astronomy

Margaret Millar

Margaret Millar is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Margaret Millar rather than just read about it. In short: Margaret Ellis Millar (née Sturm; February 5, 1915 – March 26, 1994) was a Canadian-American mystery and suspense writer. Born in Berlin, Ontario (the city would change its name to Kitchener in 1916), she was educated at the Kitchener-Waterloo Collegiate Institute and the University of Toronto.

Key takeaways

Margaret Millar belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Margaret Millar to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Margaret Millar from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Margaret Ellis Millar (née Sturm; February 5, 1915 – March 26, 1994) was a Canadian-American mystery and suspense writer. Born in Berlin, Ontario (the city would change its name to Kitchener in 1916), she was educated at the Kitchener-Waterloo Collegiate Institute and the University of Toronto. She moved to the United States after marrying Kenneth Millar (better known under the pen name Ross Macdonald). They resided for decades in the city of Santa Barbara, which was often used as a locale in her later novels under the pseudonyms of San Felice or Santa Felicia. The Millars had a daughter, Linda, who died in 1970.

Styles and themes Millar's books are distinguished by depth of characterization. Often we are shown the rather complex interior lives of the people in her books, with issues of class, insecurity, failed ambitions, loneliness or existential isolation or paranoia often being explored. Unusual people, mild societal misfits or people who don't quite fit into their surroundings are given much interior detail. In some of the books (for example in The Iron Gates) we are given insight into what it feels like to be losing touch with reality and evolving into madness. In general, she is a writer of both expressive description and economy, often ambitious in conveying the sociological context of the stories. Millar often delivers "surprise endings," but the details that would allow the solution of the surprise have usually been subtly included. Her books focus on subtleties of human interaction and rich psychological detail of individual characters as much as on plot. Millar was a pioneer in writing about the psychology of women. She wrote about class distinctions, sexual freedom and frustration, and the ambivalence of moral codes depending on a character's economic circumstances. Read against the backdrop of Production Code-era movies of the time, her novels show the reader a different morality than what was portrayed in Hollywood during the 40's and 50's. It has been argued that Millar "essentially created a new hybrid form of literature: detective literature" in contrast to formulaic genre stories. Many websites cite her as working as a screenwriter for Warner Brothers just after World War II, but no further details are given as to what she may have worked on, even on imdb.com. Around that time, Warners bought the option on her novel The Iron Gates, with its portrait of a woman descending into madness, but reportedly Bette Davis and other prominent Warner Brothers actresses ultimately turned it down because the memorable protagonist is missing for the last third of the story. The film was never produced. In the early '60s, two of her novels were adapted for the anthology TV series Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Thriller: Beast in View and Rose's Last Summer, which starred Mary Astor. While she was not known for any one recurring detective (unlike her husband, whose constant gumshoe was Lew Archer), she occasionally used a detective character for more than one novel. Among her occasional ongoing sleuths were Canadians Dr. Paul Prye (her first invention, in the earliest books) and Inspector Sands (a quiet, unassuming Canadian police inspector who might be the most endearing of her recurring inventions). In the California years, a few books featured either Joe Quinn, a rather down-on-his-luck private eye, or Tom Aragon, a young, Hispanic lawyer. Most of Millar's books are still in print in America. Starting in 2016, Soho Syndicate has published a large selection of omnibus re-issues grouped by theme. Many are available as single ebooks.

Awards and recognition In 1956, Millar won the Edgar Allan Poe Awards Best Novel award for Beast in View. Two later novels were also nominated for Best Novel. In 1965 she was awarded the Woman of the Year Award by the Los Angeles Times. In 1983, she was awarded the Grand Master Award by the Mystery Writers of America in recognition of her lifetime achievements.

In 1987, critic and mystery writer H.R.F Keating included Millar's Beast In View in his Crime & Mystery: The 100 Best Books. He wrote: "Margaret Millar is surely one of late twentieth-century crime fiction's best writers, in the sense that the actual writing in her books, the prose, is of superb quality. On almost every page of this one there is some description, whether of a physical thing or a mental state, that sends a sharp ray of extra meaning into the reader's mind."

Published works

"Paul Prye" mystery novels The Invisible Worm (1941) The Weak-Eyed Bat (1942) The Devil Loves Me (1942)

"Inspector Sands" mystery novels Wall of Eyes (1943) The Iron Gates [Taste of Fears] (1945)

"Tom Aragon" mystery novels Ask for Me Tomorrow (1976) The Murder of Miranda (1979) Mermaid (1982)

Other mystery novels Fire Will Freeze (1944) Do Evil in Return (1950) Rose's Last Summer (1952) Vanish in an Instant (1952) Beast in View (1955) (Edgar Award for Best Novel, 1956) An Air That Kills [The Soft Talkers] (1957) The Listening Walls (1959) A Stranger in My Grave (1960) How Like an Angel (1962) The Fiend (1964) Beyond This Point Are Monsters (1970) Banshee (1983) Spider Webs (1986) The Couple Next Door: Collected Short Mysteries. Ed. Tom Nolan (Crippen & Landru, 2004)

Other novels Experiment in Springtime (1947) It's All in the Family (1948) The Cannibal Heart (1949) Wives and Lovers (1954)

Nonfiction The Birds and the Beasts Were There: The Joys of Birdwatching and Wildlife Observation in California's Richest Habitat (1968) (memoir)

Birding As evidenced by her birdwatching memoir, birding was an important part of the lives of Margaret Millar and her husband. The couple were founding members of the Santa Barbara Audubon Society. She was a member of the inaugural SBAS Board and Conservation Chair. Millar was an early participant in the American Birding Association's Rare Bird Alert, founded in Santa Barbara in 1963. She also served in the National Audubon Society.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Margaret Millar

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Margaret Millar claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Margaret Millar before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Margaret Millar ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Margaret Millar

In research: Margaret Millar appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Margaret Millar in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Margaret Millar is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1915 births, 1994 deaths, 20th-century Canadian novelists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Margaret Millar outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Margaret Millar in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Margaret Millar means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Margaret Millar out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Margaret Millar in simple terms?

Why does Margaret Millar matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Margaret Millar?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Margaret Millar.