title: Reay Tannahill
text: # Reay Tannahill
  
  Reay Tannahill (9 December 1929 – 2 November 2007) was a British historian, non-fiction writer, and novelist, best known perhaps for two non-fiction bestsellers: Food in History and Sex in History. She also wrote under the pseudonym Annabel Laine. Her novel Passing Glory won in 1990 the Romantic Novel of the Year Award by the Romantic Novelists' Association.
  
  ## Biography
  
  ### Personal life
  
  Reay Tannahill was born on 9 December 1929 in Glasgow, Scotland, where she was brought up. Her forename was the maiden name of her mother, Olive Reay. She was educated at Shawlands Academy, and obtained an MA in history and a postgraduate certificate in Social Sciences at the University of Glasgow.
  
  In 1958, she married Michael Edwardes; the marriage ended in divorce in 1983 and he died in 1990.
  
  Until her death on 2 November 2007 she lived in a terraced house in London near Tate Britain.
  
  ### Career
  
  Before she started to write, she worked as a probation officer, advertising copywriter, newspaper reporter, historical researcher and graphic designer. She published her first non-fiction book in 1964. With the international success that came with the book Food in History, her publisher suggested a companion volume on the second great human imperative, Sex in History. For her 2002 revised edition of Food in History, she won the Premio Letterario Internazionale Chianti Ruffino Antico Fattore.
  
  She also wrote historical romance novels, and in 1990, her novel Passing Glory won in 1990 the Romantic Novel of the Year Award by the Romantic Novelists' Association.
  
  She belonged to the Arts Club and the Authors' Club, and was chairman of the latter from 1997 to 2000.
  
  