Editing Tanith Lee (section)

== Biography ==
=== Early life ===
Tanith Lee was born on 19 September 1947 in London, to professional dancers Bernard and Hylda Lee.<ref name="schweltzer">{{cite book|author=Darrell Schweitzer|title =Speaking of Horror: Interviews with Writers of the Supernatural|publisher =Wildside Press LLC|year =1994|pages=59–60|isbn =978-1-880448-81-6|url =https://books.google.com/books?id=cbKHtMCHcvkC&pg=PA59}}</ref><ref name="bio">{{cite web|url=http://www.daughterofthenight.com/tlbio.html|title=Author Biography: Tanith Lee|author1=Jim Pattison |author2=Paul A. Soanes |author3=Allison Rich |name-list-style=amp |date=17 April 2011|publisher=Daughter of the Night†: An Annotated Tanith Lee Bibliography|access-date=25 July 2011}}</ref><ref name="moran">{{cite journal |author=Moran, Maureen F |title=Tanith Lee |journal=British Fantasy and Science-Fiction Writers Since 1960 in Dictionary of Literary Biography|volume=261 |year=2002}}</ref> Despite a persistent rumour, she was not the daughter of [[Bernard Lee]] (the actor who played "M" in the [[James Bond]] series films between 1962 and 1979). According to Lee, although her childhood was happy, she was the "traditional kid that got bullied," and had to move around frequently due to her parents' work.<ref name="moran" /><ref name="carlson">{{cite web|url=http://www.starshipsofa.com/2011/02/08/starshipsofa-no-175-jeff-carlson/|title=StarShipSofa Interrogation: Tanith Lee in StarShipSofa No.175|author=Jeff Carlson|date=2 August 2011|publisher=StarShipSofa|access-date=1 October 2012}} - An audio interview with Tanith Lee</ref> Although her family was poor, they maintained a large paperback collection, and Lee read [[weird fiction]], including "Silken Swift" by [[Theodore Sturgeon]] and "Gabriel Ernest" by [[Saki]], and discussed such literature as ''[[Hamlet]]'' and ''[[Dracula]]'' with her parents.<ref name="WeirdFiction">{{cite web | url= http://weirdfictionreview.com/2012/09/tanith-lee-on-the-weird/ | title= Tanith Lee on the Weird | author= Luis Rodrigues | year= 2011 | publisher= Weird Fiction Review | access-date= 15 October 2012}}</ref> Lee attended many different schools in childhood. She was at first "incapable" of reading due to a mild form of dyslexia, which was diagnosed later in life, but when she was aged 8, her father taught her to read in a few months,<ref>{{Cite web |last=jeffvandermeer |date=2012-09-03 |title=Tanith Lee on The Weird |url=https://weirdfictionreview.com/2012/09/tanith-lee-on-the-weird/ |access-date=2025-04-05 |website=Weird Fiction Review |language=en-US}}</ref> and she began to write at the age of 9.<ref name="carlson"/>

=== Education ===
Because Lee's parents had to move for jobs, Lee attended numerous primary schools, then the [[Prendergast School|Prendergast Grammar School for Girls]].<ref name="bio" /><ref name="moran" /> After secondary school, Lee attended [[Croydon College|Croydon Art College]] for a year. Realising that was not what she wanted to do, she dropped out of her course and held a number of jobs, including file clerk, waitress, shop assistant, and assistant librarian.<ref name="bio" /><ref name="moran" /><ref name="Gidney">{{cite web|url=http://www.lambdaliterary.org/interviews/09/13/tanith-lee-queer-authors/|title=Tanith Lee: Channeling Queer Authors|author=Craig Gidney|date=13 September 2010|access-date=16 October 2012}}</ref>

=== Writing career ===
She began publishing with ''The Betrothed'' (1968), a short story privately printed by a friend, but started serious writing with several children's fantasies. Of these, ''The Dragon Hoard'' (1971), her first novel, is a comic fantasy, in which an enchantress compels the quest-ridden protagonist to shapeshift into a raven at unpredictable moments. ''Princess Hynchatti & Some Other Surprises'' (collection of linked stories in 1972) puts its cast through various travails. In ''Companions on the Road'' (1975) the companions are the villains, a trio of hellish revenants who kill through their control of Dreams as they search for the holders of a magic chalice. ''The Winter Players'' (1976) – assembled with the previous book as ''Companions on the Road and The Winter Players: Two Novellas'' (1977) – dramatises the interaction between a young woman and the accursed wanderer whom she ultimately redeems. Even in these early works, several characteristic motifs dominate: the Rite of Passage whereby a young protagonist comes to terms – often via Metamorphosis – with his or her extraordinary nature, and strives for Balance in a riven world; vivid, but indeterminate, landscapes serving as almost interchangeable backdrops for psychic dramas; and a fine indifference to any moralistic settling of scores, her tales tending to close with Good and Evil characters settling into uneasy equipoise.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://sf-encyclopedia.uk/fe.php?nm=lee_tanith|title=Encyclopedia of Fantasy (1997) – Lee, Tanith|website=sf-encyclopedia.uk|language=en|access-date=6 April 2019}}</ref>

