Tannahill, Reay 1929-2007

OBITUARY NOTICE—

See index for CA sketch: Born December 9, 1929, in Glasgow, Scotland; died November 2, 2007. Historian, advertising manager, publicity agent, journalist, novelist, and author. Tannahill began her writing career as a vernacular historian, a specialist in the history of daily life. She ended it as an author of historical romances set in Scotland and based on her knowledge of social history. Tannahill had worked briefly as a newspaper reporter, advertising manager, and publicity agent, when the Folio Society of London asked her to write a book. Regency England: The Great Age of the Colour Print (1964) launched her career as a freelance writer, and five or six more books of popular history followed before she devoted herself to fiction. Food in History (1973) was particularly well received and became a Book-of-the-Month Club selection in the United States; Sex in History (1980) did almost as well. From 1983 onward Tannahill wrote only historical romances, tame by some standards but refreshingly wholesome by others. Though she was not a militant feminist, Tannahill wrote about strong, spirited women, whose lives during various periods of Scottish history filled at least a dozen novels, from her first best seller, A Dark and Distant Shore (1983) to Having the Decorators In, which was published only one day before her death.

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Times (London, England), December 27, 2007, p. 62.