Phyllis Bottome was a prolific novelist who published over fifty works in approximately sixty years. Her two best-known works,
Private Worlds and
The Mortal Storm, were made into popular American films. In addition to novels, Phyllis Bottome wrote a biography of psychologist
Alfred Adler, who greatly influenced her life and work; three volumes of autobiography; and numerous essays and short stories. Most of her writings are concerned with issues of social justice—poverty, mental illness, women's work, and especially anti-Semitism. In her fiction and non-fiction, Phyllis Bottome fervently attacked the
Nazis' treatment of European Jews and appealed to Britain and America to take responsibility for the plight of Jewish refugees.
Milestones
By 31 October 1902 PB's first novel,
Life, the Interpreter, was published in
London. It appeared the same year in
New York.
1934 PB published one of her best-known novels,
Private Worlds, which she hoped would increase public awareness about mental illness and lead to better treatment options.
1935 A film version of PB's
Private Worlds, starring Charles Boyer and
Claudette Colbert and directed by Gregory La Cava, was released.
By 9 October 1937 PB published in Britain and North America
The Mortal Storm, a blockbuster novel which depicts a German woman's resistance to anti-semitism in
Nazi Germany.
By 12 January 1962 PB published
The Goal, her third and final volume of autobiography.
