Pamela Frankau

Pamela Frankau (1908-1967) was a popular British novelist. Her father was the novelist Gilbert Frankau and her mother a satirist Julia Davis. Her uncle was the British radio comedian, Ronald Frankau.

She had success as a writer from a young age. A relationship with the married Humbert Wolfe ended only with his death in 1940. She then ceased to write for a long period. During the Second World War, she worked for the BBC, the Ministry of Food and with the Auxiliary Territorial Service.

First published in 1954, "A Wreath for the Enemy" is perhaps her best loved novel and is still in print on both sides of the Atlantic (McPherson & Virago). In the novel the events of one night transform what appears at first to be a typical adolescent crisis into a prolonged struggle for self-definition on the part of the novel's teenage protagonist. In part autobiographical, Frankau clearly identified with her lead character who is presented as a writer in development.

Frankau became a Roman Catholic convert in 1942, and spent much time in the United States. She was married there, though only for a few years. She returned to England in 1953. A long lesbian relationship with the theatre director Margaret Webster began in the 1950s.

Works

*"Marriage of Harlequin" (1927)
*"The Fig Tree" (1928)
*"The Black Minute, and other stories" (1929)
*"Three. A Novel" (1929)
*"She and I" (1930)
*"Born at Sea" (1931)
*"Letters from a Modern Daughter to her Mother" (1931)
*"The Devil We Know" (1931)
*" “I was the Man.”" (1932)
*"Women are so Serious, and other stories" (1932)
*"The Foolish Apprentices" (1933)
*"A Manual of Modern Manners" (1933)
*"Walk into my Parlour" (1933)
*"Tassell-Gentle" (1934) as Fly Now Falcon" (US)
*"I Find Four People" (1935) autobiography
*"Fifty-Fifty, and other stories" (1936)
*"Villa Anodyne" (1936)
*"Jezebel" (1937)
*"Some New Planet" (1937)
*"No News" (1938)
*"A Democrat Dies" (1939)
*"The Devil We Know" (1939)
*"Shaken in the Wind" (1948)
*"The Willow Cabin" (1949)
*"The Offshore Light" (1952)
*"The Winged Horse" (1953)
*"To The Moment of Triumph" (1953)
*"A Wreath for the Enemy" (1954)
*"The Bridge" (1957)
*"Ask me no More" (1958)
*"Road through the Woods" (1960)
*"Pen to Paper. A novelist's notebook" (1961)
*"Letter to a Parish Priest" (1962)
*"Sing for Your Supper" (1963)
*"Slaves of the Lamp" (1965)
*"Over the Mountains" (1967)
*"Colonel Blessington" (1968) posthumous, editor Diana Raymond

External links

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