Philip Purser

For the science fiction writer, see Philip Purser-Hallard.

Philip Purser (born 28 August 1925) is a British television critic and novelist.

Purser was born in Letchworth, Hertfordshire. His mother had been the first female student of an art school in Sheffield, and later worked as a postcard artist in the style of Mabel Lucie Attwell. His father had a varied career after service in World War I, eventually working for Tarmac in Liverpool from 1934 when the family settled in the Wirral Peninsula. (Purser had an older sister, Rozanne).

A contributor to the News Chronicle in the 1950s, he was television critic of The Sunday Telegraph from its launch in 1961 until he was sacked in 1987 by Peregrine Worsthorne, the then editor. Purser has also co-authored three editions of Halliwell's Television Companion (1982, 1986, originally Halliwell's Teleguide 1979) and wrote a TV film The One and Only Phyllis Dixey (Peek-A-Boo) on the wartime erotic entertainer for Thames in 1978. A biography of Dixey (co-authored with Jenny Wilkes) was published in the same year.

In recent years Philip Purser has contributed obituaries to The Guardian. His wife is the crime writer Ann Purser; they have two daughters and one son.

Bibliography

Fiction

• Peregrination 22. Jonathan Cape Books 1962
• Four Days to the Fireworks. Hodder & Stoughton 1964
  • other edition: Sphere Books 3/1970, ISBN 978-0-7221-7057-1
• The Twentymen. Hodder & Stoughton 1/1967, ISBN 978-0-340-02356-3 OCLC 832610674
• Night of Glass. Hodder & Stoughton 12/1968, ISBN 978-0-340-04422-3
• Holy Fathers Navy. Hodder & Stoughton 6/1971, ISBN 978-0-340-12535-9
• Lights in the Sky. Severn House Publishers 11/2004, ISBN 978-0-7278-6196-2

Non Fiction

• Friedrich Harris: Shooting the Hero. Quartet Books 5/1990, ISBN 0-7043-2759-7
• Poeted: Final Quest of Edward James. Quartet Books 2/1991, ISBN 978-0-7043-0139-9

External links

• Philip Purser at IMDb