Jennifer Dawson

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JD achieved an early reputation as a novelist of madness, in tune with 1960s ideas about the brilliant and eccentric visions of insanity being damped and persecuted by conformist social institutions. A friend observed that she writes with chilling insight about bleak places inhabited by bleak people;
Whitby, Joy. “In Memory of Jennifer Hinton (Dawson 1949)”. The Ship, Vol.
91
, 2001–2002, pp. 54-5.
54
a critic called her the supreme chronicler of insanity.
qtd. in
Guttridge, Peter. “Obituary: Jennifer Dawson”. The Independent, 27 Oct. 2000.
Besides her seven novels she published a volume of short stories and collaborated on a children's book.
  • BirthName: Jennifer Dawson
  • Nickname: Jenny
  • Married: Hinton

Milestones

21 January 1929

JD was born in South London, where she also grew up. She was one of five children.
“Contemporary Authors”. Gale Databases: Literature Resource Centre-LRC.
Guttridge, Peter. “Obituary: Jennifer Dawson”. The Independent, 27 Oct. 2000.

By February 1961

JD published her first and best-known novel, The Ha-Ha, titled from the kind of fence which is sunken in order to make the barrier invisible.
“Contemporary Authors”. Gale Databases: Literature Resource Centre-LRC.
Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford, 1990.
Blond, Anthony. “Introduction [to The Ha-Ha]”. They Made Their Name, Anthony Blond, 1968, p. 199.
199

14 October 2000

JD died of cancer at a hospice in Banbury; she showed no fear of death, which she said she preferred to painful, artificially prolonged life.
“Contemporary Authors”. Gale Databases: Literature Resource Centre-LRC.
The Ship. St Anne’s College.
91: 65
Whitby, Joy. “In Memory of Jennifer Hinton (Dawson 1949)”. The Ship, Vol.
91
, 2001–2002, pp. 54-5.
55

Biography

Birth and Background

21 January 1929

JD was born in South London, where she also grew up. She was one of five children.
“Contemporary Authors”. Gale Databases: Literature Resource Centre-LRC.
Guttridge, Peter. “Obituary: Jennifer Dawson”. The Independent, 27 Oct. 2000.