Janet Adam Smith (aka Janet Carleton)

Notable Works

• Faber Book of Children’s Verse (1953) Faber and Faber, London (ed.)
• Michael Roberts: Collected Poems (1958) Faber and Faber, London (ed.)
• John Buchan: A Biography (1965) Rupert Hart-Davis, London

About

Janet Buchanan Adam Smith was born in Glasgow in 1905, the youngest child of Sir George and Lilian Adam Smith who were keen mountaineers. Educated at Cheltenham Ladies’ College and Somerville College Oxford, Janet Adam Smith learned typing in London but as her Guardian obituary notes, “concealed this skill, fearful of being shunted off as a secretary, and in 1930 became assistant editor of The Listener magazine at the BBC”.

Her first book, an anthology entitled Poems Of Tomorrow, was published in 1935. She married Michael Roberts (1902-1948), poet, teacher and fellow mountaineer the same year.  After his death in 1948, she joined the staff of The New Statesman, becoming literary editor in 1952. In 1958 she edited the Collected Poems of Michael Roberts. In 1965 she married John Carleton, headmaster of Westminster School.

As literary editor and critic she wrote articles, books and produced major studies of Robert Louis Stevenson, Henry James, and, at the request of his family, the biography of John Buchan: her understanding of his temperament owed much to their common cultural background in the Free Church of Scotland. She also wrote about her own mountaineering and climbers and mountaineers she knew. A Trustee of the National Library of Scotland from 1950 to 1985, she was President of the Royal Literary Fund (1976-1984) and vice-president of the Alpine Club (1978-80). She received an honorary Diploma from University of Aberdeen in 1962 and OBE in 1982.

Legacy

Imbued with the tradition of public service since childhood, Janet Carleton was a A Trustee of the National Library of Scotland from 1950 to 1985, President of the RLF (1976-1984) and vice-president of the Alpine Club (1978-80). She received an honorary Diploma from University of Aberdeen in 1962 and OBE in 1982.

Her gift of Royalties to the RLF from her literary estate helps support future generations of writers.