Novelist, biographer, journalist and critic, Catherine Carswell was born in 1879 in Glasgow, Scotland, and educated at The Park School for Girls. On leaving school, she attended Frankfurt's Hoch Conservatory of Music, before returning to Glasgow to study at Queen Margaret College, the women's wing of Glasgow University. After a difficult marriage she was faced with a rapid, and in those days incurable, deterioration in her husband's mental health, which resulted in his permanent removal to an institution. She fought for and achieved a precedent-making annulment of her marriage in 1908, after which she lived and worked in Hampstead, London, as a single mother until the death of her daughter in 1913. In 1915 she married Donald Carswell and their son, John Patrick, was born in 1918. Donald Carswell, himself a writer, died in 1940, in a car accident on the first night of the London blackout. Catherine Carswell died in March, 1946, living just long enough to see her son return from the Second World War.
The letters, from the first half of the twentieth century, chronicle the life of a writer whose circle included fellow writers, poets, publishers, broadcasters, public figures, family and friends. The focus of the selection on Catherine Carswell's literary output offers many insights into her personality, friendships and beliefs. For the most part, the originals of the letters are scattered across a number of libraries, often within the collections of the recipients. It is hoped that this edition will make them more easily available to those with an interest in this remarkable Scottish writer.

Introduction by: Jan Pilditch