Setter, an eminent Harley Street consultant, is trusted and admired by his circle of friends, devoting himself to the rehabilitation of the lonely and the misunderstood. But deep within himself Setter recognizes a latent streak of sadistic cruelty which enables him to perceive the truth about a delinquent youth whom he suspects of having taken part in a particularly repellent and senseless crime. It is for Setter to choose a punishment--and enforce it. An Error of Judgments a subtle study of human weakness and conflict. Partly a wry social comedy and partly a study in good and evil, it is brilliantly written and observed, assured and skillful, and a truly modern work.
This is an unconventional memoir – a book of reflections upon the things that have been most important in Pamela Hansford Johnson’s life. It is a wide-ranging book. It offers personal reminiscenses; views on literature, music and painting; portraits of remarkable people; opinions on politics and society; and scenes from an active life. Pamela Hansford Johnson writes about her childhood and youth, giving a marvellous portrait of her mother. She brilliantly discusses the writer who is her greatest enthusiasm—Marcel Proust. With wit and a sharp eye she describes her travels in the United States and Russia. She gives an account of her close friendship with Dylan Thomas, and she portrays Edith Sitwell. At once personal and reflective, Important To Me is written with immediacy and unassuming grace.
This volume contributes to the vibrant, ongoing recuperative work on women’s writing by shedding new light on a group of authors commonly dismissed as middlebrow in their concerns and conservative in their styles and politics. The neologism ‘interfeminism’ – coined to partner Kristin Bluemel’s ‘intermodernism’ – locates this group chronologically and ideologically between two ‘waves’ of feminism, whilst also forging connections between the political and cultural monoliths that have traditionally overshadowed them. Drawing attention to the strengths of this ‘out-of-category’ writing in its own right, this volume also highlights how intersecting discourses of gender, class and society in the interwar and postwar periods pave the way for the bold reassessments of female subjectivity that characterise second and third wave feminism. The essays showcase the stylistic, cultural and political vitality of a substantial group of women authors of fiction, non-fiction, drama, poetry and journalism including Vera Brittain, Storm Jameson, Nancy Mitford, Phyllis Shand Allfrey, Rumer Godden, Attia Hosain, Doris Lessing, Kamala Markandaya, Susan Ertz, Marghanita Laski, Elizabeth Bowen, Edith Pargeter, Eileen Bigland, Nancy Spain, Vera Laughton Matthews, Pamela Hansford Johnson, Dorothy Whipple, Elizabeth Taylor, Daphne du Maurier, Barbara Comyns, Shelagh Delaney, Stevie Smith and Penelope Mortimer. Additional exploration of the popular magazines Woman’s Weekly and Good Housekeeping and new material from the Vera Brittain archive add an innovative dimension to original readings of the literature of a transformative period of British social and cultural history. List of contributors: Natasha Periyan, Eleanor Reed, Maroula Joannou , Lola Serraf, Sue Kennedy, Ana Ashraf, Chris Hopkins, Gill Plain, Lucy Hall, Katherine Cooper, Nick Turner, Maria Elena Capitani, James Underwood, and Jane Thomas.
Magician, Poet and Seer, Victor Neuburg was the disciple of Aleister Crowley and literary godfather of Dylan Thomas. Really two books in one. Firstly a record of one man's extraordinary journey to magical enlightenment. Secondly the story of the Aleister Crowley, the magus who summoned Neuburg to join him in the quest. The book opens with the author's entry into the group of young poets including Dylan Thomas and Pamela Hansford Johnson. They gather around Victor Neuburg in 1935 when he is poetry editor of the Sunday Referee. Gradually the author becomes aware of his strange and sinister past, in which Neuburg was associated in magic with Aleister Crowley. Neuburg had been Crowley's partner in magical rituals in the desert and in rites even more dangerous and controversial. The author sought out the truth behind the rumours and with her intuitive understanding of deeper things presents a sympathetic and compelling biography. 'Vicky encouraged me as no one else has done, ' Dylan Thomas declared on hearing of Neuburg's death. 'He possessed many kinds of genius, and not the least was his genius for drawing to himself, by his wisdom, graveness, great humour and innocence, a feeling of trust and love, that won't ever be forgotten.' ' . . . there was a whiff of sulphur abroad, and all of us would have liked to know the truth of the Aleister Crowley's legends, the truth of the witch-like baroness called Cremers, the abandonment of Neuburg in the desert.' - Pamela Hansford Johnson
'Striking first novel . . . qualities of vitality and humour which set it apart.' New York Times Described by the New York Times upon her death as 'one of Britain's best-known novelists', plunge yourself into the wry world of Pamela Hansford Johnson in this story of seduction and marriage, perfect for fans of Elizabeth Jane Howard and Barbara Pym. ****************** Sixteen-year-old Elsie Cotton is curious about sex, but in this 1930s London suburb, there's no one who is willing to talk to her about it. Her widowed mother refuses to engage with the fact she's growing up, her art teacher tells her she'll find out about it soon enough, and Patty Maginnis would probably know, but Elsie can't find a way to ask her. The only person who will happily help is her boyfriend, Roly; but Elsie is all to aware of the risks... but as their relationship intensifies and her curiosity grows, what options are left to her? Banned from Battersea library, blasted by reviewers for being 'lewd' and earning the author abusive notes through the letterbox on its publication in 1935, This Bed Thy Centre is the controversial debut by Pamela Hansford Johnson that marked the start of her distinguished career. ****************** Praise for Pamela Hansford Johnson: 'Witty, satirical and deftly malicious' Anthony Burgess 'A remarkable craftswoman' A.S. Byatt 'Hansford Johnson at her wittiest is Waugh mingled with Malcolm Bradbury Ruth Rendell 'A writer whose memory fully deserves to be kept alive' Jonathan Coe
This text is the story of rootlessnes, of a London-Irish boy who has two identities and feels at home with neither. John Walsh found the Irishness of his parents' Battersea home stiflingly warm and puzzlingly foreign. Spellbound equally by Mick Jagger and by images of Irish martyrdom, he discovered at the age of 16 an extended family he had never known existed. In the hidden life of Galway was revelation that begged a crucial question: how do we know where our true nature Lies?
