Tessa Barclay

Tessa Barclay is a pseudonym of the bestselling and prolific author Jean Bowden. For over half a century, Jean wrote short stories, novels and non-fiction, under a number of different pen names.

Jean was born in Edinburgh in 1920. She started her career as an editorial assistant, and later worked as a features writer on Woman’s Mirror and as assistant fiction editor of Woman’s Own. For many years she was an editorial consultant for Mills & Boon. She also wrote some novels for Mills & Boon, as Belinda Dell.

Tessa Barclay is probably the best known of Jean’s pen names. As Tessa Barclay she wrote a string of bestselling family sagas, including trilogies The Champagne Family Saga and the Corvill Family Saga, and the four-part Craigallan series. Her family sagas were meticulously researched and contained a wealth of historical detail, as well as appearances from famous real-life figures.

Jean Bowden lived in London for many years, and was president of Croydon Writers Group.

Read Jean Bowden’s books in exclusive ebook editions from Wyndham Books.