Phyllis Forbes Dennis ( ; 31 May 1884 – 22 August 1963) was a British novelist and short story writer.

Life and career

Bottome was born in 1882, in

Rochester, Kent Rochester ( ) is a town in the unitary authority of Medway, in Kent, England. It is at the lowest bridging point of the River Medway, about from London. The town forms a conurbation with neighbouring towns Chatham, Rainham, Strood and Gillin ...

, the daughter of an American clergyman, Rev. William MacDonald Bottome, and an Englishwoman, Mary (Leatham) Bottome. In 1901, following the death of her sister Wilmett of the same disease, Bottome was diagnosed with tuberculosis. She travelled to St Moritz in the hope that this would improve her health as mountain air was perceived as better for patients with tuberculosis. In 1917, in Paris, she married Alban Ernan Forbes Dennis, a British diplomat working firstly in Marseilles and then in Vienna as Passport Control Officer, a cover for his real role as MI6 Head of Station with responsibility for Austria, Hungary and Yugoslavia. They had met in 1904 at a villa in St Moritz, where Bottome was lodging. Bottome studied individual psychology under Alfred Adler while in Vienna. In 1924 she and her husband started a school in

Kitzbühel Kitzbühel (, also: ; ) is a medieval town situated in the Kitzbühel Alps along the river Kitzbüheler Ache in Tyrol, Austria, about east of the state capital Innsbruck and is the administrative centre of the Kitzbühel district (). Kitzbühel ...

in Austria. Based on the teaching of languages, the school was intended to be a community and an educational laboratory to determine how psychology and educational theory could cure the ills of nations. One of their more famous pupils was

Ian Fleming Ian Lancaster Fleming (28 May 1908 – 12 August 1964) was a British writer who is best known for his postwar ''James Bond'' series of spy novels. Fleming came from a wealthy family connected to the merchant bank Robert Fleming & Co., a ...

, author of the James Bond novels. In 1960, Fleming wrote to Bottome, "My life with you both is one of my most cherished memories, and heaven knows where I should be today without Ernan." It has been argued that Fleming took the idea of James Bond from the character Mark Chalmers in Bottome's spy novel ''The Lifeline''. In 1935, her novel '' Private Worlds'' was made into a film of the same title. Set in a psychiatric clinic, Bottome's knowledge of individual psychology proved useful in creating a realistic scene. Bottome saw her share of trouble with '' Danger Signal'', which the Hays Office forbade from becoming a Hollywood film. Germany became Bottome's home in the late 1930s,Dumont, Herve. ''Frank Borzage''. London: McFarland & Company, 2006. and it inspired her novel '' The Mortal Storm'', the film of which was the first to mention Hitler's name and be set in Nazi Germany. Bottome was an active

anti-fascist Anti-fascism is a political movement in opposition to fascist ideologies, groups and individuals. Beginning in European countries in the 1920s, it was at its most significant shortly before and during World War II, where the Axis powers were ...

. In total, four of her works—'' Private Worlds'', '' The Mortal Storm'', '' Danger Signal'', and '' The Heart of a Child''—were adapted to film. In addition to fiction, she is also known as an Adlerian who wrote a biography of Alfred Adler. Bottome died in London on 22 August 1963. Forbes Dennis would die in July 1972 in

Brighton Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze A ...

. There is a large collection of her literary papers and correspondence in the British Library acquired in 2000 (Add MSS 78832-78903). A second tranche, consisting of correspondence and literary manuscripts, was acquired by the British Library in 2005. The British Library also holds the Phyllis Bottome/Hodder-Salmon Papers consisting of correspondence, papers and press cuttings relating to Bottome.Phyllis Bottom/Hodder-Salmon Papers
archives and manuscripts catalogue, the British Library. Retrieved 7 May 2020

Books

She wrote her first novel when she was just seventeen. * ''The Dark Tower'', 1916 * ''The Second Fiddle'', 1917 * ''The Derelict'', 1917 (U.S.), 1923 (U.K.) * ''A Servant of Reality'', 1919 * ''Kingfisher'', 1922 * ''The Perfect Wife'', 1924 * ''Life of Olive Schreiner'', 1924 * ''Old Wine'', 1925 * ''The Belated Reckoning'', 1926 * ''The Messenger of the Gods — The Story of a Girl of Today'', 1927, George H. Doran Company * ''Strange Fruit: Stories'', 1928 * ''Windlestraws'', 1929 * ''The Advances of Harriet'', 1933 * '' Private Worlds'', 1934 * ''Level Crossing'', 1936 * '' The Mortal Storm'', Oct 1937 * '' Alfred Adler – Apostle of Freedom''. London 1939, Faber & Faber, 3rd Ed. 1957 * '' Danger Signal'', 1939 (original title: ''Murder in the Bud'') * ''Masks and Faces'', 1940 * ''Formidable to Tyrants'', 1941 * '' London Pride'', 1941. A boy's experience of the Blitz and the Second World War. His family are separated by evacuation and a bombing raid destroys their home. After another raid he is injured and evacuated away from London. * ''Mansion House of Liberty'', 1941 * '' Heart of a Child'', 1942 * ''Within the Cup'', 1943 * ''Survival'', 1943 * ''From the Life'', 1944, London, Faber & Faber. Six studies of the author's friends Alfred Adler, Max Beerbohm, Ivor Novello, Sara Delano Roosevelt, Ezra Pound, Margaret MacDonald Bottome. * ''

The Lifeline ''The Lifeline'' (sometimes written as ''The Life-Line'') is a 1946 thriller novel by the British writer Phyllis Bottome. It has been suggested as a direct influence on Ian Fleming, who had once attended a school run by Bottome, and his later cre ...

'', 1946 * ''Innocence and Experience'', 1947 * ''Search for a Soul'', 1947 * ''Fortune's Finger'', 1950 * ''Under the Skin – Love Drew no Color Line when a White Woman entered a Negro's World'', 1950 * ''The Challenge'', 1953 * ''The Secret Stair'', 1954 * ''Against Whom?'' 1954. By chance a patient is brought to a sanatorium on the verge of death. How he not only recovers but manages to influence the lives of the scientists who have observed him is the subject of this novel. In the course of the book the principal characters find either that they must think of others and put that thought into practise or that those same 'others' will become their enemy and destroy, one by one, his most intimate relationships. * ''Eldorado Jane'', 1956 * ''Walls of Glass'', 1958 * ''The Goal'', 1962 – her autobiography * ''Our New Order or Hitler's? A Selection of Speeches by Winston Churchill, Archbishop of Canterbury, Anthony Eden & Others'', ed. by Ph. Bottome, Penguin Books Middlesex 1943

References

External links

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Works
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Open Library
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bottome, Phyllis 1880s births 1963 deaths 20th-century English women writers 20th-century English novelists 20th-century British short story writers British women short story writers Founders of educational institutions English people of American descent English short story writers English women novelists Language teachers People from Rochester, Kent

Life and career

Books

References

Further reading

External links