Phyllis Bottome

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PB 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, PB 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, PB fervently attacked the Nazis ' treatment of European Jews and appealed to Britain and America to take responsibility for the plight of Jewish refugees.

Milestones

31 May 1882

PB was born at Rochester in Kent.
Her obituary wrongly gave her birthdate as 1884, though PB gave it accurately in her first volume of autobiography, Search for a Soul.
“Dictionary of Literary Biography online”. Gale Databases: Literature Resource Center-LRC.
197
Bottome, Phyllis. Search for a Soul. Faber and Faber.
11
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

By 31 October 1902

PB 's first novel, Life, the Interpreter, was published in London. It appeared the same year in New York.
“Dictionary of Literary Biography online”. Gale Databases: Literature Resource Center-LRC.
197
OCLC WorldCat. http://www.oclc.org/firstsearch/content/worldcat/. Accessed 1999.
TLS Centenary Archive Centenary Archive [1902-2012]. http://www.gale.com/c/the-times-literary-supplement-historical-archive.
42 (31 October 1902): 324

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.
“Dictionary of Literary Biography online”. Gale Databases: Literature Resource Center-LRC.
197
OCLC WorldCat. http://www.oclc.org/firstsearch/content/worldcat/. Accessed 1999.

1935

A film version of PB 's Private Worlds, starring Charles Boyer and Claudette Colbert and directed by Gregory La Cava , was released.
“Dictionary of Literary Biography online”. Gale Databases: Literature Resource Center-LRC.
197

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 NaziGermany.
Lassner, Phyllis. British Women Writiers of World War II: Battlegrounds of Their Own. St Martin’s Press.
219, 276n10
OCLC WorldCat. http://www.oclc.org/firstsearch/content/worldcat/. Accessed 1999.

20 June 1940

The film version of PB 's The Mortal Storm, one of Hollywood's first anti-Nazi films, opened in the United States, where it served as an important and influential piece of British war propaganda.
Calder, Robert. Beware the British Serpent. McGill-Queen’s University Press.
247
“Dictionary of Literary Biography online”. Gale Databases: Literature Resource Center-LRC.
197

By 12 January 1962

PB published The Goal, her third and final volume of autobiography.
“Dictionary of Literary Biography online”. Gale Databases: Literature Resource Center-LRC.
197
OCLC WorldCat. http://www.oclc.org/firstsearch/content/worldcat/. Accessed 1999.
TLS Centenary Archive Centenary Archive [1902-2012]. http://www.gale.com/c/the-times-literary-supplement-historical-archive.
3124 (12 January 1962): 25

22 August 1963

PB died at her home at 95 South End Road, Hampstead in London.
“Dictionary of Literary Biography online”. Gale Databases: Literature Resource Center-LRC.
197
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
“Obituary: Miss Phyllis Bottome, An Accomplished Novelist”. Times, p. 10.

Biography

Birth and Background

31 May 1882

PB was born at Rochester in Kent.
Her obituary wrongly gave her birthdate as 1884, though PB gave it accurately in her first volume of autobiography, Search for a Soul.
“Dictionary of Literary Biography online”. Gale Databases: Literature Resource Center-LRC.
197
Bottome, Phyllis. Search for a Soul. Faber and Faber.
11
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.