Pamela Hansford Johnson

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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, 21 Jan. 2016, pp. 29-30.
30
though she also wrote poetry, drama, memoirs, and political and social commentary.
Black and white photograph of Pamela Hansford Johnson, seated, with her hands clasped, wearing a white polo-neck sweater with a brooch on the collar. Her dark, wavy hair is smooth and short.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Family and Intimate relationships Dylan Thomas
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 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),...
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...
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.
qtd. in
Sanderson, Caroline. “Interview, Susan Hill”. Mslexia, No. 48, Jan. 2011, pp. 13-15.
14
Novelist Pamela Hansford Johnson not only encouraged her in the writing of this book, but also...
Literary responses F. Tennyson Jesse
The New Yorker described the letters as having vigour, clarity, humour and elegance, and found FTJ and her husband a tough pair of gentle writers.
qtd. in
Colenbrander, Joanna. A Portrait of Fryn. A. Deutsch, 1984.
213
In London, Pamela Hansford Johnson called the...
Literary responses Elizabeth Taylor
Julia Strachey and Pamela Hansford Johnson both slammed A Wreath of Roses.
Beauman, Nicola. The Other Elizabeth Taylor. Persephone Books, 2009.
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...
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 Noel Streatfeild
Pamela Hansford Johnson called this at its first appearance NS 's best book to date.
qtd. in
Huse, Nancy. Noel Streatfeild. Twayne, 1994.
64
Mary Cadogan and Patricia Craig in 1978 praised its freedom from evasions and trite conclusions.
qtd. in
Huse, Nancy. Noel Streatfeild. Twayne, 1994.
66
The reprint of...
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 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 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 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, 1974.
Johnson, Important 193, 195

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.
Oxford Reference. http://www.oxfordreference.com.
Johnson, Pamela Hansford. Important to Me. Macmillan; Scribner, 1974.
127-8

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....

Writing climate item

September 1949

PEN International held a conference in Venice. Delegates included W. H. Auden , C. P. Snow , Pamela Hansford Johnson , and Cecily Mackworth .
Mackworth, Cecily. Ends of the World. Carcanet, 1987.
124-6

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.
“Moors Murderer Hindley Dies”. BBC News, 16 Nov. 2002.

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.
Johnson, Pamela Hansford. Catherine Carter. Macmillan; Knopf, 1952.
Johnson, Pamela Hansford. Corinth House. Evans Bros., 1950.
Johnson, Pamela Hansford. Cork Street, Next to the Hatter’s. Macmillan; Scribners, 1965.
Johnson, Pamela Hansford. I. Compton-Burnett. Longmans, Green, for the British Council and the National Book League, 1951.
Johnson, Pamela Hansford. Important to Me. Macmillan; Scribner, 1974.
Jennings, Elizabeth et al. “Letters to the Editor: Future of Radio”. Times, p. 11.
Johnson, Pamela Hansford. Night and Silence, Who is Here?. Macmillan; Scribner, 1963.
Johnson, Pamela Hansford. On Iniquity. Macmillan; Scribner, 1967.
Johnson, Pamela Hansford. Six Proust Reconstructions. Macmillan, 1958.
Johnson, Pamela Hansford, and Victor Neuburg. Symphony for Full Orchestra. Sunday Referee, 1934.
Johnson, Pamela Hansford. The Family Pattern. Collins, 1942.
Johnson, Pamela Hansford. The Good Husband. Macmillan; Scribner, 1978.
Johnson, Pamela Hansford. The Good Listener. Macmillan; Scribner, 1975.
Johnson, Pamela Hansford. The Holiday Friend. Macmillan; Scribner, 1972.
Johnson, Pamela Hansford. The Honours Board. Macmillan; Scribner, 1970.
Johnson, Pamela Hansford. The Humbler Creation. Macmillan; Harcourt, Brace, 1959.
Johnson, Pamela Hansford. The Last Resort. Macmillan; Harcourt, Brace, 1956.
Johnson, Pamela Hansford, and Marcel Proust. “The Novel of Marcel Proust”. Marcel Proust: Letters to his Mother, translated by. George Duncan Painter and George Duncan Painter, Rider, 1956, pp. 11-31.
Johnson, Pamela Hansford. The Survival of the Fittest. Macmillan; Scribner, 1968.
Johnson, Pamela Hansford. The Trojan Brothers. Michael Joseph, 1944.