II, she worked in France and the Netherlands for Kemsley Newspapers. She also wrote a biography of Edward VII, published in 1941. She was a correspondent in the Middle East and Ethiopia after the war, for the Daily Express. After marriage, she worked a few years on the staff of Time magazine in New York. She wrote about her wartime experiences in Liberated France.
Most of Gavin's literary output was in the genre of historical romance. "Her characters are attractive flesh-and-blood people, her narrative adventurous and suspenseful, and her use of history skillful and unerring," reported one American reviewer in 1957. The University of Aberdeen awarded her an honorary DLitt 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.
Gavin appeared as a "castaway" on the BBC Radio programme Desert Island Discs on 24 June 1978.

Selected works

Gavin's works of historical fiction include the following titles:
In 1948, Gavin married American advertising executive John Ashcraft and moved to the United States with him. She was widowed in 1998, and died in 2000, aged 92.