Ethel Edith Mannin

Sitter in 6 portraits
Born into a working class family, she left school young and began working in an advertising agency which provided the material for her first critically successful novel Sounding Brass. Encouraged by her father, she was determined to make writing her life. As a pacifist and anti-monarchist she had strong political views, though she became more right wing as she grew older. She travelled extremely widely, marrying twice. She said: 'I had too much too soon; too much facile success, too much money, too much unassimilated experience'. Her interest in socialism is reflected in her writing; through her long working life she achieved her goal of publishing one fiction and one non-fiction work every year.