Three-a-Penny

Lucy Beatrice Malleson was born in Upper Norwood, a suburb of London, on February 15, 1899. Her father was a stockbroker, and she was educated at St. Paul's Girls' School in Hammersmith. During World War I, Malleson's father lost his job, and although her mother wanted her to train as a teacher, Malleson learned secretarial skills so that she could earn an immediate income for the family. From the age of seventeen onwards, she wrote verse and short pieces for Punch and various literary weekly publications. During her early years as a secretary, she began to produce novels. Her first crime novel was published in 1927 under the pseudonym Anthony Gilbert, and she went on to write over 70 novels as well as a number of radio plays for the BBC. She valued her privacy and for many years successfully concealed her identity as the writer of the Gilbert novels. Malleson's novels often evince a liberal - often feminist - social consciousness and great empathy for the down-and-out and socially marginalised. She lived in or around London for most of her life, and died in 1973.

Both a fascinating account of how a middle-class family was affected by the social upheavals caused by the Great War and a highly appealing self-portrait of a woman determined to make her mark in a profession dominated by men ... she writes superbly about how a world turned topysy-turvy by war remained the wrong way up long after the conflict ... THREE-A-PENNY is a book you read because you are charmed by the author and enjoy her company ... Reading it feels, to a rare degree, like making a wise and funny new friend