Caryl Brahms (1901–1982)

Caryl Brahms was the pen name of Doris Caroline Abrahams, born to an Anglo-Jewish family in Croydon, Surrey. She was educated at Minerva College, Leicestershire, and studied piano at the Royal Academy of Music in London. She wrote light verse for the Academy student magazine, and then was published in the The Evening Standard. She adopted her pseudonym so her parents would not learn of her professional activities, as they wished her to marry instead. In 1930, she published her first book, a slim volume of poems for children, The Moon on My Left, illustrated by Anna Zinkeisen. She met S.J. Simon (Simon Jacobovitch Skidelsky) when they were fellow lodgers in a house in London, and recruited him to help her with some satirical cartoon stories for the Evening Standard. In the 1930s and 1940s, they collaborated on a series of successful comic mystery novels set in the world of dance, and humorous "backstairs history" novels set in various periods of English history. Their work was adapted for stage, radio, television and films. The duo also produced several collections of short stories. At the same time, Caryl worked as a ballet critic for leading newspapers, including The Daily Telegraph. In 1943, she published an independent biography of dancer Robert Helpmann. Later she concentrated on reviewing for the theater.

After S.J. Simon's sudden death in 1948, she wrote solo for some years, but in the 1950s she established a second long-running collaboration with writer and broadcaster Ned Sherrin, which lasted for the rest of her life. They wrote plays and musicals for the stage and television, and published both fiction and nonfiction books.