Gillian Freeman

Gillian Freeman (5 December 1929 – 23 February 2019) was an English writer. Her first book, The Liberty Man, appeared while she was working as a secretary to the novelist Louis Golding. Her fictional diary, Nazi Lady: The Diaries of Elisabeth von Stahlenberg, 1938–48, was assumed by many to be real.

Early life Born in Maida Vale, London to Jewish parents, Dr Jack Freeman, a dentist who had been a physician, and his wife Freda (née Davids), she attended Francis Holland School in London and Lynton House school in Maidenhead during the Second World War. She graduated in English and philosophy from the University of Reading in 1951. Her non-fiction book The Undergrowth of Literature (1967), was a pioneering study of pornography.

The Alabaster Egg (1970) is a tragic romance about a Jewish woman set in Nazi Germany. it was included in a 2004 anthology of war diaries.

In addition to novels, Freeman wrote screenplays including That Cold Day in the Park, a 1969 film directed by Robert Altman, the scenarios for two ballets by Kenneth MacMillan, Isadora and Mayerling,

Private life Freeman married Edward Thorpe, a novelist and the ballet critic of the Evening Standard, in 1955.

Works Novels The Liberty Man, 1955; new edition 2014. Fall of Innocence, 1956 Jack Would be a Gentleman, 1959 The Leather Boys, 1961; new edition 2014; new edition 2025. The Campaign, 1963 The Leader, 1965; new edition 2014. The Alabaster Egg, 1970 The Marriage Machine, 1975 Nazi Lady: The Diaries of Elisabeth von Stahlenberg, 1938–48, 1979 An Easter Egg Hunt, 1981 Lovechild, 1984 Life Before Man, 1986 Termination Rock, 1989 His Mistress's Voice, 2000 But Nobody Lives in Bloomsbury, 2006

Other The Story of Albert Einstein, 1960 The Leather Boys (screenplay), 1964 Only Lovers Left Alive (screenplay), 1965 The Undergrowth of Literature, 1967 That Cold Day in the Park (screenplay), 1969 An Evasion of Women (short play, alongside pieces by Shena Mackay, Margaret Drabble, and Maureen Duffy), 1969 I Want What I Want (screenplay), 1972 The Schoolgirl Ethic: The Life and Work of Angela Brazil, 1976 Mayerling (ballet scenario), 1978 Intimate Letters (ballet scenario), 1978 Isadora (ballet scenario), 1981 Ballet Genius: Twenty Great Dancers of the Twentieth Century (with Edward Thorpe), 1988