Ruth Adam
Ruth Adam | |
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![]() Adam in 1937 | |
Born | Ruth Augusta King 14 December 1907 Arnold, Nottinghamshire, England |
Died | 3 February 1977 Marylebone, London, England | (aged 69)
Occupation | Writer of novels, comics and non-fiction |
Language | English |
Spouse | Kenneth Adam |
Children | 4, including Corinna Adam |
Ruth Augusta Adam, née King (14 December 1907 – 3 February 1977), was an English journalist and writer of novels, comics and non-fiction feminist literature.
Early life
She was born on 14 December 1907 in Arnold, Nottinghamshire, daughter of Annie Margaret (née Wearing) and Rupert William King,[1][2] a vicar of the Church of England. She attended St Elphin's girls' boarding school in Darley Dale, Derbyshire, from 1920 to 1925.
Career
In 1925, she became a teacher in elementary schools in impoverished mining areas of Nottinghamshire.
Her first novel, War On Saturday Week, dealt with political extremism in Britain during the years leading up to the Second World War. Her second novel, I'm Not Complaining (1938), depicted women's lives in
In 1955 she and Peggy Jay founded the Fisher Group, a think-tank advising governments on social policy. She wrote twelve novels, including two about girls in care, Fetch Her Away (1954) and Look Who's Talking (1960), and A House in the Country (1957), a comic novel based on her family's attempt to live in a commune, as well as biographies of George Bernard Shaw and Beatrice Webb, the latter co-written with Kitty Muggeridge. The 1951 film The Quiet Woman was based on a story by Adam, and Look Who's Talking was adapted for television as part of the BBC's Studio 4 series in 1962.[5] Her final book, A Woman's Place: 1910-1975, a social history of women in the 20th century, was published in 1975. She died at the Hospital of St John and St Elizabeth, Marylebone, London, on 3 February 1977.[2][6]
Personal life
In 1932 she married
Selected works
- War On Saturday Week (1937)
- I'm Not Complaining (1938) (Reprinted by Virago Press in 1983)
- There Needs No Ghost (1939)
- Murder in the Home Guard (1942) An experiment with the murder novel formula, where Adam presents a murder as seen from a series of different viewpoints.
- The Quiet Woman (1951 film) (co-written with John Gilling)
- Fetch Her Away (1954) A novel about the effect of family breakdown on a little girl and the intervention of the State in her life. Dedicated to Peggy Jay.
- House in the Country (1957)
- Look Who's Talking (1960)
- Beatrice Webb: A Life 1858-1943 (with Kitty Muggeridge, 1967)
- A Woman's Place: 1910-1975 (1975) (Reprinted by Persephone Books in 2000)[8]
References
- ^ Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature, vol. 2, R. Reginald, 1979, pg 790
- ^ doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/56127. Retrieved 22 September 2021. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- ^ *Shu-fen Tsai, "Girlhood Modified" in "Susan of St. Brides" in Girl magazine (1954-1961) (pdf), Dong Hwa Journal of Humanistic Studies 2, July 2000, pp. 259-272
- ^ Comic creator Peter Kay on Lambiek Comiclopedia
- ^ Ruth Adam on IMDB
- ^ Author's page at Persephone Books
- ^ Pavan Amara "Rhyl Street flat blaze victim, Corinna Ascherson, an idealistic socialist once one half of ‘journalism’s golden couple’" Archived 8 September 2012 at the Wayback Machine, Camden New Journal, 15 March 2012
- ^ A Woman's Place: 1910-1975 at Persephone Books