Photo: Paul McNicholls / Camera Press / TT (1979)
Sample of authors
Household, Geoffrey
Geoffrey Edward West Household grew up in Bristol where he attended Clifton College in 1914–19. He went on to study English at Magdalen College, Oxford, graduating in 1922. Immediately afterwards, he worked for a bank in Bucharest, Romania. In 1926, he moved to Spain where he sold bananas for a fruit company. In 1929, he went to the United States where he became a travelling salesman in printing i...
Literary figures
Mike Hammer
Gender: Male
One of the most severely criticised literary figures of all times is Michael ‘Mike’ Hammer – a cynical, vengeful army veteran who completely lacks any sense of humour, a communist-hater and private detective, who is the protagonist in a row of bestselling novels by Mickey Spillane. Hammer’s only weak point is his love for his secretary Velda. This figure is in part loosely based on a real-life Tex...