Annie Olive Tibbits ( Brazier; 16 August 1871 â 4 November 1957) was an English author, well known in the early twentieth century, especially for writing serials.
Born Annie Olive Brazier on 16 August 1871 in Cradley Heath, Staffordshire. She married newspaper editor Charles John Tibbits on 18 January 1896 at St Marylebone Parish Church, London. They had two daughters, Eleanor Mary Tibbits (1896âÂÂ1981) and Isabella Margaret Myddleton Tibbits (1906âÂÂ1984). By 1898 they were living in Abingdon Road, Kensington, and moved to Woodside Park, Barnet around 1901, then Woodside Lane by 1911, and Beaconsfield Villas, Brighton by 1921, quite close to Lewes, where their friend the mathematician and puzzle-setter Henry Dudeney lived. After the death of her husband in 1935, she moved to Edgars Court, Welwyn Garden City by 1939. She died on 4 November 1957 in Watford.
According to a profile in The Handy Library: "It was dire necessity that first drove Mrs. Tibbits into the thorny paths of literature. Her father's health gave way, and money was needed, so she pluckily made up her mind to earn some in the only way that appealed to herâÂÂby her pen." She began writing for newspapers, andâÂÂdespite early setbacksâÂÂsoon had success, with interviews, notes, and paragraphs being published regularly in The Pall Mall Gazette, The Westminster Gazette, The Globe, and The Star. She continued as a journalist, contributing articles to London newspapers and magazines for two or three years. She then began to write fiction, and published a number of short stories in some of the leading magazines of the day. This continued for about six months, before she married, after which she tried her hand at writing serials. These proved very successful, and led to her being commissioned to write more, sometimes a long time in advance. They became her speciality for many years. She was a frequent contributor of romantic stories to the Amalgamated Press's Companion Library, and Woman's Weekly, where she was one of several popular authors who headlined the magazine, and was evidently considered a strong draw for readers.
Despite a heavy workload writing serials, Tibbits also wanted to write plays, and got around to doing so with the one-act children's play "Marie Had a Dream", which was performed a few times in 1905âÂÂ1906. She went on to publish more than a dozen sixpenny novels between 1910 and 1927, though several of these are reprinted versions of her serials. Her 1912 book At What Sacrifice? was one of many novels published around the time that featured the women's suffrage movement. She also wrote a number of true crime short stories with her husband.
Her profile in The Handy Library described her writing process: "Mrs. Tibbits is an ardent gardener, and confesses that she finds many of her most brilliant ideas while she is engaged tending her flowers. She also has a large collection of blue-and-white china. Most of her work is done at night, and she is a very quick writer indeed. She gets as wrapped up in the unfolding of her story as do her readers when it is published."
The Cork Examiner described her writing as "Sensational, without in the least approaching to vulgarity; full of exciting incident, which at the same time never offends against the possibilities of life; written with a keen insight into the human heartâÂÂthe interest in Annie O. Tibbits' stories is intensified by the writer's remarkable powers of vivid dramatic description."