The Diary of a Good Neighbour

Somers, Jane

The first volume of her diary; 'If the Old Could' appeared the next year; the author, at this stage, 'is the pseudonym for a well-known woman journalist', and who would later be revealed as a major literary figure. And why did she do it? 'To be reviewed on merit, not name, to get free of that cage of associations and labels that every established writer has to learn to live inside.'