Coles, Manning (pseud.)

Manning Coles is a joint pseudonym for the English duo Adelaide Manning and Cyril Coles, who also worked together under another alias, Francis Gaite. The two last Manning Coles novels, Search for a Sultan (1961) and The House at Pluck’s Gutter (1963), were however written by Coles together with Tom Hammerton after Manning had died. It is also possible – although it has not been confirmed – that he completed the greater part of Crime in Concrete (1960) on his own. Manning made her debut as a novelist on her own with Half-Valdez (1939), published the year before the duo’s first joint book, Drink to Yesterday (1940).