| AdminHistory | Olivia Manning [1908-1980] was a novelist, poet, writer and reviewer. She first published under the name of Jacob Morrow in 1929, having written a collection of detective novels: 'Rose of Rubies', 'Here is Murder' and 'The Black Scarab'. Encouraged by Hamish Miles, a publisher at Jonathan Cape, Manning published her first novel under her own name, 'The Wind Changes', in 1937. Miles also introduced her to her friend and fellow writer Stevie Smith. Manning met and married RD Smith in 1939, and moved with him to Romania just before the outbreak of the Second World War. Throughout the war she travelled to Greece, Cairo (where she was a press officer at the American Embassy) and Jerusalem. On her return to England she published further novels, short stories and biography, including 'The Doves of Venus', 'My Husband Cartwright', 'Artist among the Missing' and 'The Play Room'. She also published the Balkan and Levant trilogies, known collectively as 'Fortunes of War', which were adapted into a BBC television series by Alan Plater in 1987. |