About the Author

Patrick Hamilton (1904 -1962) was an English playwright and novelist. Born in Hassocks, Sussex, he attended Westminster School but left aged 15. After a brief career in the theatre he published his debut novel Monday Morning (1925), at the age of 21. Craven House (1926) and Twopence Coloured (1928) followed, but his breakthrough success was a play, Rope (1929). A semi-autobiographical trilogy of novels followed, Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky (1935), then another successful play, Gas Light (1938), which was made into a film, as was Rope (by Alfred Hitchcock, in 1948.) The satirical work Impromptu in Moribundia (1939) is considered to be Hamilton's 'political' novel. Hangover Square (1941) is widely rated as his best, alongside The Slaves of Solitude (1947). His later 'Gorse Trilogy' of novels, not so critically acclaimed, was nonetheless a popular success and inspired a television adaptation. Hamilton died in 1962 of cirrhosis of the liver and kidney failure, in Sheringham, Norfolk