Peters, Ellis (1913-1995)

English novelist and translator. Early novels of contemporary issues included She Goes to War (1942). Subsequently she alternated thrillers with historical novels until 1978, when, as Ellis Peters, she published the first Brother Cadfael novel, A Morbid Taste for Bones, set in Shropshire and the Welsh borders. There followed 19 further medieval detective stories about him, in which the crime is only one element of tales of rich characterization with underlying philosophical and theological truths.

She was born in Horsehay, Shropshire and became a chemist's assistant after school. She was a teleprinter operator in World War II, at the end of which she was awarded the BEM. Gold medal for services to Czech literature 1968. After a visit to Czechoslovakia in 1947, she learnt Czech and became a noted translator of modern literature, including works by Jan Neruda and Bohumil Harbal. She was awarded the OBE in 1994.