Winifred Watson

Winifred Watson, a popular writer of the 1930s who found a new readership in the 21st century, has died at 95.

Mrs. Watson died Aug. 5 in a hospital near her northern England home, said publisher Nicola Beauman, who has reprinted the author ' s humorous and risque 1938 novel, " Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day. "

The November 2000 reprint won warm critical praise.

" Why has it taken more than half a century for this wonderful flight of humor to be rediscovered? " The Guardian newspaper asked.

The book, about a governess mistakenly sent to the home of a nightclub singer instead of to a family of unruly children, is " pure Cinderella farce, with beaus, bounders, negligees and nightclubs, " the newspaper said.

Mrs. Watson wrote six novels in the 1930s and early 40s. They were well-reviewed and popular. But Watson gave up writing during World War II when she was rearing a son and dealing with a bombed home.

Winifred Eileen Watson was born Oct. 20, 1906, into a large middle-class family in Jesmond, a suburb of the northeast England industrial city of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

She married Leslie Pickering, who had a timber business, and lived most of her life in the same area.

Mrs. Watson is survived by her son, Keith.