Book description
A Summer To Decide
concludes Pamela Hansford Johnson's highly acclaimed trilogy, the first
two volumes of which are Too Dear For My Possessing
and An Avenue Of Stone
.
Helena, the presiding genius of the trilogy, dies near the outset of
this book, leaving only her indomitable spirit to help her children
struggle on without her. For her daughter, Charmian, having just given
birth to a daughter herself, and trapped in a marriage to the now
drunken and womanizing Evan, it is truly a struggle; one which is
relieved only by her absorption in her child, by Evan's inevitable
downfall, and by the passionate concern of her half-brother, Claud.
Pamela Hansford Johnson is in confident control of her art and in all
her characters - in Evan and his pathetic mother, in Charmian and Claud
- she gives us the true and deep understanding of human nature which
enriches all her novels.
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.
'A most impressive achievement' Isabel Quigley, Biographer 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.
