Charlotte Haldane (née Franken, first married name Burghes; 27 April 1894–16 March 1969) was a British feminist author. Her second husband was the biologist J.B.S. Haldane.

Biography

Charlotte Franken was born in Sydenham, London. Her parents were Jewish immigrants, her father, Joseph, a German fur trader. In 1906 the family moved to Antwerp. Charlotte enrolled on a typing course in London. During the First World War her parents were interned but immigrated in 1915 to the United States.

She married Jack Burghes in 1918 and they had a son Ronnie. In 1924 however she interviewed the biologist J.B.S. Haldane for the Daily Express and they soon became friends. She then had a scandalous divorce from her husband, before marrying Haldane in 1926.

After a wartime trip to the Soviet Union, she became disillusioned with socialism, which J.B.S. still believed in, writing about it in Russian Newsreel. The Haldanes separated in 1942, divorcing in 1945. J.B.S. later married Helen Spurway.

She died in 1969 of pneumonia.

Bibliography

• Man's World (1926)
• Motherhood and Its Enemies (1927)
• Brother to Bert (1930)
• I Bring Not Peace (1932)
• Youth Is A Crime (1934)
• Melusine (1936)
• Russian Newsreel (1941)
• Justice Is Deaf (play)
• Truth Will Out (autobiography, 1949)
• Marcel Proust (1951)
• The Gallyslaves of Love (1957)
• Mozart (1960)
• Daughter of Paris (1961)
• The Last Great Empress of China (1965)
• Queen of Hearts: Marguerite of Valois (1968)

References

• Charlotte Haldane: woman writer in a man's world by Paul Routledge ISBN 0-333-66973-8 (review)

External links

• http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/WhaldaneC.htm