NOVELIST'S ROMANCE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19298, 10 April 1926, Page 2 (Supplement)

NOVELIST'S ROMANCE.

A. S. M. HUTCHINSON WEDS. CEREMONY KEPT SECRET, DREAD OF PUBLICITY, After being regarded for long as a confirmed bachelor, Mr. A. S. M. Hutchinson, author of "If Winter Comes, and other immensely popular novels, surprised his friends in February by marrying and departing for a honeymoon abroad. The affair was carried out with the greatest secrecy, for Mr. Hutchinson has always shunned the public gaze. He and his wife left England when the maniage became known. The bride was Miss Rosamond Bristow-Gapper, of Harrow. Their first meeting was a sequel to a letter which Miss Bristow-Gapper wrote to Mr. Hutchinson about one of his novels. Only the nearest relatives of the bride and bridegroom —Miss Bristow-Gapper s mother and sister, and Mr. Hutchinson s sister, Vere, who has herself made a reputation as a novelist —and one old friend of Mr. Hutchinson, were present at the wedding, which took place at Christ Church, Westminster. A Writer ol Songs. The bride is doscribed as a charming, pretty and very clever girl of 23. She is gifted musically and poetically, and several of her songs, of which she composed both words and music, have been incorporated in musical plays. In a recent season of the Co-Optimists she wrote a song which was sung by Miss Betty Chester. " It is a very charming and romantic marriage," said Mrs. Bristow-Gdppcr, mother of the bride, to a nowspaper representative after the wedding. Mr. Hutchinson and my daughter have known each other for many years and have been extremely fond of each other. Their tastes in literary and artistic matters generally are very much alike. Thoy were both anxious to keep the wedding a secret until, at any rate, they got out of the country, as they have so many friends and admirers." Mr. Hutchinson kept the secret of his marriago oven from those with whom he had the closest business relations. •' He telephoned us," said a representative of his litorary "and stated that he was going abroad to-day. Your intimation is the first I have had of his marriage. I would never have dreamed of such a thing, as I have always regarded Mr. Hutchinson as a confirmed bachelor." It is expected that the couple will be six months away, and that they will visit America. Ever siuce the meteoric success of " If Winter Comes," Mr. Hutchinson, always a very shy and retiring man, even in the days when he was almost unknown as an author, has become more and more Fled From Popularity. He has been known to explain to friends, when entertaining them at tho Royal Automobilo Club, that he chose that club because it was so large that he could move about there unknown and unrecognised. He was devoted to his mother, who was an invalid, and until her death last year spent a great deal of time with her. At one time he fled from popularity to Palma de Majorca, in the Balearic Islands, wbero he stayed with an old friend, Mr. H. C. Shelley, a former London journalist; and tho sequel to that visit was seen the other day, when Mr. Shelley's book on Majorca appeared with a prefaco by A. S. M. Hutchinson.