The lost queen of the Scottish arts scene steps into the light
Her fans say she should be regarded alongside writers such as Nan Shepherd and Neil Gunn, but who was Christine Orr, asks Alison Campsie
She published 18 novels, wrote numerous plays and was something of an Edinburgh celebrity in the early to mid 1900s.
But today, the name Christine Orr remains little known despite her vast achievements in the maledominated arts and culture scene of the time.
Now, a new exhibition at Edinburgh Writers’ Museum seeks to truly reflect the life, legacy and work of Ms Orr, with many of her publications and personal items going on display for the first time.
Curator Susan Gardner said Christine Orr could be considered worthy of inclusion in the roll call of authors of the Scottish Literary Renaissance, with her contemporaries including Neil Gunn, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Naomi Mitchison and Nan Shepherd.
Ms Gardner said: “I think Christine was really well known in the early 20th Century but there are lots of reasons why some well known writers and artists fade.
“She was involved in some many different things: she wrote novels, poems and plays and worked for the BBC. Perhaps because she didn’t focus her talents in one area, her profile was allowed to fade.
“Whether it is anything to do with her being a woman, we don’t know. But certainly it is the case that during the 1920s and the 1930s, it was harder for female writers to be taken seriously.”
Some of the earliest works of Ms Orr, who attended St George’s School for Girls and grew up in Great King Street in New Town, will go on show at the museum, including a pencil box and inkwell and her first publications – two original ‘Tops and Tales’ magazines that she wrote between the ages of 11 and 16.
Ms Gardner said: “These magazines have been in the museum since the 1960s and it has only been in the last couple of years that we really discovered who Christine Orr was and what she went on to do as an adult.
“When Edinburgh Napier University publishing students republished her first novel, The Glorious Thing, which she set in Edinburgh during the First World War when she was only 20, I knew the name was familiar. Then, here we had these magazines and the connection was made.”
She added: “It seemed appropriate to stage an exhibition in 2019, the centenary of the publication of her first novel, and it would be wonderful if the exhibition helped spark new interest in her life and work.
“She was obviously talented from a very young age, and a natural story teller.”
Most of Orr’s novels were at least partly set in Edinburgh, with titles including Kate Curlew, Hogmanay and The House of Joy, with the titles now out of print.
She also formed amateur theatre companies in Edinburgh including the Christine Orr Players, The Makars and, the Unicorn Players with her husband Robin Stark. In 1947, the couple staged a play to coincide with the Edinburgh International Festival and became known as one of the “uninvited eight” who kick-started the Festival Fringe.
Ms Orr and her husband, who had no children, worked together on numerous theatre productions, including the Masque of Edinburgh, which was performed at the Usher Hall in front of the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh during their 1953 Coronation tour.
Despite her marriage fuelling a rich creative output, Ms Orr always wrote under her own name, which was perhaps unusual for the time.
Ms Gardner said the writer became something of an Edinburgh celebrity, and was asked to open school fairs and give talks about her work.
“She strikes me as being like Alexander Mccall-smith of her day,” Ms Gardner said.
Talks and Tales: The Childhood Writing of Christine Orr is at The Writers’ Museum, Lady Stair’s Close, until March 2020.