Client details

Sally Beauman was born in Devon and graduated from Girton College, Cambridge. She began her career as a critic and writer for New York magazine and continued to write for leading periodicals in America and the UK after returning to England.  In 1970 she was the first recipient of the Catherine Pakenham Award for her journalism, and at the age of 24 edited Queen magazine.  She has written for the New Yorker, The Sunday Times and theTelegraph Magazine, where she was Arts Editor.  Her novels have been translated into over twenty languages and are bestsellers worldwide. 

In addition to her novels, Sally has also published two non-fiction books  based on the history and work of the RSC: The Royal Shakespeare Company's Centenary Production of Henry V. (Edited and with foreword by Sally Beauman, Pergamon Press, 1976) and The Royal Shakespeare Company: A History of Ten Decades (OUP, 1982).  In the USA, The Landcape of Love was published as The Sisters Mortland. 

Sally Beauman is married to the actor Alan Howard.  They divide their time between London and their house on a remote island in the Hebrides.  They have one son and two grandchildren.

Latest publication:

THE LANDSCAPE OF LOVE, Little, Brown, 2007 (published as The Sisters Mortland in the USA)
‘If I didn’t spy, I’d be in the dark eternally. I live in a maze of unknowing -- Maisie’s maze -- and I hate it. I need to be informed . . .’

The summer of 1967, at a decaying house in the heart of Suffolk: an artist is painting a portrait of thirteen-year-old Maisie and her elder sisters, beautiful Julia and bookish Finn. Maisie embarks on a portrait of her own: she begins an account of her family and of her village friend Daniel Nunn, a young man she idolises, whom she watches over the chasm of a class divide. But is Maisie’s description of a summer idyll all it seems? This is the summer when the three sisters’ lives will irrevocably, and terribly, change.

The winter of 1991, in London: the now-famous portrait of the three sisters features in a major retrospective. Daniel Nunn, haunted by the vanished England of his childhood, obsessed by the three sisters and newly determined to understand what happened that last summer, pursues the ghosts of his past.

Reviews for The Landscape of Love:

‘Beauman is a skilful writer who manages a complicated plot with a magician’s mastery, flicking between viewpoints and periods, always smooth and deceptive, surprising the reader all the way’ Sunday Telegraph

'Unashamedly romantic and readable, Sally Beauman’s novels have provoked increasing critical acclaim . . . Beauman is a captivating and artful storyteller - capable of making us believe the unbelievable’ Guardian

'Deeply intriguing...the reader is right there in Suffolk, totally absorbed and longing to discover more, seduced by this most dynamic and alluring storyteller' Sue Gaisford, Independent on Sunday

'The shift between narrators is accomplished and unpredictable ... Beauman's plotting compels you to keep reading' Louise France, Observer 

'Beauman's storytelling is confidently non-linear ... fluid and often beautiful ... a sparky mixture of wit and wicked comedy' Glasgow Herald