(Anthony Walter) Patrick Hamilton

Notable Works

• Rope (1929)
• Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky (1935)
• Gas Light (1938)

About

Anthony Walter Patrick Hamilton was born near Brighton, to writer and non-practising barrister Bernard Hamilton, and his second wife Ellen Adèle (who wrote as “Olivia Roy”). Due to his father’s alcoholism, Hamilton spent his childhood in boarding houses. His education ended after his fifteenth birthday when his mother withdrew him from Westminster School. After a brief career as an actor, Hamilton became a novelist aged 19 with the publication of Monday Morning (1925), followed by Craven House and Twopence Coloured. Disfigured by a car accident in the late 1920s, he found success with his play Rope (1929) and semi-autobiographical trilogy Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky (1935). His two most successful plays Rope and Gas Light (1938) made Hamilton wealthy. They were made into films: Gaslight (1944) directed by George Cukor, and Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope (1948). Hamilton married Lois Marie Martin in 1930, and later Lady Ursula Chetwynd-Talbot (who wrote as Laura Talbot) in 1954.

His novel Impromptu in Moribundia (1939) was a satirical attack on capitalist culture. Hangover Square (1941), set in Earls Court where Hamilton lived, explored the lives of habitual drinkers against the political context of the rise of fascism. His Gorse Trilogy – three novels about a devious sexual predator and conman – were praised by Graham Greene. Hamilton’s last, short novel Unknown Assailant (1955) was dictated while drunk. He died in 1962 of cirrhosis of the liver and kidney failure.

Legacy

Patrick Hamilton’s gift of Copyright to the RLF, which is shared with his family from his literary estate, helps support future generations of writers.