Marcel Proust

by Charlotte Haldane

140 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1972

About the author

Charlotte Haldane (née Franken, first married name Burghes) was an English feminist author. Her second husband was the biologist J.B.S. Haldane.

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. She enrolled on a typing course in London. During the First World War her parents were interned but emigrated 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.