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Synopsis

A romance

Item Description

FIRST EDITION. 8vo. 7.5 x 5 inches. 163 pp. Bound in original red cloth, gilt, in unclipped pictorial dust wrapper, designed by P. Vinten (with publisher's advertisement on rear wrapper), which has edge chips and sunned spine. Board spine also sunned and foxing of fore edge; otherwise a very good copy. John S. Pudney, (1909-77), British poet, novelist, editor, and journalist became school friends with W. H. Auden and Benjamin Britten. He worked for an estate agency and began to pursue his interest in writing. His first volume of poetry, Spring Encounter (1933), ushered him into the literary circle of Lady Ottoline Morrell. He began his professional writing career in earnest as writer-producer for the BBC (1934-1937), and as a journalist for the News Chronicle. In 1938 he published the first of many novels, Jacobson's Ladder. In 1940 Pudney was commissioned into the Royal Air Force as an intelligence officer and as a member of the Air Ministry's Creative Writer's Unit. During the war he published articles for this organisation and wrote poetry, including his famous ode to British airmen, 'For Johnny.' This poem achieved national recognition and was broadcast and performed by several famous actors including Laurence Olivier. After the war Pudney worked as a literary advisor, editor, and director for several magazines, agencies, and publishing companies, including the News Review (1948-1950), Evans Brothers (1950-1953), and Putnam and Co. (1953-1963). In 1949 he began editing an annual anthology entitled Pick of Today's Short Stories (1949-1963). Estuary, set in 'an undefined but realistic English landscape,' was his second novel, his most successful being The Net, published 1952.