Born in London in 1923, died 2014, Elizabeth Jane Howard was privately educated at home, moving on to short-lived careers as an actress and model, before writing her first acclaimed novel, The Beautiful Visit , in 1950. She wrote twelve highly regarded novels, most recently Falling. Her Cazalet Chronicles have become established as modern classics and were filmed by the BBC. She was married three times - firstly to Peter Scott, the naturalist and son of Captain Scott, and most famously and tempestuously to Kingsley Amis. It was Amis' son by another marriage, Martin, to whom she introduced the works of Jane Austen and ensured that he received the education that would be the grounding of his own literary career. Her closest friends included some of the greatest writers and thinkers of the day - Laurie Lee, Arthur Koestler and Cecil Day-Lewis, among others. Slipstream is a superlative work of autobiography. Honest and unflinching, it brilliantly illuminates the literary world of the latte