Do you know Mariana Soledad Magdalena Villa-Gilbert? Most likely not. She was an author and her publisher thought enough of her to publish 7 books, six novels and one collection of her short stories. All but the short stories were published in the 1960s to early 1970s. She continued writing for many more years but her later work is unpublished. Apparently her best-known book is A Jingle Jangle Song, published in 1968. Best known but it's still doubtful you know it. Still, many people dream of being authors but most never get anything in print. Mariana Villa-Gilbert did seven times. That is quite an accomplishment, even if none of her books ever made it to a reprint.
She mostly wrote on “queer” themes. There wasn't a big audience for those in her day. This was the 1960s and 1970s. Perhaps she would have gained more acceptance writing today. I have not read any of her works so I cannot be a judge, but from what I have seen online, she was an okay to good writer, not great but good. It wasn't quite up to where you develop a following and reputation, but few writers do.
The Sun in Horus, her short story collection and last published work, came out in 1986, 13 years after her last novel. She continued writing for many more years but her submissions did not find a publisher. She wrote an autobiography, Burned by the Sun, but it is unpublished. She and her sister Gerda, with whom she was very close, for years worked at British retailer WH Smith, mostly in the musical records department. The sisters grew up under difficult conditions which explains their closeness. They depended on each other. They shared a home until Gerda died, almost two decades before Mariana. We don't know much about Mariana's post-writing life as she was not in the public eye. She died in 2023 at the age of 86.
Villa-Gilbert's papers were inherited by playwright and screenwriter Dr. Christopher Adams. The connection may be that Adams has a Ph.D. in mid-twentieth century queer publishing history. He is someone one who would be familiar with Villa-Gilbert's writing. This brings us to the event that brought Villa-Gilbert back into the public eye after all these years. Adams contributed her papers to the Special Collections of the University of Exeter. They include drafts and typescripts of her published works along with several unpublished ones. There is also a book of poetry and an unpublished novel by her sister, Gerda Villa-Gilbert.
Dr D-M Withers, Lecturer in Publishing in the Department of English and Creative Writing at Exeter and Director of Lurid Editions commented on the gift, “Having the papers here at Exeter, alongside other distinguished archives, will help to elevate Villa-Gilbert in the common literary imagination. It's an exciting moment to re-energise her legacy, to, indeed, give her a legacy. And crucially, it means her work will be accessible again, opening the possibility that it might be published again in the future.” Lurid Editions plans to publish A Jingle Jangle Song next year. It will be Villa Gilbert's first second edition. Perhaps if it is well-received, we will see more her works republished, and even some of her unpublished works make it to print. Much will depend on how a generation 50 or more years removed from their first publishing reacts to her work. Maybe we will find that she simply was ahead of her time.
