V. C. Andrews

Verified Timeline

Lore & Background

Andrews was born in Portsmouth, Virginia, the youngest child and only daughter of Lillian Lilnora (Parker), a telephone operator, and William Henry Andrews, a tool-and-die maker. As a teenager, she suffered a fall from a school stairwell, resulting in severe back injuries. The subsequent surgery to correct these injuries resulted in Andrews' suffering from crippling arthritis that required her to use crutches and a wheelchair for much of her life. She completed a four-year correspondence course from her home and soon became a successful commercial artist, illustrator, and portrait painter, using her art commissions to support the family after her father's death in 1957. Later in life, Andrews turned to writing. Her first novel, written in 1972 and titled Gods of Green Mountain, was a science fiction effort that remained unpublished during her lifetime but was eventually released as an e-book in 2004. In 1975, Andrews completed a manuscript for a novel she called Flowers in the Attic. 'I wrote it in two weeks,' Andrews said. The novel was returned with the suggestion that she 'spice up' and expand the story. In later interviews, Andrews claims to have made the necessary revisions in a single night. The novel, published in 1979, was an instant popular success, reaching the top of the bestseller lists in only two weeks. By 1982, her horror novels had sold more than 11 million copies. Andrews died of breast cancer on December 19, 1986, in Virginia Beach, Virginia. After her death, her family hired a ghostwriter, Andrew Neiderman, to finish the manuscripts she had started. He would complete the next two novels, Garden of Shadows and Fallen Hearts, and they were published soon after. These two novels are considered the last to bear the 'V. C. Andrews' name and to be almost completely written by Andrews herself.

Reader's Guide

V. C. Andrews' novels combine Gothic horror and family saga, revolving around family secrets and incestual, forbidden love (frequently involving themes of horrific events, and sometimes including a rags-to-riches story). Her best-known novel is the bestseller Flowers in the Attic (1979), a tale of four children smuggled into the attic of their wealthy estranged pious grandmother, and held prisoner there by their mother. Her novels were successful enough that following Andrews's death, her estate hired a ghost writer, Andrew Neiderman, to continue to write novels to be published under her name. In assessing a deficiency in her estate tax returns, the Internal Revenue Service argued (successfully) that Virginia Andrews's name was a valuable commercial asset, the value of which should be included in her gross estate. Her novels have been translated into Czech, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Dutch, Japanese, Korean, Turkish, Greek, Finnish, Hungarian, Swedish, Polish, Portuguese, Lithuanian, Chinese, Russian, Bulgarian and Hebrew. 'I think I tell a whopping good story. And I don't drift away from it a great deal into descriptive material,' she stated in Faces of Fear in 1985. 'When I read, if a book doesn't hold my interest in what's going to happen next, I put it down and don't finish it. So I'm not going to let anybody put one of my books down and not finish it. My stuff is a very fast read.' In an interview for Twilight Magazine in 1983, Andrews was questioned about the critics' response to her work. She answered, 'I don't care what the critics say. I used to, until I found out that most critics are would-be writers who are just jealous because I'm getting published and they aren't. I also don't think that anybody cares about what they say. Nor should they care.'

Did You Know?

• Andrews wrote the manuscript for Flowers in the Attic in two weeks and claimed to have made the publisher's requested revisions in a single night.
• By 1982, her horror novels had sold more than 11 million copies.
• After her death, the Internal Revenue Service successfully argued that Virginia Andrews's name was a valuable commercial asset to be included in her gross estate.
• Her first novel, Gods of Green Mountain (1972), was a science fiction effort that remained unpublished until it was released as an e-book in 2004.
• Andrews used crutches and a wheelchair for much of her life after a fall from a school stairwell as a teenager led to crippling arthritis.