The author led a colourful life, having been married to critic Cyril Connolly and later the publisher George Weidenfeld and finally the physicist Derek Jackson.
Anthony Powell used her as the basis for Pamela Fitton a character in his series of novels "A dance to the Music of Time".
She had affairs with (among others) Peter Quennell, Feliks Topolski, Charles Addams, Bernard Frank, John Sutro and Alan Ross.
She met Weidenfeld when he agreed to publish this, her first book.