An Impossible Marriage: The Modern Classic

(Paperback)

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'As her work reappears, another missing jigsaw piece is replaced' Independent

Described by the New York Times upon her death as 'one of Britain's best-known novelists', plunge yourself into the wry world of Pamela Hansford Johnson in this coming-of-marriageable-age story, perfect for fans of Elizabeth Jane Howard and Barbara Pym.

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It's between the wars, and Christine - Christie, to her friends - is tired of London, her job in a travel agency, her friends, and the young men she's being set up with.

So when, by chance, she meets the older Ned Skelton, who seems sophisticated and experienced, she quickly becomes besotted. Before Christie knows it, they are engaged.

But will marriage to a man she doesn't know well truly offer this young woman an escape Or is she walking into another prison of her own making

A classic coming-of-age story set in the 1930s, by one of Britain's best-loved and almost-forgotten novelists.

'A story so vivid it might be the memoir of a real person' Britannia and Eve

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Praise for Pamela Hansford Johnson:

'Witty, satirical and deftly malicious' Anthony Burgess

'A remarkable craftswoman' A.S. Byatt

'Hansford Johnson at her wittiest is Waugh mingled with Malcolm Bradbury Ruth Rendell

'A writer whose memory fully deserves to be kept alive' Jonathan Coe

Reviews

As her work reappears, another missing jigsaw piece is replaced - Independent

Witty, satirical and deftly malicious

Sharply observed, artfully constructed and always enlivened by the freshness of an imagery that derives from [Johnson's] poetic beginnings - TLS

A story so vivid it might be the memoir of a real person - Britannia and Eve

A remarkable craftswoman

Miss Johnson is one of the most accomplished of the English women writers - Kirkus

Hansford Johnson at her wittiest is Waugh mingled with Malcolm Bradbury

A writer whose memory fully deserves to be kept alive

Author Bio

Pamela Hansford Johnson was born in 1912. As a novelist, she gained recognition with her first novel, This Bed Thy Centre, published in 1935. She then went on to write 26 more novels throughout her life, ranging in genre from romantic and high comedy to tragedy, and the psychological study of cruelty, with themes centred around the moral responsibility of the individual in their personal and social relations. She was also a well-respected critic, a leading Proustian scholar, an essayist, a playwright, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a CBE. She died in 1981.