Mary Renault

She was born in London, real name Mary Challans, and educated at St Hugh's College, Oxford, then an all-women's college. She trained as a nurse, but by 1939 she was a published novelist, though she drew on her career experience in her books. Her early writing dealt with contemporary subjects, mostly using a wartime setting, but during the 1950s she embarked on a series of books set in ancient Greece, including a trilogy about the career of Alexander the Great: Fire from Heaven (1970), The Persian Boy[?] (1972) and Funeral Games (1981). Later in life she lived in South Africa.

Other Novels

• Purposes of Love (1939)
• Return to Night (1947)
• The Charioteer (1953)
• The Last of the Wine (1956)
• The Bull from the Sea (1962)