Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Pamela Hansford Johnson
-
Standard Name: Johnson, Pamela Hansford
Birth Name: Pamela Hansford Johnson
Pseudonym: Nap Lombard
Married Name: Pamela Hansford Snow
Titled: Baroness Snow
PHJ
had a long and prolific writing career, from before the second world war until late twentieth century. She is remembered primarily as a novelist (with twenty-seven titles),
Hadley, Tessa. “He wants me no more”. London Review of Books, Vol.
38
, No. 2, pp. 29-30.
30
though she also wrote poetry, drama, memoirs, and political and social commentary.
His first serious love-affair was with Pamela Hansford Johnson
, like him an aspiring writer. They corresponded for several months before they met and were, as they had expected to be, mutually attracted. They fell...
Friends, Associates
Susan Hill
While studying at King's CollegeSH
, an aspiring writer, wrote to novelist Pamela Hansford Johnson
and her writer husband C. P. Snow
for advice on the profession. The couple answered her letters and even...
Friends, Associates
Olivia Manning
OM
's friends included a number of fellow-writers: William Gerhardi
, Ivy Compton-Burnett
(whom she had first met before the war, at a party given by Rose Macaulay
, and whose work she deeply admired),...
Intertextuality and Influence
Muriel Spark
In a private joke, MS
filled Dougal's notes for his ghosted autobiography with clichés like thrilled to his touch,living a lie, etc., every one of which she had found in the published writings of...
Intertextuality and Influence
Susan Hill
I would come home, do my homework, and then write my novel in what little time was left.
Sanderson, Caroline. “Interview, Susan Hill”. Mslexia, No. 48, pp. 13-15.
14
Novelist Pamela Hansford Johnson
not only encouraged her in the writing of this book, but also...
Literary responses
Joanna Cannan
These books were praised by a whole roster of other women novelists: Elizabeth Bowen
, Phyllis Bentley
, and Pamela Hansford Johnson
. Bowen observed of the first that there was much more to this...
Literary responses
Agatha Christie
AC
, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, received the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award (1954), the degree of DLitt from the University of Exeter
(1961), and a letter addressed simply...
Literary responses
Olivia Manning
Amid a chorus of praise for this novel, Pamela Hansford Johnson
's statement that it was among the ten best novels written by women in the past twenty-five years attracted ridicule for its mathematical approach...
Literary responses
Ivy Compton-Burnett
Leonard Woolf's decision proved a mistake. The book was not only praised to the skies by young, advanced reviewers, but also made the secondary Book of the Month for May by the newly-formed Book Society
Literary responses
Ivy Compton-Burnett
Pamela Hansford Johnson
thought this both the most attractive and one of the finest of ICB
's books, verging on the lyrical.
Johnson, Pamela Hansford. Important to Me. Macmillan; Scribner.
Johnson, Important 193, 195
Literary responses
Ivy Compton-Burnett
Of this novel ICB
wrote, I have never had such superficial reviews.
Spurling, Hilary. Secrets of a Woman’s Heart. Hodder and Stoughton.
190
They did, however, praise the book, especially in the case of reviewers who were also novelists, like Elizabeth Bowen
, Pamela Hansford Johnson
Literary responses
Muriel Spark
The London theatre critics were scathing, with only two exceptions (though one of these, Harold Hobson
, carried a lot of weight). Pamela Hansford Johnson
trounced the play on the BBC
's radio programme The...
Literary responses
Noel Streatfeild
Pamela Hansford Johnson
called this at its first appearance NS
's best book to date.
Julia Strachey
and Pamela Hansford Johnson
both slammed A Wreath of Roses.
Beauman, Nicola. The Other Elizabeth Taylor. Persephone Books.
214-15
ET
herself felt that it expanded her range, but that the result was not successful: that she had produced a cold...
Literary responses
Elizabeth Taylor
Reviews of A Game of Hide and Seek included high praise from Marghanita Laski
and Elizabeth Bowen
(some consolation to ET
for her problems with her US publisher), but also carping which she found deeply...
Timeline
1 April 1939: General Franco, Nationalist victor in the...
National or international item
1 April 1939
General Franco
, Nationalist victor in the Spanish Civil War, declared the conflict over. Republican soldiers had been fleeing over the border to France for some time, and Madrid had fallen on 28 March.
22 June 1941: Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union (named...
National or international item
22 June 1941
Hitler
's invasion of the Soviet Union (named Operation Barbarossa, and in contravention of the German-Soviet non-aggression pact of 23 August 1939) began with a surprise attack at dawn which destroyed a thousand Soviet planes...
September 1949: PEN International held a conference in Venice....
27 April 1966: Ian Brady and Myra Hindley went on trial...
Building item
27 April 1966
Ian Brady
and Myra Hindley
went on trial at Chester for the sexual assault and murder of five girls and boys aged between ten and seventeen; they were sentenced to life imprisonment.
Texts
Johnson, Pamela Hansford. A Bonfire. Macmillan; Scribner, 1981.
Johnson, Pamela Hansford. A Summer to Decide. Michael Joseph, 1948.
Johnson, Pamela Hansford. An Avenue of Stone. Michael Joseph, 1947.
Johnson, Pamela Hansford. An Error of Judgement. Macmillan; Harcourt, Brace and World, 1962.
Johnson, Pamela Hansford. An Impossible Marriage. Macmillan, 1954.