Book description
Toby is a very plausible young scoundrel: good at winning confidences -
and also at staving off troublesome emotions. On the point of leaving
Cambridge, he meets Maisie, who is beautiful, tense and vulnerable. She
falls in love. He does not. He takes what he can, as young men do. But
Maisie tries to force the issue, and he makes off - warned by a friend's
disastrous shotgun marriage. There will always be other girls, more
cheerful and just as willing . . . And Toby never worries about minor
problems like the way separation wounds its victim. The bitter surprises
still in store disconcert him only briefly. After all, a good listener
will always get by.
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.
'With her characteristic mixture of sense and sensibility, Pamela
Hansford Johnson creates a whole gallery of convincing characters,
entangled in a web of drifting relationships.' Sunday Telegraph
'Beautifully rendered . . . memorable settings and lively characters'
Financial Times 'The light shining steadily through each page of Pamela
Hansford Johnson's new novel is the light of quality' The Times
'A stunning performance' Nina Bawden, Daily Telegraph
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.
