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Adèle Geras

British novelist and poet

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 25, 2026
Entity authorityQ4686975
Source-derived summary

Adèle Daphne Geras (née Weston; born 15 March 1944) is an English writer for young children, teens and adults.

Early life

Geras was born in Jerusalem, British Mandatory Palestine to British Jewish parents. Her father (later a lawyer and High Court judge in Tanganyika) was in the Colonial Service and she had a varied childhood, living in countries such as Nigeria, Cyprus, Tanganyika (now the mainland part of Tanzania), Gambia and British North Borneo in a short span of time. She attended Roedean School in Brighton and then graduated from St Hilda's College, Oxford with a degree in Modern Languages. She was known for her stage and vocal talents, but decided instead to become a full-time writer.

Work

Geras's first book was Tea at Mrs Manderby's, which was published in 1976. Her first full-length novel was The Girls in the Velvet Frame. She has written more than 95 books for children, young adults, and adults. Other works include Troy (shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize and Highly Commended for the Carnegie Medal) Ithaka, Happy Ever After (previously published as the Egerton Hall Trilogy), Silent Snow, Secret Snow, and A Thousand Yards of Sea.

Her novels for adults include: Facing the Light, Hester's Story, Made in Heaven, and A Hidden Life.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Adèle Geras” as british novelist and poet. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Adèle, Geras and British.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1944, 1976—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1944-03-15. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Adèle, Geras and British providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Adèle Geras”, the useful work is to connect “british novelist and poet” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4686975. VIAF identifies the subject as 85486571. The Library of Congress control number is n78082298. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1944 and 1976.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Adèle Geras”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Adèle Geras primary sources, Adèle Geras archive and Adèle research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Adèle Geras”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Adèle Geras” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.