Mary Patricia "Mollie" Panter-Downes (25 August 1906 – 22 January 1997) was a British novelist and columnist for The New Yorker. Aged sixteen, she wrote The Shoreless Sea which became a bestseller and was serialised in The Daily Mirror. Her second novel The Chase was published in 1925.

Early life and education

Panter-Downes was born to Major Edward Martin Panter-Downes (died 1914 at Mons) and Marie Kathleen Cowley, who was of Irish origin. She lived with her mother in Brighton and then a Sussex village without much money.

Career

In 1922, aged sixteen, Panter-Downes wrote The Shoreless Sea which became a bestseller; eight editions were published in 1923 and 1924, and the book was serialised in The Daily Mirror. Her second novel The Chase was published in 1925. In 1938, Panter-Downes began writing for The New Yorker, first a series of short stories, and from September 1939, a column entitled Letter from London, which she wrote until 1984. The collected columns were later published as Letters from England (1940) and London War Notes (1972). Panter-Downes visited Ootacamund, in India, and wrote about the town, known to all as Ooty, in her New Yorker columns. This material was later published as Ooty Preserved.

Death

Panter-Downes married Clare Robinson in 1927 and the couple moved to Surrey. She died in Compton, Surrey, aged 90.

Publications

Selected works

Republished by Persephone Books

The last short story in Minnie's Room, called "The Empty Place" and written in 1965, has a character called Harry Potter.

Sources