Mary Renault: A Biography

Published by Pimlico, 1994, softcover, illustrated, 322 pages, condition; very good.

Mary Renault wrote with such authority about Ancient Greece and of love between men that many readers believed that the author of such well-known works as The Charioteer, The King Must Die, The Persian Boy, and The Last of the Wine must be male. In fact, Mary Renault was the pseudonym of an intensely private woman - a revolutionary in sexual matters who throughout her life preferred the company of gay men. Born Mary Challans outside London, Renault discovered scholarship at Oxford in the early days of admission to women. She eventually abandoned the academic world to attend nursing school where she met her lifelong companion, Julie Mullard. Writing became Renault's avocation, and when, in 1947, she won a large literary award, the two women embarked for South Africa. There Renault, a passionate believer in Greek ideals of democracy and justice, spoke out against apartheid, but she grew disillusioned with radical politics and eventually withdrew into her own world. Based on rare interviews with Renault and full access to her correspondence, this is a brilliantly textured picture of Renault that offers a revealing analysis of the author and her novels.

 In 1948, she moved to Durban with her partner, Julie Mullard, and later to Camps Bay, where she spent the rest of her life. Living in South Africa allowed her to write about openly gay characters without fearing the censorship and homophobia of England.