Florence James

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For the American theater director, see Playhouse Theatre (Seattle).

Florence Gertrude James (2 September 1902 - 25 August 1993) was an Australian author and literary agent.

Life

Born in Gisborne, New Zealand, she moved with her family to Sydney in 1920. Her father was a refrigeration engineer with a successful consulting practice.

She studied at Sydney University from 1923-26 and it was there her friendship with Dymphna Cusack began, later to become a notable collaboration. They were both involved in debating and theatre; they shared a feminist, unionist and pacifist outlook. Both were much later to become opponents of nuclear weapons.

She married lawyer William J 'Pym' Heyting in London in 1932 and had two daughters, Julie and Frances, by him. He joined the RAAF as an Intelligence officer in 1938, and was soon promoted to Squadron Leader then Wing Commander. She had returned to Sydney in 1938 and he was in London, apparently happy to support her from a distance. They divorced in 1948.

She worked as Public Appeals Officer for The Royal Prince Alfred Hospital from 1940 to the end of 1944, when she resigned. From 1945 to 1947 she, her daughters, Dymphna Cusack and her daughter shared a rented cottage 'Pinegrove' at Hazelbrook in the Blue Mountains. It was there that they collaborated on a children's book Four Winds and a Family and Come In Spinner, which was to become the most successful book about life in wartime Sydney.

She returned with her daughters to London late in 1947 and remained there until 1963, working as a literary agent, initially for Constable and Company, where authors she signed included Mary Durack, Sylvia Townsend Warner and Colin Johnson (aka Mudrooroo Narogin). She became active in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, participating in the Aldermaston March and activities of Bertrand Russell's Committee of One Hundred.

She joined the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in 1968. In 1984 she edited the unexpurgated version of Come In Spinner for Richard Walsh of Angus and Robertson. She died in the Wesley Heights retirement village at Manly, where her friend and collaborator Dymphna died twelve years before.

Works

Four Winds and a Family by Dymphna Cusack and Florence James (1946) pub. Shakespeare Head Press
Come In Spinner by Dymphna Cusack and Florence James (1951) pub. Heinemann

References

North, Marilla (ed) (2001) Yarn Spinners: a story in letters of Dymphna Cusack, Florence James and Miles Franklin, St Lucia, University of Queensland Press
Wilde, W., Hooton, J. & Andrews, B (1994) The Oxford Companion of Australian Literature 2nd ed. South Melbourne, Oxford University Press

External links

The Australian Women's Register
AustLit: The Australian Literary Resource (Full biography only available to subscribers, which includes many or most libraries and educational institutions).

Authority control	VIAF: 66599601 ISNI: 0000 0000 8146 3074 BNF: cb12996573w

Persondata
Name	James, Florence
Alternative names
Short description	Australian writer
Date of birth	2 September 1902
Place of birth
Date of death	25 August 1993
Place of death

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