Andrews, Virginia

(US, 1923–86)

The new-generation Gothic novelist Virginia Andrews was born in Portsmouth, Virginia, and is best known for her immensely popular domestic chiller Flowers in the Attic (1979). It is a florid, emotional, and somewhat tawdry story, recounting the traumas of the Dollanganger children who are locked in an attic by their selfish, evil mother for years on end. The novel is popular with teenagers and those who are not put off by over-written prose. Petals in the Wind (1980) and If there be Thorns (1981) continue the family saga. After Andrews's death the ghost-writer Andrew Neiderman has continued writing in her style from synopses of stories she left.

Charlotte Brontë, Matthew Lewis  SA