Beyond the Book: Background information when reading Second Honeymoon

Beyond the Book

This article relates to Second Honeymoon

Joanna Trollope was born in her grandfather, Anthony Trollope's rectory in the Cotswolds in December 1943, and although her actual childhood was spent in the Midlands and in Surrey, she always felt that her real "home" was her birthplace. Joanna says — “It gave me - still gives me - not just a sense of rootedness, but a capacity to value landscape and weather and the rich life of smallish communities. It wouldn't matter where I lived now, I'd always carry that centred feeling of having come from somewhere very well defined with me.” She is the eldest of three, the mother of two daughters, the stepmother of two stepsons, and a grandmother.

After winning a tiny scholarship to Oxford, she went on to a spell in the Foreign Office and then became a teacher. She began writing 'to fill the long spaces after the children had gone to bed' and for many years combined her writing career with working as a teacher. before becoming a full time author in 1980.

As Caroline Harvey she wrote eight historical fiction novels between 1980 and 2000.  As herself she has written about 20 novels, some historically based, but since the publication of The Choir in 1988 all her novels have been in contemporary settings.   The Rector's Wife (1991) was her first number one bestseller, making her a household name in Britain.  She is also the author of the nonfiction Britannia's Daughters, a study of women in the British Empire.

She is actively involved with six charities including being the Patron of the March Foundation and for Dementia. 

She has been married twice and now lives alone dividing her time between London and Oxford.

Filed under

This article relates to Second Honeymoon. It first ran in the March 8, 2007 issue of BookBrowse Recommends.