Why I'm Not A Millionaire: The dazzling memoir of an [...]

'She was bold, she was brave, she was funny, she was feisty. I owe her a great deal in leading the way' Sandi Toksvig

'Some people thought her merely bohemian, but others were grateful to have so engaging a role-model' INDEPENDENT

The superb classic memoir from a dazzlingly eccentric and endlessly fascinating author - a woman very much ahead of her time.

Nancy Spain was one of the most celebrated - and notorious - writers and broadcasters of the 40s, 50s and 60s. Hilarious, controversial and brilliant, she lived openly as a lesbian (sharing a household with her two lovers and their various children) and was frequently litigated against for her newspaper columns - Evelyn Waugh successfully sued her for libel... twice. She was also a fantastic crime novelist (and according to the Guardian, one of the 50 best female crime thriller writers of all time) writing with a unique style that marries the acid wit of Dorothy Parker with the intricacy of plotting worthy of Agatha Christie.

WHY I AM NOT A MILLIONAIRE, has the same wit, style and fascinating detail - first published in 1956, with an introductory note from Noel Coward.

After her death in a plane crash in 1964, Noel Coward commented: 'It is cruel that all that gaiety, intelligence and vitality should be snuffed out, when so many bores and horrors are left living.'

Nancy Spain was a prominent novelist, broadcaster and journalist. She was a columnist for the Daily Express and She magazine in the 1950s and 1960s. She also appeared on many radio broadcasts, particularly on Woman's Hour, and later as a panellist on the television programmes What's My Line? and Juke Box Jury. Born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1917, she was the great-niece of the legendary Mrs Beeton. During the second world war she worked as a driver and served in the WRNS and after the war she published several detective novels set at a girls' school. Always controversial, her column-writing caused the Daily Express to be sued - twice - by Evelyn Waugh.