The Modern Novel

Biography

Olivia Manning was born in 1908 (some sources say 1905, others 1911) in Portsmouth. Her father was a naval officer. After school she moved to London where she worked for Peter Jones as a furniture painter. She published her first novel in 1937 but there was then a ten-year gap before her next work. She was married to Reggie Smith, an eccentric, a communist and philanderer, who worked for the British Council and the BBC. The couple went to Romania at the end of the Thirties and then moved to Greece shortly before the German invasion. They moved on to Egypt and Palestine. These experiences were the basis for her best-known works – The Balkan Trilogy and The Levant Trilogy, whose hero and heroine were clearly modelled on Manning and her husband. After the war they lived in London, very much involved in the literary society of the day. She died in 1980 in their house on the Isle of Wight.

Books about Olivia Manning

Neville & June Braybrooke: Olivia Manning

Other links

Olivia Manning
Olivia Manning
Feminize Your Canon: Olivia Manning
Olivia & Reggie & Jerry & Johnny