BUCKMASTER, Henrietta

Born Henrietta Henkle, 10 March 1909, Cleveland, Ohio; died April 1983

Daughter of Rae D. and Pearl Wintermute Henkle; married PeterJohn Stephens

Henriette Buckmaster grew up in New York City, where she attended the Friends' Seminary and the Brearley School. In addition to writing historical studies and novels, Buckmaster wrote book reviews for the Saturday Review of Literature and the New York Times.

Buckmaster's works reveal a fascination with history. They include two history books—Let My People Go (1941), the story of the underground railroad, and Freedom Bound (1965), which describes the Reconstruction period from 1865 to 1877—as well as numerous historical novels.

A major concern of Buckmaster's historical novels is human freedom. American slaves and women are often her subjects. In Deep River (1944), Buckmaster presents opposition to slavery from the perspective of the mountain people of western Georgia. The strong-willed main character, Savanna Bliss, finds in her husband Simon a man strong enough to accept her strength. He allows her to share in his struggle against slavery in the Georgia legislature in order to advance the economic situation of the poor white mountain farmer.

The issues of the emancipation of women and slaves come together again in the novel, Fire in the Heart (1948), which tells the story of Fanny Kemble, the great 19th-century English actress. Fanny saves her family from bankruptcy and at the same time becomes famous by playing Juliet at Covent Garden. At the death of her first love, the renowned artist Thomas Lawrence, Fanny travels to America with her father and aunt. The theatrical tour is highly successful, but Fanny leaves the stage to marry a wealthy Philadelphia lawyer and businessman. Always something of a misfit in his conventional and prestigious family, Fanny finds her love sufficient to overcome all difficulties except one: she must live with the uncomfortable knowledge that their land in the South is farmed by slaves they own.

In Fire in the Heart, Buckmaster creates another free-spirited woman in conflict with the customs and attitudes of her day. Simultaneously, she reminds her readers of the involvement in slavery of northerners who derived wealth from the Southern system.

The Lion in the Stone (1968) is the story of Devar Moragoda, secretary-general of the United Nations, and his colleagues as they struggle to maintain peace in the post-Vietnam era. The absence of China from the Security Council complicates their efforts when Mongolia, by declaring itself independent of Russian influence, shatters the tenuous balance of power between Russia and China. Buckmaster achieves an atmosphere of tension and reality as the leaders of great nations recognize their inadequacy in the face of potential nuclear catastrophe. Unless every nation makes peace its top priority, any nation can destroy all. Thus, the threat Buckmaster has presented lingers beyond the end of the novel.

In The Walking Trip (1972), an American girl, Molly Sayers, comes to London to accompany her brother on a walking trip through Scotland. He disappears, and in an effort to find him, she becomes enmeshed in Rhodesian politics. Here Buckmaster uses a contemporary political situation in which black Africans seek to overthrow the power of colonialism in Rhodesia as the background against which to present the ideal feminine personality. Molly's courage enables her to find a man who respects her as a person and helps rescue her brother. The style is straightforward, and the story is fast moving. It is not great literature but it is good popular fiction.

The Rhodesian situation in The Walking Trip, like the United Nations and international politics in Lion and the Stone, demonstrates Buckmaster's use of contemporary history. She uses the biblical era in And Walk in Love (1956), a novel about the Apostle Paul; the 16th century in All the Living (1962), an imaginary account of a year in the life of Shakespeare; and the 19th century in many works concerned with slavery and abolition. Buckmaster is careful with the facts of history and is true to the spirit of the times about which she writes.

Buckmaster writes for the common reader. She makes American ideals engrossing and edifying. Sacrificing neither truth nor reality, she holds up to her readers the ideals of political democracy and human worth. Her novels combine the scholarship of the historian with the concern of the civil libertarian.

Other Works:

Tomorrow Is Another Day (1934). His End Was His Beginning (1936). Bread from Heaven (1952). Lucy and Loki (1958). Walter Raleigh: Man of Two Worlds (1964). Paul: A Man Who Changed the World (1965). The Seminole Wars (1966). Women Who Shaped History (1966). The Fighting Congressmen: Thaddeus Stevens, Hiram Revels, James Rapier, Blanche K. Bruce (1971).

Bibliography:

Reference Works:

CA (1974). SAA (1974).

Other reference:

Best Sellers (1 July 1968). CSM (5 May 1966, 6 June 1968). NYTBR (14 July 1968). Variety (19 Aug. 1970). Young Reader's Review (April 1966). Author Henrietta Buckmaster Discusses Her Book, The Lion in the Stone, with Robert Cromie (audiocassette, 1971).

—GWENDOLYN A. THOMAS