Norah C. James

Norah Margaret Ruth Cordner James (1896 – 19 November 1979) was a prolific English novelist whose first book Sleeveless Errand (1929) was ruled obscene at the Bow Street Police Court.

[1] According to a newspaper report in 1930, before taking up writing James had been a sculptor, a trade union organiser for civil servants, motor driver, a journalist, the advertising manager for a British publisher, and the political secretary to a parliamentary candidate.

On a publicity trip to New York in 1930, she was described by a newspaper correspondent as "the new type of Englishwoman we've glimpsed on the stage in imported plays – a sturdy athletic young person with close cropped hair and blue eyes burning bright in a face deeply tanned.

"[2] Reviewing her fourth novel, Wanton Ways in The Spectator in 1931, Leonard Strong described James as "a stern moralist" but noted that "in her pages sin has no drama; its wages are not death, but a bilious headache.

[13] Her home address prior to her death was 188 Naish Court Extension, Bemerton Street, Kings Cross, London N1.