Johnson, Pamela Hansford (1912–1981)

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Johnson, Pamela Hansford (1912–1981)

British novelist, dramatist, and critic. Born Pamela Hansford Johnson on May 29, 1912, in Clapham, London, England; died on June 18, 1981, in London, England; daughter of Reginald Kenneth and Amy Clotilda (Howson) Johnson; granddaughter of actor C.E. Howson; educated at Clapham County Secondary School; married Gordon Neil, an Australian journalist, in 1936 (divorced 1949); married C.P.Snow (a novelist), in 1950; children: (first marriage) a son and a daughter; (second marriage) a son.

Selected writings:

This Bed thy Centre (1935); Too Dear for My Possessing (1940); Winter Quarters (1943); An Avenue of Stone (1947); A Summer to Decide (1949); Catherine Carter (1952); An Impossible Marriage (1954); The Unspeakable Skipton (1959); The Humbler Creation (1959); An Error of Judgement (1962); Night and Silence—Who is Here? (1965); Cork Street, Next to the Hatter's (1965); The Honours Board (1970); (memoirs) Important to Me (1974); A Bonfire (1981).

Pamela Hansford Johnson was born on May 29, 1912, in London, England, granddaughter of actor C.E. Howson. She published her first poetry at age 14, and left school after her father died when she was 16. Believing that "a course in [English Literature] has rotted many a promising writer," Johnson claimed never to have regretted the early end to her formal education and credited Aldous Huxley's Texts and Pretexts for giving her a solid grounding in English and French literature. After acquiring secretarial skills, she worked in a bank and, in 1934, won a poetry prize for "Symphony for Full Orchestra." Johnson was involved for a time with writer Dylan Thomas, but they decided against marriage and parted as friends. In 1936, she married Australian journalist Gordon Neil and had two children before divorcing him in 1949. A year later, she married novelist C.P. Snow, with whom she had one son.

Johnson's first novel was This Bed thy Centre (1935), which received both critical acclaim as well as notoriety for its frank sexuality. Her next few novels did not make much of a mark, but in 1940 she was noticed again for Too Dear for My Possessing, the first of a trilogy that also included An Avenue of Stone (1947) and A Summer to Decide (1949). Besides novels, she wrote seven plays and six radio plays; was a reviewer for John o' London's, the Daily Telegraph, and the Sunday Chronicle; and wrote a pamphlet on novelist Ivy Compton-Burnett for the British Council. She also wrote a book about the infamous Moors Murders committed by Myra Hindley and Ian Brady, titled On Iniquity (1961).

In 1969, Johnson helped found the Migraine Trust, having suffered from migraines for several decades. She was also a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and was named Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1975. Her last book, A Bonfire, was published two months before she died on June 18, 1981.