Susan Ertz

Susan Ertz – Life, Work, and Enduring Voice

Learn about Susan Ertz (1887–1985), the Anglo-American novelist known for sentimental tales, her life between England and America, themes of female courage, and memorable quotes.

Introduction

Susan Ertz was an Anglo-American novelist, celebrated for her “sentimental tales of genteel life in the country,” which often portray women thrust from comfort into challenge and their journey toward resilience. Her works bridge emotional intimacy, moral confrontation, and the quiet tensions of everyday lives.

Early Life and Family

Susan Ertz was born 13 February 1887 in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, England, to American parents Charles and Mary Ertz.

During her childhood, her family moved across the Atlantic multiple times. When she was a child, her parents lived in New York, but around age seven they returned to England.

At age 18, Ertz selected England as her home base and remained there for most of her later life.

In 1932, she married Major John Ronald McCrindle, a British Army officer.

Susan Ertz died on 11 April 1985 in Kent, England.

Literary Career & Major Works

Style, Themes & Reputation

Ertz is best known for novels that portray genteel rural life, family dynamics, and the internal conflict of women facing change or loss.

A recurring motif in her fiction: a female character is often removed from a sheltered environment and exposed to a harsher or unfamiliar world. The process of adaptation, moral choice, and growth becomes the emotional core.

She also ventured into more speculative territory: Woman Alive (1935) is a kind of science fiction novel (after a plague, only one woman remains in a population) — showing that she could step beyond domestic realism.

One of her later novels, In the Cool of the Day (1960), was adapted into a film in 1963 starring Jane Fonda, Peter Finch, and Angela Lansbury.

Select Bibliography

Here are some of her significant works (not exhaustive):

• Madame Claire (1923) — one of her early acclaimed novels, selected among the first Penguin paperback editions.

• Nina (1924)

• Now East, Now West (1927)

• The Milky Way (1929) (also published as The Galaxy in the U.S.)

• The Story of Julian (1931)

• The Proselyte (1933)

• Woman Alive (1935)

• Anger in the Sky (1943)

• The Prodigal Heart (1950)

• In the Cool of the Day (1960)

• Summer’s Lease (1972) (U.K. title: Devices and Desires)

• The Philosopher’s Daughter (1976)

Her works were collected and preserved in libraries and bibliographies such as ISFDB.

Historical Context & Literary Significance

Ertz’s writing career spanned much of the 20th century, a time of social change, shifting gender roles, and the disruptions of war and modernity. Though her style is often seen as conservative or genteel, she addressed themes of displacement, resilience, and adaptation to new realities.

While not a major modernist or avant-garde, Ertz contributed to a tradition of women’s fiction that balanced emotional interiority and social observation. Her speculative work indicates she also engaged with ideas about society, gender, and catastrophe beyond conventional realism.

She retains a modest but enduring presence: in reference works (e.g. the SciFi Encyclopedia) and occasional reprintings, and through her memorable lines that circulate online.

Personality & Literary Voice

From her fiction and what critics note, some traits stand out:

• Generosity with feeling: Her narratives are emotionally earnest rather than ironic or detached.

• Conscientious morality: Her characters often wrestle with ethical choices, duty, and identity in shifting circumstances.

• Quiet strength: The transformations her heroines undergo are often internal, grounded, and slowly earned.

• Sensitivity to environment: She evokes settings—countryside, homes, seasonal changes—as more than backdrops; they interact with her characters’ inner lives.

• Willingness to experiment: As in Woman Alive, she sometimes enters speculative territory, testing how far her themes might stretch.

Her writing voice feels at home in a more traditional literary space, but she does not shy away from challenge or change.

Notable Quotes

Susan Ertz is quoted especially for a few lines that resonate widely. Here are some significant ones:

“Millions long for immortality who don’t know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.”

“Boredom comes simply from ignorance and lack of imagination.”

“It was never built for the comfort and happiness of its citizens, but to astonish the world.”

“Idle to pretend that we have lost paradise. We never had it; it is still to make.”

“Parsons always seem to be specially horrified about things like sunbathing and naked bodies. They don’t mind poverty and misery and cruelty to animals nearly as much.”

These quotes reflect her wit, moral observation, and capacity to turn a phrase.

Lessons from Susan Ertz

1. Emotion grounded in moral tension
   Character growth often arises not from spectacle, but from difficult choices in ordinary contexts.

2. Flexibility and experimentation
   Even a writer known for one style can stretch into new genres; voices evolve.

3. Balance tradition with risk
   The sentimental and familiar can still harbor risk, change, and surprise.

4. Language matters
   Her memorable sentences show how a well-placed image or metaphor can linger beyond the book.

5. Persistence over fame
   Ertz never became a towering canonical name, but she sustained decades of writing, touching many readers.

Conclusion

Susan Ertz is a subtle, humane novelist whose work invites quiet attention. Her characters inhabit worlds of gentility and constraint but are summoned into change. The transition they undergo—from sheltered comfort to confrontation with a larger, sometimes indifferent reality—is her defining territory.

Her legacy lies not in radical innovation, but in fidelity: to emotion, to ethical struggle, and to the idea that lives—even in small, domestic corners—carry the weight of transformation.