Phyllis Bottome

Life and career

She was born in Rochester, Kent, the daughter of an American clergyman, Rev. William MacDonald Bottome and an Englishwoman, Mary (Leatham) Bottome. In 1917, in Paris, she married Alban Ernan Forbes Dennis, a British diplomat working firstly in Marseilles and then in Vienna as Passport Control Officer, a cover for his real role as MI6 Head of Station with responsibility for Austria, Hungary and Yugoslavia. Forbes Dennis died in July 1972 in Brighton.

Bottome studied Individual psychology under Alfred Adler while in Vienna.

In 1924 she and her husband started a school in Kitzbuhel in Austria. Based on the teaching of languages, the school was intended to be a community, and an educational laboratory to determine how psychology and educational theory could cure the ills of nations. One of their more famous pupils was Ian Fleming, author of the James Bond novels. In 1960, Fleming wrote to Bottome, "My life with you both is one of my most cherished memories, and heaven knows where I should be today without Ernan."

In 1935, her novel Private Worlds was made into a film. Set in a psychiatric clinic, Bottome's knowledge of Individual psychology proved useful in creating a realistic scene. Bottome saw her share of trouble with Danger Signal which the Hays Office forbade from becoming a Hollywood film. Germany became Bottome's home in the late 1930s, and it inspired her to pen The Mortal Storm, a film which was the first to mention Hitler's name and be set in Nazi Germany. Bottome was an active anti-fascist.

In total, four of her works – Private Worlds, The Mortal Storm, Danger Signal, The Heart of a Child – were adapted to film. In addition to fiction she is also known as an Adlerian who wrote a biography of Alfred Adler.

Bottome died in London.

There is a large collection of her literary papers and correspondence in the British Library (Add MSS 78832-78903).

Books

She wrote her first novel when she was just seventeen.