Essie Summers

Essie Summers (born Ethel Snelson Summers, 4 July 1912 – 27 August 1998) was a New Zealand author whose romance novels sold more than 19 million copies in 105 countries. She was known as New Zealand's "Queen of Romance".

Summers was born on 24 July 1912 to a newly emigrated couple, Ethel Snelson and Edwin Summers, who lived in Bordesley Street in Christchurch. Summers was always proud of both her British heritage and her New Zealand citizenship. Both her parents were exceptional storytellers, and this, combined with her early introduction to the Anne of Green Gables stories, engendered in her a lifelong fascination with the craft of writing and the colorful legacy of pioneers everywhere.

Leaving school at 14 when her father's butcher shop experienced financial difficulties, she worked for a number of years in draper's shops and later turned her experiences to good use in writing the romantic novels for which she became famous.

She met her husband-to-be William Flett when she was only 13 years old, but it was 13 years before she consented to marry him. As a minister's wife and the mother of two, William and Elizabeth, she still found many opportunities to pen short stories, poetry and newspaper columns before embarking on her first novel, which sold to the firm of Mills & Boon in 1956.

Summers died in Taradale, Hawkes Bay on 27 August 1998.

Essie Summers book covers were featured as part of a heritage romance cover display at the Auckland Central Library in 2013.