Kay Dick

Kay Dick (29 July 1915 – 19 October 2001) was an English journalist, writer, novelist and autobiographer, who sometimes wrote under the name Edward Lane.

Life

Dick was born Kathleen Elsie Dick at Queen Charlotte's Hospital, London, England, UK. In early life, she worked at Foyle's bookshop in London's Charing Cross Road and, at 26, became the first woman director in English publishing at P.S. King & Son. She later became a journalist, working at the New Statesman. For many years, she edited the literary magazine The Windmill, under the nom de plume Edward Lane.

Dick wrote five novels between 1949 and 1962, including the famous An Affair of Love (1953) and Solitaire (1958). She also wrote literary biography, researching the lives of Colette and Carlyle. In 1960 she published Pierrot, about the commedia dell'arte.

Dick was a regular reviewer for The Times, The Spectator and Punch. Dick also edited several anthologies of stories and interviews with writers, including Ivy and Stevie (1971) and Friends and Friendship (1974). She was known for campaigning tirelessly and successfully for the introduction of the Public Lending Right, which pays royalties to authors when their books are borrowed from public libraries.

In 1977, Dick published They, a series of dream sequences that won the South-East Arts literature prize. In 1984 she followed this with an acclaimed autobiographical novel, The Shelf, in which she examined a lesbian affair.

Dick lived for some two decades with the novelist Kathleen Farrell.

Bibliography

• An Affair of Love (1953)
• Solitaire (1958)
• Sunday (1962)
• They (1977)
• The Shelf (1984)
• Pierrot (1960)
• Ivy & Stevie (1971)
• Friends & Friendship (1974)

External links

• Michael De-la-Noy, "Kay Dick" (obituary), The Guardian, 24 October 2001. Michael Ratcliffe, Roy Greenslade, "Letters", The Guardian, 25 October 2001.
• Kay Dick’s executors' website
• Kay Dick photograph by John Vere Brown, National Portrait Gallery, London.