Pamela Hinkson (1900–1982)

Pamela Hinkson was born in London, England, the daughter of poet and novelist Katharine Tynan and barrister Henry Albert Hinkson, also a writer. She was educated privately in England and Europe, and after the family returned to Ireland in 1911, attended convent schools. She grew up in a literary milieu, getting to know prominent writers of the period, and began writing poetry and stories at a young age. After her father's death in 1919, Pamela and her mother were left in severe financial difficulties, and had to resort to living with friends or in boarding houses, moving between Ireland, England, and the Continent. Her writings were informed by her experiences and by her concerns about World War I and the political and social upheavals in Ireland. Her debut novel, The End of All Dreams, was published in 1923. She wrote her next two novels in the guise of an ex-soldier, using the pseudonym "Peter Deane," The Victors (1925) and Harvest (1927). However, she returned to publishing under her own name afterwards. The identity of "Peter Deane" was eventually revealed by Hugh Cecil in his 1995 book The Flower of Battle: British Fiction Writers of the First World War. Hinkson also wrote popular girls' school fiction in the 1920s. Following the death of her mother in 1931, she published her most successful novel, the semi-autobiographical The Ladies' Road (1932). When published in the USA in 1946, it was a massive bestseller. She transcribed the memoirs of Elizabeth Burke-Plunkett, which were published in 1937 under the title Seventy Years Young: Memories of Elizabeth, Countess of Fingal. Hinkson's 1941 book Indian Harvest, describing a visit to India in the late 1930s, resulted in her appointment to the Ministry of Information in London during World War II. She lectured on India in the USA during the war, and to British troops and local audiences in Germany after the war, broadcast on the radio, and contributed to the Observer, Spectator, New Statesman, The Guardian, and Time and Tide. She returned to live in Ireland in 1959.