Katherine Burdekin

Katharine Burdekin
Katharine Burdekin
Born	Katherine Cade 10 August 1896 Spondon
Died	23 July 1963 (1963-07-24) (aged 66) Suffolk
Nationality	United Kingdom
Other names	Murray Constantine Kay Burdekin
Education	Cheltenham Ladies' College
Occupation	writer
Known for	Dystopian science fiction
Spouse(s)	Beaufort Burdekin
Children	2
Relatives	Rowena Cade (sister)

Katharine Burdekin (23 July 1896 – 10 August 1963) (born Katharine Penelope Cade) was a British novelist who wrote speculative fiction concerned with social and spiritual matters. She was the sister of Rowena Cade, creator of the Minack Theatre in Cornwall. Several of her novels could be categorised as feminist utopian/dystopian fiction. She also wrote under the name Kay Burdekin and under the pseudonym Murray Constantine. Daphne Patai unraveled "Murray Constantine's" true identity while doing research on utopian and dystopian fiction in the mid-1980s.

Katharine Burdekin was born in Spondon, Derbyshire in 1896, the youngest of four children of Charles Cade. Her family had lived in Derby for many years and Joseph Wright of Derby was one of her ancestors. She was educated by a governess at their home, The Homestead, and later, at Cheltenham Ladies' College. Highly intelligent and an avid reader, she wanted to study at Oxford like her brothers, but her parents did not allow it. She married Olympic rower and barrister Beaufort Burdekin, in 1915, and had two daughters from this marriage, in 1917 and 1920. The family moved to Australia, where Katharine Burdekin started writing. Her first novel, Anna Colquhoun, was published in 1922. Her marriage ended in the same year, and she moved back to join her sister at Minack Head in Cornwall. In 1926, she met a woman with whom she formed a lifelong relationship.

Burdekin wrote several novels during the 1920s, but she later considered The Rebel Passion (1929) to be her first mature work. Both The Burning Ring and The Rebel Passion are fantasies about time travel. In the 1930s, she wrote thirteen novels, six of which were published. Her partner describes how Burdekin's wide-ranging reading would precede a period of quiet for a few days. She would then appear to surrender herself to writing and she would write single mindedly until it was complete. She appeared to not plan and each book would be complete within six weeks.