Ruth Adam

Short Biography

RUTH ADAM (1907-1977)(née King)Author of nine novels which tend to be socially conscious and often incorporate a concern for the welfare of children. These include War on Saturday Week (1937), which analyzes the causes of war; I'm Not Complaining (1938), about a schoolteacher in the Depression, which was reprinted by Virago in the 1980s; There Needs No Ghost (1939), "about the effects of the Munich crisis on Bloomsbury Bohemians and English villagers"; her one mystery novel, Murder in the Home Guard (1942), which is, sadly, now impossible to find; Set to Partners (1947); So Sweet a Changeling (1954), described as an "amusingly told story of the unauthorised adoption of an illegitimate baby"; Fetch Her Away (1954) and Look Who's Talking (1960), both dealing with girls in care and the women social workers who attempt to help them; and A House in the Country (1957), the humorous tale of a group of friends living together in a former manor house. She published two well-received girls' stories, A Stepmother for Susan of St. Bride's (1958) and Susan and the Wrong Baby (1961), which CallMeMadam discussed last year (with lovely cover images). But Adam is probably best known today for her final work, the unique and important historical survey A Woman’s Place, 1910-1975 (1975), about the changing roles and expectations for women, which is available from Persephone.