Editing Winston Graham (section)

==Literary career==

Graham's first novel, ''The House with the Stained Glass Windows,'' was published in 1934.

His first Poldark novel, ''[[Ross Poldark (novel)|Ross Poldark]]'', was published in 1945 and was succeeded by 11 further titles, the last of which, ''Bella Poldark'', was published in 2002. The series was set in Cornwall, especially in and near [[Perranporth]] where Graham lived for more than three decades (1925–1960).<ref name="winstongraham.yolasite.com" />

In the 1941 spy thriller ''Night Journey'', set mostly in [[Fascist Italy (1922–1943)|Fascist Italy]], the protagonist feels that Britain was likely to lose [[World War II]], but is determined to go on fighting against all the odds. This was likely Graham's own feeling at the time.

Graham was also an accomplished author of suspense novels and, during the course of his life, wrote 30 novels (in addition to the 12 Poldark books) as well as a volume of short stories (''The Japanese Girl'', 1971) and three non-fiction works. Other than the Poldark novels, Graham's most successful works were ''[[Marnie (novel)|Marnie]]'', a suspense thriller published in 1961 and ''[[The Walking Stick]]'', published in 1967.<ref name="winstongraham.yolasite.com"/> In 1955, Graham's novel ''The Little Walls'' won the Crime Writers' Association's first Crime Novel of the Year Award (then called The Crossed Red Herrings Award, later The Gold Dagger).<ref name="winstongraham.yolasite.com"/>

In 1972, Graham published ''The Spanish Armadas'', a factual account of the sixteenth-century Anglo-Spanish conflict. (The plural "Armadas" refers to a lesser-known second attempt by [[Philip II of Spain]] to conquer England in 1597, which Graham argued was better planned and organised than the attempt in 1588, but was foiled by a fierce storm scattering the Spanish ships and sinking many of them.) The same is also the subject of a historical novel, ''The Grove of Eagles'', set in Elizabethan Cornwall and also depicting the foundation and growth of [[Falmouth, Cornwall|Falmouth]].

Graham wrote at least four plays in the 1930s: ''Seven Suspected'', ''At Eight O'Clock Precisely'', ''Values'' and ''Forsaking All Others'' and one – ''Shadow Play'' (renamed ''Circumstantial Evidence'') – in the 1970s. The latter was produced professionally at Salisbury (as ''Shadow Play'') in 1978 and at Guildford, Birmingham, Bath, Richmond and Brighton (as ''Circumstantial Evidence'') in 1979. According to Graham, it "missed London by a hair". ''Seven Suspected'' (three acts) was first performed in Perranporth on 30 May 1933 and ''At Eight O'Clock Precisely'' (two acts) in Redruth on 18 April 1934, in both cases with the author and his wife-to-be Jean in the cast, ''Values'' was a one-act play performed by seven members of Perranporth Women's Institute at a Truro drama festival in 1936 and the full-length ''Forsaking All Others'' was not produced at all. (It was, however, revised into the author's eighth novel, ''Strangers Meeting''.)<ref name="winstongraham.yolasite.com">{{cite web|title=In Profile ~ A Winston Graham Reader|url=http://winstongraham.yolasite.com}}</ref>

Graham's books have been translated into 31 languages.<ref name="winstongraham.yolasite.com"/> His autobiography ''Memoirs of a Private Man'' was published by [[Macmillan Publishers|Macmillan]] in September 2003, two months after his death.