Pamela Frankau

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Pamela Frankau (1908-1967) was a popular British novelist. Her father was the novelist Gilbert Frankau and her mother a satirist Julia Davis. Her uncle was the British radio comedian, Ronald Frankau.

She had success as a writer from a young age. A relationship with the married Humbert Wolfe ended only with his death in 1940. She then ceased to write for a long period. During the Second World War, she worked for the BBC, the Ministry of Food and with the Auxiliary Territorial Service.

First published in 1954, A Wreath for the Enemy is perhaps her best loved novel and is still in print on both sides of the Atlantic (McPherson & Virago). In the novel the events of one night transform what appears at first to be a typical adolescent crisis into a prolonged struggle for self-definition on the part of the novel's teenage protagonist. In part autobiographical, Frankau clearly identified with her lead character who is presented as a writer in development.

Frankau became a Roman Catholic convert in 1942, and spent much time in the United States. She was married there, though only for a few years. She returned to England in 1953. A long lesbian relationship with the theatre director Margaret Webster began in the 1950s.