SCOTLAND-OBITS-L Archives

From: "Peter_McCrae" <>
Subject: SMITH: Janet Buchanan Adam Smith--d;11/9/1999
Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2006 17:33:50 +0100

Janet (Buchanan) Adam Smith

1905-1999



Nationality: Scottish
Source: Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2003.
Entry Updated : 01/29/2003




"Sidelights"
In addition to writing several well-received biographies, including two on
the prolific author John Buchan, Janet Adam Smith has edited a number of
books for children and adults. The potpourri of poems she collected for The
Faber Book of Children's Verse represents, according to a reviewer for the
Times Literary Supplement, "a generous variety of period, mood, and
subject.... It can be verse that children appreciate, whether in part or
fully; some of it written perhaps in childish mood, some of it in the high
heroic vein that fires the adolescent, and some in the enchantment of a
spirit drenched in wonders." L. S. Bechtel, a reviewer for the New York
Herald Tribune, observed that any child who is "equipped with the background
Miss Adam Smith offers in this wide range from English lyric poetry will
indeed be ready to continue the pursuit of poetry with pleasure."

PERSONAL INFORMATION
Family: Born December 9, 1905, in Glasgow, Scotland; died September 11,
1999; daughter of George (a minister and university principal) and Lilian
(Buchanan) Adam Smith; married Michael Roberts (a poet), 1935 (died, 1948);
married John Dudley Carleton (a headmaster), 1965 (died, 1974); children:
Andrew Roberts, Henrietta Roberts Dombey, Adam Roberts, John Roberts.
Education: Somerville College, Oxford, B.A., 1927. Hobbies and other
interests: Mountain walking. Memberships: Ladies' Alpine Club (president,
1962-65), Alpine Club (vice-president, 1978-80).

AWARDS
LL.D. from University of Aberdeen, 1962; Order of the British Empire, 1982.

CAREER
Associated with British Broadcasting Corp., London, England, 1928-35,
assistant editor of Listener, 1930-35; New Statesman, London, assistant
literary editor, 1949-52, literary editor, 1952-60; free-lance writer and
broadcaster, beginning 1960. Barnard College, Virginia Gildersleeve Visiting
Professor, 1961, 1964. Member of board of trustees of National Library of
Scotland, 1950-85; president of Royal Literary Fund, 1976-84.

WRITINGS BY THE AUTHOR:

* R. L. Stevenson (biography), Duckworth, 1937, Norwood Editions, 1978.

* Mountain Holidays (reminiscences), Dent, 1946.

* Life among the Scots, Collins, 1946.

* Children's Illustrated Books, Collins, 1948.

* John Buchan: A Biography, Hart-Davis, 1965, Little, Brown, 1966.

* John Buchan and His World (biography), Scribner, 1979.

EDITOR

* Poems of Tomorrow: An Anthology of Contemporary Verse, Chatto & Windus,
1935.

* (And author of introduction) Henry James and Robert Louis Stevenson: A
Record of Friendship and Criticism (correspondence), Hart-Davis, 1948,
Hyperion Press, 1980.

* Robert Louis Stevenson, Collected Poems, Hart-Davis, 1950, 2nd edition,
Viking, 1971.

* Michael Roberts, The Estate of Man, Faber, 1951.

* The Faber Book of Children's Verse, Faber, 1953, revised edition published
as The Looking Glass Book of Verse, Looking Glass Library, 1959.

* (And author of introduction) Roberts, Collected Poems, Faber, 1958.

* The Living Stream: An Anthology of Twentieth-Century Verse, Faber, 1969.

* (Editor of supplement) Roberts, editor, The Faber Book of Comic Verse,
revised edition, Faber, 1974.

TRANSLATOR

* Rober Frison-Roche, First on the Rope (novel), Methuen, 1949.

* (With Nea Morin) Frison-Roche, The Last Crevasse, Methuen, 1952.

* (With Morin) Maurice Herzog, Annapurna: Conquest of the First
Eight-Thousand-Metre Peak (26,493 Feet), J. Cape, 1953.

* (With Morin) Bernard Pierre, A Mountain Called Nun-Kun, Hodder &
Stoughton, 1955.

* (With Morin) Giusto Gervasutti, Gervasutti's Climbs, Hart-Davis, 1957.

OTHER

Contributor to literary journals.

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