Dona Celestis

The little picture under the title-- there must be a term for that, but I don't know what it is! 
Anyway here's the one from Dona Celestis. 

Keeper of the Door, 1952

Hehe, quibbling again!  Neither Max nor Olga had black hair or blue eyes.  Nice atmosphere, though. 

The back cover blurb's nice too: 


Did Dr. Max Wyndham hold the keys of life and death in his hands? And did he open the door intentionally to let Violet Campion pass through to the Beyond? Could she marry Max Wyndham and remain faithful to the memory of her friend? These are the torturing thoughts which troubled Olga Ratcliffe.

The events of that terrible night when Violet Campion died so tragically proved too much for Olga, and after many weeks of illness caused through brain fever, she recovered to find that memories of the past were beyond her -beyond her till the whisperings of the hated Hunt-Goring revived the awful fear that the real facts of her friend's death were being hidden from her.

How she discovered the truth and her final emergence from the valley of the shadows to ultimate happiness make an absorbing story, told by an authoress who not only gives her readers enter­tainment but solves with unerring skill some of the deeper problems which beset mankind.

link to a bunch of covers...

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/d/ethel-m-dell/

Lots of cool ones here! 

Nettie and Sissie, by Penelope Dell

Just found on Ebay.  This looks interesting! 

"A Biography of the Best-Selling novelist ETHEL M.DELL and her Sister, Ella, written by their adopted niece."

Peggy By Request - it was okay

Done with Peggy. It was okay, but not as fabulous as some of the other novels. It took a looooong time to get to anything, and then I think the author actually missed some opportunity for buildup. Peggy and Noel had FUN times together when she was six and he was twenty-two! They should have at least reminisced about that and smiled together! But it was almost like two people met casually, liked each other and gradually fell in love in the normal course of things. There's some drama when disgraceful behavior on Noel's part is revealed, and Peggy reacts in a slightly unexpected way, which develops the characters-- but the solution, frankly, is pretty stupid and contrived, and so's the denouement. Peggy should have married Captain Turner, who loved her enough to fight for her! Nope, I wasn't overly impressed, and I'll just list it again on Ebay.

The Hundredth Chance online at Google books

Hehe, I no sooner said it than I found it  :-) 

http://books.google.com/books?id=EJQOAAAAIAAJ

Links to other free Ethel Dell stories

Death's Property
Eleventh Hour, The
Experiment, The
Her Own Free Will
Knight Errant, The
Looker-On, The
Nonentity, The
Place of Honour, The
Question of Trust
Return Game, The
Sacrifice, The
Safety Curtain, The
Swindler's Handicap, The
Tidal Wave, The
Without Prejudice
Woman of His Dream, The

http://www.classicreader.com/author/334/

I don't see a link to The Hundredth Chance... I'd like to read that one.

link to GREAT scanned dust jackets!

There's a whole BUNCH of them here!  Cool! 

http://www.ladybluestocking.com/List%20of%20Jackets/Unrestored%20Jackets.html

And one "restored" of Rocks of Valpre...

http://www.ladybluestocking.com/List%20of%20Jackets/njv/Rocks%20of%20Valpre%20DJ.html

Way of an Eagle - Cartland edition

Greatheart cover

Found on Google images... there's a nice large view of the same dust jacket! 

The Lamp in the Desert cover

Knave of Diamonds (Barbara Cartland edition) cover

This is the only Dell story that I didn't like...

Peggy By Request cover

It was called "Peggy by Request" when it was published in the United States.  This was the most on-point cover that I could find.  That's what I'm currently reading!  I found a copy on Ebay for $4, quite beat up, but I just wanted to read it because I was VERY interested in how the Noel Wyndham romance would go  :-)

In Keeper of the Door, the heroine for a short time is interested in Noel Wyndham instead of his older brother Max.  Noel Wyndham's a very good sport-- at the end of the story he's still cheerful, and playfully consenting to marry a girl who's very much in love with him and has been following him around through the whole book-- beautiful blonde Peggy, then six years old!  Ethel Dell was besieged with requests from readers to know what, if anything, happens with these two once Peggy grows up! 

A couple new images I just snagged from Ebay...

Cover of Altar of Honor

The Rocks of Valpre frontispiece

Serpent in the Garden cover, 1937

another Storm Drift cover

Greatheart frontispiece

The Top of the World - two dust jackets!

Like most of the others-- saved from Ebay auctions  :-)