Rosemary Manning

Rosemary Joy Manning (9 December 1911 – 15 April 1988) She was also known by the pseudonyms Sarah Davys and Mary Voyle.

Early life Manning was born on 9 December 1911 to Thomas Davys Manning and Mary Ann Coles in Weymouth, Dorset. She studied at Royal Holloway College from 1930 to 1933 and graduated with a second class honours degree in Classics.

In 1962 she broke up with her partner, and in April she tried to kill herself using the drug Luminal. However a suicide note was delivered promptly by the post office and help arrived. She was sad to find that she had failed.

After retirement, she came out as a lesbian during a television interview in 1980.

She died in Tunbridge Wells in 1988.

Publications

Novels & Autobiography Remaining A Stranger (1953) - writing as Mary Voyle A Change of Direction (1955) - writing as Mary Voyle Look, Stranger (1960) - appeared as The Shape of Innocence in the USA The Chinese Garden (1962); New York : Feminist Press at the City University of New York, 2000, Man on a Tower (1965) A Time and A Time (1971) - autobiography, writing as Sarah Davys Open the Door (1983) A Corridor of Mirrors (1987) - autobiography

Dragon series Green Smoke (1957) Dragon in Danger (1959) The Dragon's Quest (1961) The Dragon in the Harbour (1980)

Poem & Short Stories

'Quietus' (1936) - poem in The New Statesman vol. 11, issue 264 'The Fox' (1948) - in Horizon No. 108 'Sunday Afternoon Walk' (1953) - writing as Mary Voyle in Cornhill Magazine 'Over the Plain' (1954) - writing as Mary Voyle in Cornhill Magazine 'Alone in the House' (1962) - in Transatlantic Review No. 10

Other Work for Children

The Shepherd's Play and Noah and the Flood: Two Miracle Plays Arranged for Young People (1955) Arripay (1963) - historical novel Boney Was A Warrior (1966) - historical novel Heraldry (1966) A Grain of Sand: Poems for Young Readers (1967) - selection and introduction to the poems of William Blake The Rocking Horse (1970) Great Expectations (1970) - abridged by Manning Railways and Railwaymen (1977)