Murray Constantine

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, the youngest of four children. She was educated by a governess at home and later, at Cheltenham Ladies' College. Highly intelligent and an avid reader, she wanted to study at Oxford, as did 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 the UK. 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 13 novels, six of which were published. In 1934, Katharine Burdekin began using the pseudonym Murray Constantine. The political nature and strong criticism of fascism in her novels allegedly inspired her to adopt the pseudonym in an effort to protect her family from the risk of repercussions and attacks. The true identity of "Murray Constantine" did not become known until long after Burdekin's death.

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