Ann Stafford

Jane Oliver was the pen-name of Helen Christina Easson Rees, née Evans (1903–1970), and Ann Stafford was Anne Isabel Stafford Pedler (1900–1966). They met while working at the Times Book Club in London and Business As Usual was published in 1933 near the beginning of careers that would see them become two of the most prolific women writers of the mid-twentieth century. In between their huge output, both women drove ambulances in London during World War Two. After the war they lived either as next-door neighbours or sharing a home in Hampshire. Together, they founded the John Llewelyn Rhys Prize in memory of Helen’s husband, also a writer, who died in 1940 on a RAF training flight.