Pamela Hansford Johnson

This first biography of Pamela Hansford Johnson (1912-1981) has been written with the full co-operation of her three children, who allowed Wendy Pollard access to previously unexamined diaries, letters, and much other material, illuminating their mother's eventful and often entertaining life. Pamela Hansford Johnson's achievements were all the more remarkable because of her lack of formal education after the age of 16. With no literary contacts to ease her path, she nevertheless quickly established herself first as a poet, then as a prolific short story writer, and, after the publication of her first novel, she was able to support herself and her mother on the income from her writing and reviewing. Her private life was full of incident, the earliest being a turbulent youthful romance with Dylan Thomas. Her first marriage was to an Australian journalist, and she subsequently married the novelist and scientist, C. P. (later Lord) Snow. The Snows formed a celebrated literary partnership, traveling widely, and being fêted in academic circles in the USA and the USSR as well as in the UK. The biography also recounts many intrigues in literary circles in the postwar years, and the Snows later became targets for the emerging satire movement. This biography restores her to the high literary standing she enjoyed for the majority of her creative life.