James Hanley (novelist)

James Hanley
Hanley c. 1930s
Born	(1897-09-03)3 September 1897 Kirkdale, Liverpool, Lancashire, England
Died	11 November 1985(1985-11-11) (aged 88) London, England
Resting place	Llanfechain, Powys, Wales
Occupation	Novelist, playwright, radio and television dramatist, and short story writer
Literary movement	Expressionism, Modernism, English literature, Welsh literature in English
Notable works	Boy, The Furys, The Closed Harbour, Levine
Spouse	Dorothy Enid "Timothy" Thomas (née Heathcote)

James (Joseph) Hanley (3 September 1897 – 11 November 1985) was a British novelist, short story writer, and playwright from Kirkdale, Liverpool, Lancashire, of Irish descent. Hanley came from a seafaring family and spent two years at sea himself, during World War I. He published his first novel Drift in 1930. In the 1930s and 1940s his novels and short stories focussed on seamen and their families, and included Boy (1931), the subject of an obscenity trial. After World War II there was less emphasis on the sea in his works. While frequently praised by critics, Hanley's novels did not sell well. In the late 1950s, 1960s, and early 1970s he wrote plays, mainly for the BBC, for radio and then for television, and also for the theatre. He returned to the novel in the 1970s. His last novel, A Kingdom, was published in 1978, when he was eighty. His brother Gerald was also a novelist.