Book description
An epic novel following a group of friends from their youth in the
1930s through middle age in the 1960s,
The Survival of the Fittest
unties the intertwined threads of politics, history, love and
literature which link the group.
Their coming of age in the shadow of World War II marks them and sets
them apart, literature unites them: the unassuming, kind, stable Alison
and the hard-drinking, mercurial Kit rise from anonymity to become
successful novelists; Clem is a well-known political journalist; Bobby
writes communist novels; and Jo publishes a single short story. Each,
both writers and non-writers, attempts to help the aspiring writer Jo,
who cannot escape his childhood home because he and his sister must care
for their domineering, crippled mother. And, since he does not form new
familial bonds, friendship means the most to him.
Pamela Hansford Johnson wrote 27 novels across genres as diverse as
romance, comedy and tragedy. An incredibly readable and literary author,
who deserves to be rediscovered by a new generation, Bello has brought
18 of Johnson's books back into print. Pamela Hansford Johnson was
born in 1912 and gained recognition with her first novel, This Bed Thy
Centre, published in 1935. She wrote 27 novels. Her themes centred on
the moral responsibility of the individual in their personal and social
relations. The fictional genres she used ranged from romantic comedy
(Night and Silence, Who Is Here) and high comedy (The Unspeakable
Skipton) to tragedy (The Holiday Friend) and the psychological study of
cruelty (An Error of Judgement). Her last novel, A Bonfire, was
published in the year of her death, 1981. She was a critic as well as a
novelist and wrote books on Thomas Wolfe and Ivy Compton-Burnett; Six
Proust Reconstructions (1958) confirmed her reputation as a leading
Proustian scholar. She also wrote a play, Corinth House (1954), a work
of social criticism arising out of the Moors Trial, On Iniquity (1967),
and a book of essays, Important to Me (1974). She received honorary
degrees from six universities and was a Fellow of the Royal Society of
Literature. She was awarded the C. B.E. in 1975. Pamela Hansford
Johnson, who had two children by her first marriage with journalist
Gordon Neil Stewart, later married C. P. Snow. Their son Philip was born
in 1952.
