James Hanley (Q57696)

James Hanley (1897-1985), novelist and playwright, was born on 3 September 1897 in Liverpool. He joined the merchant navy in 1915 and saw action during the First World War. During this time Hanley was constantly educating himself, mainly by reading Russian literature, and these years of his youth at sea were to greatly influence his later writing. Hanley produced a prodigious output of literary work, which included some thirty novels, sixteen volumes of short stories and six plays, as well as numerous radio and TV scripts; some of his work, notably The Welsh Sonata (1954), Another World (1971) and A Kingdom (1978) were born of his life in and love of Wales. It was at TÅ·-Nant near Corwen in 1931 that Hanley began living with the artist and writer Dorothy Enid Thomas (née Heathcote, 'Timothy Hanley', 1902-1980), and it was here that their son, Liam, was born in 1933. They moved to Llanfechain, Montgomeryshire, in 1941 and were married, at Hampstead, in 1947. Timothy Hanley published the novels The Tough Flower (London, 1957) and Three Inches of Moonlight (London, 1960).