Her first professional sale came from "Eustace," a ninety-word vignette at the age of 21 in 1968. She continued to work in various jobs for almost another decade, due to rejection of her books.<ref name="bio" /><ref name="Gidney" /> Her first novel (for children) was ''The Dragon Hoard'', published in 1971 by [[Macmillan Publishers|Macmillan]].<ref name="bio" /> Her career took off with the acceptance in 1975 by DAW Books USA of her adult fantasy epic ''[[The Birthgrave]]'' – a mass-market paperback. Many British publishers rejected ''The Birthgrave'' so she approached [[DAW Books]]. Lee subsequently maintained a prolific output in popular genre writing.<ref name="schweltzer" /><ref name="bio" /><ref name="martin">{{cite book|author1=George R. R. Martin |author2=Gardner Dozois |name-list-style=amp |title =Songs of Love and Death: All-Original Tales of Star-Crossed Love|publisher =Simon and Schuster|year =2010|page=361|isbn =978-1-4391-5014-6|url =https://books.google.com/books?id=T71Fraq4P5QC&pg=PA361}}</ref><ref name="whc">{{cite web|url=http://www.whc2010.org/goh-tanithlee01.html|title=Tanith Lee – Author Guest of Honour|year=2010|publisher=World Horror Convention 2010|access-date=25 July 2011|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110630072523/http://www.whc2010.org/goh-tanithlee01.html|archive-date=30 June 2011}}</ref> ''The Birthgrave'' allowed Lee to be a full-time writer and stop doing "stupid and soul-killing jobs."<ref name="carroll">{{cite web|url=http://www.tabula-rasa.info/Horror/TanithLee.html|title=A History of Horror: On the Lee Side|author1=David Carroll |author2=Kyla Ward |year=1994|access-date=16 October 2012}}</ref>

During the nineties her "career went through the doldrums" because of trends in publishing.<ref name="Tanith">{{cite news |last1=Kaveney |first1=Roz |title=Tanith Lee obituary |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jun/01/tanith-lee |access-date=9 October 2022 |work=The Guardian |date=1 June 2015}}</ref> Major publishing companies were less accepting of Lee's later works.<ref name="Gidney" /><ref name="flood2">{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2010/aug/27/fantasy-death-master-tanith-lee|title=World of Fantasy: Death's Master by Tanith Lee|author=Alison Flood|date=27 August 2010|work=The Guardian |access-date=16 October 2012}}.Contains different text than other Alison Flood article.</ref> The companies which Lee worked with for years refused to look at her proposals.<ref name="schweitzer2">{{cite web|url=http://www.rofmag.com/author-interviews/interview-with-tanith-lee/|title=Interview: Tanith Lee|author=Darrell Schweitzer|year=2011|publisher=Realms of Fantasy|access-date=16 October 2012|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120330021324/http://www.rofmag.com/author-interviews/interview-with-tanith-lee/|archive-date=30 March 2012}}</ref> Smaller companies were publishing just a few of Lee's works. The refusals did not stop her from writing and she had numerous unpublished novels and short stories.<ref name="schweitzer2" /> Letters from fans asked if she were dead because no new work had been published.<ref name="schweitzer2" /> Lee tried changing her genre, but to no success. However, Internet sales succeeded in reviving her writing.<ref name="Tanith"/>

==== Book sales ====
Lee had "quietly phenomenal sales" at certain periods throughout her career.<ref name="schweitzer2" /> When she tried changing genres, some of her works were liked by critics and published by small publishers, but it made no difference. The royalties were good before the publishers went bankrupt.<ref name="schweitzer2"/>

=== Personal life and death ===
In 1987, Lee met artist and writer John Kaiine.<ref name="bio" /> In 1992, the couple married.<ref name="bio" /> They lived in the south of England.<ref name="carlson" />

Lee died at her home in [[East Sussex]] of breast cancer on 24 May 2015.<ref name="LocusObit">{{cite web|url=http://www.locusmag.com/News/2015/05/tanith-lee-1947-2015/|title=Locus Obituary|date=26 May 2015}}</ref><ref name="Obituary">{{Cite news |title=Tanith Lee, Fantasy and Horror Novelist, Dies at 67 |url=http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/02/books/tanith-lee-fantasy-and-horror-novelist-dies-at-67.html?ref=obituaries |last=Roberts |first=Sam |date=1 June 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150602204640/http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/02/books/tanith-lee-fantasy-and-horror-novelist-dies-at-67.html?ref=obituaries |archive-date=2 June 2015 |access-date=24 August 2023 |url-status=live |work=[[The New York Times]] |author-link=Sam Roberts (newspaper journalist)}}</ref>