Rachel Ames, née Stainer (London, 1 October 1915 –

Petronell Petronell-Carnuntum is a community of Bruck an der Leitha in Austria. It is known for its annual World Theatre Festival. History The village derives the second half of its name, Carnuntum, from the ancient Roman legionary fortress and headquart ...

, Austria, 24 November 1999) was a British novelist and journalist who wrote under the pseudonym Sarah Gainham. She is perhaps best known for her 1967 novel ''

Night Falls on the City ''Night Falls on the City'' is a 1967 novel by the British writer Sarah Gainham. A commercial and critical success, it was the first of her Vienna trilogy followed by '' A Place in the Country'' (1969) and ''Private Worlds'' (1971). Marking a ch ...

'', the first of a trilogy about life in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

under

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

rule.

Life

Rachel Stainer was born in

Islington Islington () is a district in the north of Greater London, England, and part of the London Borough of Islington. It is a mainly residential district of Inner London, extending from Islington's High Street to Highbury Fields, encompassing the ar ...

. After her father Tom died in

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, the family moved to

Newbury, Berkshire Newbury is a market town in the county of Berkshire, England, and is home to the administrative headquarters of West Berkshire Council. The town centre around its large market square retains a rare medieval Cloth Hall, an adjoining half timbere ...

. After an "impulsive and unsuccessful wartime liaison", in 1947 she moved to

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

to work with the Four Power Commission, and married the journalist Antony Terry. Terry was German correspondent for the ''

Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK, whi ...

'', and the marriage "fell victim to his workload". Stainer never returned to England, living in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

Bonn The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr r ...

and

Trieste Trieste ( , ; sl, Trst ; german: Triest ) is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is the capital city, and largest city, of the autonomous region of Friuli Venezia Giulia, one of two autonomous regions which are not subdivided into provi ...

before returning to Vienna. In 1956

Cyril Ray Cyril Ray (16 March 1908 – 24 September 1991) was an English writer and journalist. After a spell as a war reporter, and then a foreign correspondent he became best known for writing about food and, especially, wine. He became a wine writer al ...

helped secure her a job as Central and Eastern Europe Correspondent for ''

The Spectator ''The Spectator'' is a weekly British magazine on politics, culture, and current affairs. It was first published in July 1828, making it the oldest surviving weekly magazine in the world. It is owned by Frederick Barclay, who also owns ''The ...

'', making a plea that she needed the money. Writing as Sarah Gainham (the name of her maternal great-grandmother), she reported on Germany and the German-speaking parts of Central Europe until 1966. She soon published her first novel, '' Time Right Deadly'' (1956), a semi-autobiographical account of an unsuccessful affair. The novel was followed by several other spy thrillers set in Europe. Here Gainham drew on her own knowledge of

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

spies and intrigues: Terry, hired to the ''Sunday Times'' by

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 ...

, may have been an MI6 agent, and Gainham herself apparently researched a document 'East-West Routes for Agents', commissioned by Fleming, on how to gain access to

West Berlin West Berlin (german: Berlin (West) or , ) was a political enclave which comprised the western part of Berlin during the years of the Cold War. Although West Berlin was de jure not part of West Germany, lacked any sovereignty, and was under mi ...

from

East Berlin East Berlin was the ''de facto'' capital city of East Germany from 1949 to 1990. Formally, it was the Allied occupation zones in Germany, Soviet sector of Berlin, established in 1945. The American, British, and French sectors were known as ...

. In 1964 her marriage to Terry was dissolved, and she married Kenneth Ames, Central European correspondent of ''The Economist''. ''

'' (1967), a tale of love and betrayal set in wartime Vienna, achieved significant commercial success: it topped the ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' bestseller list for several months, and was widely translated. It was the first novel of a trilogy, completed by '' A Place in the Country'' (1969) and ''

Private Worlds ''Private Worlds'' is a 1935 Drama (film and television), dramatic film which tells the story of the staff and patients at a mental hospital and the chief of the hospital, who has problems dealing with a female psychiatrist. The film stars Claud ...

'' (1971), and gave her financial security. In 1975 Ames committed suicide, leaving Gainham alone in later life. In 1976 she moved from Vienna to a small house in

Petronell-Carnuntum Petronell-Carnuntum is a community of Bruck an der Leitha in Austria. It is known for its annual World Theatre Festival. History The village derives the second half of its name, Carnuntum, from the ancient Roman legionary fortress and headquart ...

, on the banks of the

Danube The Danube ( ; ) is a river that was once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire and today connects 10 European countries, running through their territories or being a border. Originating in Germany, the Danube flows southeast for , pa ...

, and became a somewhat eccentric recluse. Her last novel was the heavily autobiographical but unsuccessful ''The Tiger, Life'' (1983). In 1984 she was made a Fellow of the

Royal Society of Literature The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) is a learned society founded in 1820, by George IV of the United Kingdom, King George IV, to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". A charity that represents the voice of literature in the UK, th ...

. ''A Discursive Essay on the Presentation of Recent History in England'' was privately published in 1999.

Works

* '' Time Right Deadly''. London: Arthur Barker, 1956. * ''

The Cold Dark Night ''The Cold Dark Night'' is a 1957 spy novel, spy thriller novel by the British writer Sarah Gainham. Her second novel, it is set at the height of the Cold War when the 1954 Berlin Conference (1954), Berlin Conference saw the Big Four Conference, ...

''. London: Arthur Barker, 1957. * ''

The Mythmaker ''The Mythmaker'' is a 1957 spy thriller novel by the British writer Sarah Gainham, her third published novel. At with many of her works it takes place in Vienna, where she settled in the post-war era. It was released in the United States in 19 ...

.'' London: Arthur Barker, 1957. * ''

The Stone Roses The Stone Roses were an English Rock music, rock band formed in Manchester in 1983. One of the pioneering groups of the Madchester movement in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the band's classic and most prominent lineup consisted of vocalist I ...

''. London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1958. * (tr.) ''The Voice of Fear: ten poems'' by E. G. Molnár. Translated from the German of Illa Kovarik and Tibor Simányi, with drawings by Hugo Matzenauer. Vienna: Ars Hungarica, 1959. * '' The Silent Hostage''. London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1960. * ''

''. London: Collins, 1967. * '' A Place in the Country''. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1969. * ''Takeover Bid: a tale''. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1970. * ''

''. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1971. * ''Maculan's Daughter''. London: Macmillan, 1973. * ''To the Opera Ball''. London: Macmillan, 1975. * ''The Habsburg Twilight: tales from Vienna''. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1979. * ''The Tiger, Life''. London: Methuen, 1983. * ''A Discursive Essay on the Presentation of Recent History in England''. New Millennium, 1999.

References

External links

Women Writers Revisited: Kate Mosse on Sarah Gainham
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gainham, Sarah 1915 births 1999 deaths 20th-century British novelists 20th-century British women writers English reporters and correspondents English women journalists Journalists from London British foreign correspondents 20th-century British journalists 20th-century English women 20th-century English people British expatriates in Austria British expatriates in Germany